The cargo hold was located near the bow of the ship, one level below the command bridge. It was massive, and like most of the ship, poorly lit. Spasming track lights embedded in the floor outlined the aisles and created a ventral lighting that dissipated as it rose to the black ceiling. Crates were stacked up two meters in each aisle, just high enough to be over everyone's head. The narrow walkways and the darkness above pressed in on all of them.
Some of the crates were opaque, others clear. Some were labeled, and others not. There were crates labeled from anything between luxury stores and food rations. Terrah ran her hand over a crate labeled "Amaralite."
"That's quite a find," she said to herself, but quickly returned to the matter at hand. "Let's split up down each aisle and look for the cells."
No one objected. Terrah and Videsse went down one aisle, and the other three split between two, the Karkarodon taking an aisle by himself.
The cargo room was forty meters by twenty meters and just under nine meters tall, most of which was filled with crated plunder arranged in rows; dark trenches for them to walk through. Terrah reached behind her helmet and lit her headlamp, casting a brilliant beam into the darkness. They walked quickly, reading the crate markings and occasionally stopping to open any that had no description.
Clanging of the floor grates happened from time to time, which echoed throughout the dank and dark room, reverberating until the sound disappeared into the void. The sharp voices of the pirates could be heard calling out to each other in harsh tones on the other side, somewhere in the same void. Terrah stopped to listen suddenly, her body becoming rigid, and her mentation, focused.
Videsse continued to walk forward but then realized that Terrah had stopped. She turned around. "What, you just gonna let me find it?" Videsse asked, then not waiting for an answer returned to her search.
"Did you hear that?" Terrah asked.
"Yeah, a bunch of nerfherders," Videsse said referring to the pirates, as she tried to pry open another unmarked crate.
"No, something else," Terrah replied. "Like a huffing sound."
Videsse shook her head and responded without a sarcastic tone, surprisingly. "Probably your earpiece picking up your breathing. It happens."
Terrah rapped her helmet to adjust the speaker, listening over the pirate's bantering. After a quiet moment, Terrah tapped her earpiece again and resumed the search. "Maybe you're right." However, she continued to check behind her and at the top of the aisle.
It was not long after, that Terrah and Videsse found what they were looking for, a hover crate fitted with a dozen fuel cells. The cylindrical canisters were arranged like fambaas eggs in the foam nest, each about half a meter long and twenty centimeters in diameter.
"Do you think that'll be enough?" Terrah asked Videsse.
"Yeah, I think," she replied, but her lack of confidence left room for doubt. "Let's get 'em outta here."
As Terrah activated the hover cart, it emitted a magnetic hum and lifted a foot off the ground. She angled it into the path, and together they pushed it down the aisle toward the exit. The two of them were silent, and walked as quickly as the hover cart would move. They passed through the doors into the corridor that led back to the landing bay.
They did not say anything, but both felt like leaving the pirates searching in the hold. They paused and looked back at the open door, and that was all the communication they needed. Each understood and turned to move the hover cart. Terrah smiled under her helmet at the thought of Cotrel searching for another thirty minutes, but she was more amused that Videsse had the same idea.
Suddenly, blaster fire erupted behind them within the darkness, followed by the hair-raising screams of the Karkarodon. Without thinking both Terrah and Videsse ran back into the hold, disruptor pistols ready. Terrah flipped off her headlamp as they ran. She would have activated her cloak, but she remembered that it was still shorted out. They dodged around the aisle until finally, they came to the bloody scene.
Mistok lay breathless on the cold metal ground, blue blood flowing down between the grates, its drips making dabbing noises on the wires beneath. Standing over him a dark figure with a pistol in his right hand, looked down on the fallen brute.
Videsse and Terrah covered him with their disruptor pistols. Terrah switched on her headlamp, flooding the figure in light. It was a male Rodian, the back of his green head stippled with head spines.
"Hold it right there," Terrah called out. "Drop the weapon!"
The Rodian's ears perked up and shifted. The pistol dropped to the ground, it's thud dulled by the coagulating blood.
"This wasn't me," the Rodian said. "It wasn't me." His hands shook as he raised them above his head.
"Turn around!" Videsse shouted. The Rodian started to turn. "Slowly!"
He took small steps. "I swear, this wasn't me," he continued to say as he rounded about.
Terrah's pistol lowered an inch. The Rodian was wide-eyed and terrified. His lips quivered, but he tried to stand perfectly still.
"Cheedo?" Terrah asked with a confused tone. "What are you doing here?"
He did not answer the question but replied with a shaky voice. "We need to get out of here, Sun."
Before Terrah could ask why, Cotrel and Noes approached from behind her. Cotrel saw his muscle dead on the ground behind Cheedo and inferred all that he wanted to know. He raised his own blaster.
"Cheedo, you just made this real easy for me," Cotrel said with murderous intent. "I've been waiting a long time to get rid of you, You Snitch! How much is the Third Republic paying you this time?"
"Wait, wait!" Cheedo pleaded and lowered his head behind his arms. "You don't understand."
Videsse stepped up in between them as she went to look at Mistok's body. Cotrel grew frustrated with her. "Out of the way, Kid!" he ordered. "Or I'll fill you with bolts, too."
"Don't you wanna know what happened," Videsse retorted as she went and picked up Cheedo's blaster, putting it in her empty left holster. "This is mine now," she said to Cheedo. "Dare you to try for it." She then bent over the Karkarodon.
Cheedo shook in fear. "Please, listen. Something's on this ship." His hands quivered. "I didn't do this."
"Kind of hard to believe, Cheedo," Cotrel derided.
"I'm afraid this guy maybe tellin' the truth," Videsse spoke up and looked at Cheedo. "Mistok's been gutted."
"What?" Cotrel asked.
"Yeah, cut up real good. These gashes look at least ten centimeters deep. Claws it looks like," Videsse replied. She slipped her gauntlet into a deep abdominal gash up to her knuckles. Blue blood poured out as she did.
"That's what I was trying to tell you," Cheedo stammered. "I didn't do this."
"Then what did," Terrah asked, her agitation rising.
Cheedo answered with broken speech. "I don't know. It was dark. Couldn't see it well. He fired right at it. A shadow. The bolts did nothing. It came from up there." He pointed to the top of an aisle.
They all looked up to the top of the crates, but it was just high enough for them not to see over. Terrah's headlamp lit up the black air as she moved her head back-and-forth from one aisle to the other. She stepped back, retreating to the exit. The rest squinted in the dark, trying to see as best they could.
Something fell five meters away, but no footfalls could be heard.
"We need to get out of here," Cheedo pleaded as he darted his gaze around.
A brown flash of an animal sailed through Terrah's headlamp beam as whatever it was jumped from one aisle to the next. Terrah reflexively fired three shots. "Did you see that!" she called out.
A huff sound came from above the crates.
"Time to go," Terrah ordered. No one complained. Again they ran, but this time the huffing noise pursued above them. Cotrel offered a few shots at the top of the crate, one of the red blaster shots causing a long shadow of the creature to strobe on the ceiling.
The huffing sound seemed to run parallel with them now as they came to the end of the aisle. They sprinted toward the open exit, Videsse bringing up the rear. A floor grate six meters to their left crashed as the unseen creature landed on the deck. It was still hidden in the darkness.
Terrah made it through the door and turned to the control panel to seal it shut. She waited. Cotrell and Noes rushed through, then Cheedo. She waited. The loud shaking sound of the floor grates got closer with the creatures every stride. Videsse dove through the door, her Z-6 pack firing to speed her up. Terrah slammed the blast door controls. It jerked to shut but stopped just twenty centimeters from shutting. The spasm lasted only a second before it slid closed completely. Two massive scaled feet were seen halting at the door just before it sealed. Its fifteen-centimeter retractable claws were painted with blue blood.
Terrah breathed a sigh of relief and turned off her headlamp.
"What was that thing," Noes cried out. No one had an answer.
"Well, at least it's sealed in there," Videsse commented.
Cheedo squinted his eyes in uneasiness as if he was going to say something, but restrained himself.
Terrah noticed. "It is sealed in there, right? Cheedo?"
"I, uh, came in the side door," he said. "That door is still open."
Cotrel threw his hands up. "As if we needed another reason to get off this ship!"
The lights flickered again, but this time they shut off completely, leaving them in pitch darkness.
"And I was worried about that," Videsse said.
"Worried about what?" Cotrel said, obviously upset.
"The hyperdrive is putting added stress on that trash electrical system," she replied. "That means the lights go. Maybe the doors. Maybe life support."