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A
Ranma ½ Star Wars
Crossover Fanfic
Pathfinder: The Search for Earth
Book One: First Contact
By: Grounders10
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Chapter Two
Aliens, Spaceships and Space Wizards, oh my!
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Ranma's hair whipped about as the ship took off. The alien dropship turned and drifted back towards their original landing site where the ship had landed. Bolts of light pattered off the floor by her feet and cut through the air around her as she slid behind the landing gear of another dropship.
She glanced around the corner and quickly counted off the groups of invaders. "It's like fighting a city," she muttered as she watched another group of aliens, with a few humans, join the fighting. It had been a while since she was this far outnumbered. Actually, had she ever fought a literal city this large before?
A flurry of shots pinged off the strut as she contemplated the size of the ship they were storming. Eventually, she shook her head. The scale didn't matter. They'd do it anyway. "The things I do for you tomboy," she grumbled before taking a peek. There were more soldiers joining the battle now and the civilians they had freed had added a nice bit of chaos that was drawing fire away from her and the others.
"Aren't you a little young to be here?" she blinked and looked back. A middle-aged man with a Tokyo police officer's uniform was crouching behind a stack of boxes a few feet away from her. A line of crusted blood ran down the side of his head to his chin. He had one of the alien rifles in his hand.
"I think I saw a few little kids on that last ship," she replied, "Not exactly the youngest person up here."
"Not on the ship, I meant up front like this. Get back to safety," he said, ducking instinctively as a barrage of shots splattered off the front of the crate, spraying sparks in every direction.
She snorted. "Seriously?" she sighed. He probably came from some section of Tokyo other than Nerima. It was surprising at times how hard it was to get people to believe in what she could do. "I'm safer here than you are." A shot smacked the strut right next to her head.
"Girl, I don't know what thoughts of glory are going through your head right now, but leave this to the professionals," the officer replied.
She went to reply, and insult him in the process when an unusual sight caught her eye. "... Is that a tank?" she asked him as she stared back toward the hangar door. The officer turned to follow her look.
"... That is indeed a tank… hanging from one of those ships," the man said.
The tank in question was hanging from one of those HWK-290 dropships by thick cables attached to the underside of the ship. There was a small pennant flying from the back of the tank that had the mark of South Korea on it. It fluttered in the artificial breeze. The ship passed the landing area the earth forces were using.
"... How do you steal a tank?" Ranma asked the world.
The officer simply stared.
"Hey! Saotome!" She pulled her attention from the tank to a familiar voice. Lieutenant Mizusawa waved to her from behind a stack of crates as two other familiar soldiers set to work setting up a machine gun of some kind.
"Decided to join me, Lieutenant?" she joked, "Got tired of safety?"
"We got reinforcements. Major Sando is in charge now," he replied, "Look, she wants that tank. If it's got even a couple of rounds in it it could really help. Mind clearing us a path when it gets dropped?"
She looked up at the tank, it was almost level with them, right then. It wasn't that high up since the ship was using the primary open avenue down the center of the ship to give it room to manoeuvre. "Got a knife I could borrow?" she asked.
"Excuse me? What are you thinking, Lieutenant, she's a teenager!" The police officer protested as the military officer drew his knife and tossed it to her in an underhand throw. She caught it easily.
"Thanks." Ranma turned to evaluate the tank as she weighed the knife. It was a bit shorter of a weapon than she'd have liked, but it would do with a little ki reinforcement. She would have to be careful how she cut the ropes to keep the tank from flipping. She didn't relish the idea of unflipping fifty tons of metal.
"Just bring it back. My dad gave me that," the Lieutenant replied, "And would you lay off? She's more than capable of this."
"She's a teenager!"
"And? What rock have you been living under?" The Lieutenant replied with a sidelong glance, "Watanabe, got a lizard with a big rifle right of the yellow crate at one o'clock."
"I see it." A chatter of machine-gun fire was punctuated by a shout and a spatter of return fire across their cover. The three soldiers ducked. "Big guy is down."
"Excellent. Get moving Saotome," The Lieutenant said loudly as more rounds hammered his position.
"Now wait a moment. Girl-" Ranma bolted from cover, ignoring the obnoxious police officer. Bolts whizzed past as she ducked and rolled through the barrage of shots bound for further down the hangar. She tumbled across the top of a crate and she was finally out from under the ship she had been taking cover under, and right in range of the tank. With a single leap, she jumped from the floor to the tank. Her feet landed spritely on the metal roof of the machine. A few shots whipped by to slap the underside of the ship before ceasing.
The four cables were attached to a winch system that deployed out from the bottom of the ship and which lifted the tank with the aid of metal plates that had been fitted to the vehicle through the simple act of tension and force. The entire thing would probably come undone once that tension was gone which would be nice for the people on the ground.
Of course, all of that required her to get it down without killing herself by dropping it on her own head. Which was why she had a knife.
She took a steadying breath and fell into the soul of ice. She needed focus for this. Speed would be her ally, but so would intelligence. She struck at the one closest to her, the ki-enhanced blade parting the cable like water. The tank groaned and trembled beneath her feet. An acrobatic flip carried her to the far corner where she repeated the process. The second cable proved no more difficult than the first though the tank shifted once again. A few red bolts pattered off the ship as someone noticed what she was doing. A stray shot blasted a lamp from the front of the vehicle.
She jumped across the tank to the other side where the third cable was waiting. She steadied herself and took a breath as she found good footing. This was where things would get dangerous. She brought the blade up and the cables parted with a loud twang like the last two, then the tank started to tip as the ship's undoubtedly artificial gravity pulled it down. Feet dug into the metal, finding grips in the nooks and crannies of military construction, and the world slowed as she sprinted across the back of the tank and up the turret before the tank had tipped more than an inch. She jumped from the cupola, pushing forward with all her might, and she sailed past the last cable, the knife carving it apart with ease.
The tank hit the ground with a thunderous crash as Ranma hit the ground and rolled to her feet. She slipped the blade into her sleeve as she came up in a kick that sent a boggling lizard into three of its friends. She snatched the long rifle it had been holding out of the air and swept into the group of aliens like a tempest, scattering sentients like bowling pins as she worked to clear an area around the vehicle she had just cut down.
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"You're nuts, you know that?" Ryouga's opened his mouth to reply to the comment, only for another explosion, caused by the first, to drown him out. He winced as more followed over the next couple of seconds. Debris pattered off the crates he had been pulled down behind by a man old enough to be his grandfather.
Weathered, with a row of scars that started at his collar bone and ran down under the collar of the white sweatshirt he was wearing, the man had the look of many older martial arts masters. Not that Ryouga really got that feeling from how the man moved. Between the leather jacket, ruffled white hair, and the way he easily handled the raygun stolen off one of the aliens, he felt to Ryouga more like a soldier than a martial artist.
"But, maybe the right kind, kid. This your first time on a warship?" he asked.
"... That I know of, yeah," he replied as he shifted to take a peek over the crate. He had thrown one of those giant lizard aliens into… Honestly, it had looked like a shipping crate to him. Whatever was in it, however, took the sudden impact poorly and promptly started jetting flame. That was when the old man dragged him into cover. He'd been about to punch the man, thinking him one of the ship's crew when the cylinder had exploded.
Judging by the spread of debris if he'd been hit by the blast wave it would have hurt. A bit.
"Rule five, be careful what you shoot. You never know what'll explode," the old man said.
"I didn't shoot anything."
"No, you just tossed an alien bigger than you faster than a bullet. That's a bit more than shooting something," the old man replied sarcastically.
Ryouga scanned the area before them. The blast had knocked one of the dropships over and sent the one closest to them skidding closer in their direction with a snapped-off forward landing gear. A few aliens were moving on the edge of the blast zone, but other than that the way forward seemed rather clear. There wasn't even all that much fire. "Looks clear," he said, "Thanks old man. I need to get moving."
The old man snorted and peeked over the top himself. His raygun fired three times and a trio of aliens coming out of the smoke went down instantly. "Not as clear as you think, but I'm sure you can handle toxic fumes, zero visibility, and aliens with fancy energy weapons on open ground, right kid?" he asked with a sardonic chuckle.
"You have a better idea?" Ryouga asked, his irritation with the man growing.
"Watch. Oi! You lot good back there?" The man turned and shouted back the way they had come. Hands waved thumbs up from over a dozen different places as soldiers and armed civilians poked their heads up a few at a time. "Good. Get some covering fire going into that smoke cloud. Kid, you and I are going to go left. We'll hug the wall and keep low. This lot can keep any of them dumb enough to come straight through that inferno tied up. YOU LOT HEAR ME!"
"I hear you," a soldier shouted back, he stuck his head out and Ryouga recognized him as the same sergeant who had come up in the ship with them. "We'll be getting replaced in a moment, but for now MEN, COVERING FIRE!" Soldiers popped out of cover and Ryouga reflexively ducked as they opened fire into the firestorm beyond. The rattle of conventional firearms was joined by the myriad of odd noises produced by the rayguns.
The old man patted Ryouga on the shoulder. "Right, come on, follow me and keep low," he said, darting from cover towards the wall of the hangar. A half dozen other armed civilians slipped from cover and followed them.
"Why am I even listening to you?" Ryouga asked as he followed the old man.
"Because you don't have a plan," the old man replied. The areas between the marked-out landing pads were filled with maintenance equipment, unloaded cargo, and other materials. In a way, they formed the true perimeters of the landing zones and by following the line of materials to the wall the two of them were able to keep from getting shot by the slowly rebuilding gunfight.
"They're charging through the smoke," Ryouga said as he glanced between a mobile staircase and… honestly he wasn't sure what it was, but it seemed to be carrying a lot of dirty-white boxes with blocky legs sticking out the bottom.
"They haven't shown the brightest minds so far, so why does that mean we should charge them on open ground surrounded by fire? I didn't live this long by being stupid." He held up a hand as they reached the end of the row and he glanced around the corner. He pulled back after a long look. "Lotta boxes, no fire, don't see anyone, let's go." Ryouga followed him around the corner with a growing feeling of annoyance.
The area between the burning fuel depot and the wall was thick with smoke and visibility was poor. Ryouga pulled off a bandana and tied it about his mouth as they moved. The old man held a cloth to his mouth as he crouch-walked across the deck. The two of them kept low as they ducked into a maze of supply crates half-visible in the smoke, yet it wasn't so thick so close to the floor. Ryouga passed a few more out to the group of armed civilians that had followed them. The old man nodded his approval at the action and accepted one himself with a grin.
"Smart thinking kid. You've got a brain in there after all," he said. Ryouga took the backhanded insult with the stoicism expected of someone who dealt with Ranma on a frequent basis… Besides, it wasn't likely the old man could take a punch from him and he was helping.
Off to their right bright lights and tracers cut down the aliens that tried to advance through the smoke. As they came even with the fire the gunfire slackened, then stopped. Glancing over a crate at the field of burning debris, Ryouga couldn't see anything moving in the smoke cloud. A cloud that the old man considered them too close to as he pulled Ryouga over towards the wall.
"Looks like they ran out of idiots for the moment," the old man said softly, "They'll wait for the fire to slacken before making another attempt. Probably arranging for firefighting if they've got any brains. Frankly, I'm surprised the flames aren't bigger. Spaceships normally have an exceptionally high oxygen density and there was a lot of whatever was in those tanks.."
"Are you a soldier, or yakuza, or what?" Ryouga asked, "'Cause between the jacket and everything I'm wondering who the hell you are."
"Just an old mercenary," the man replied, "Old and retired. Come on, we're nearly past the flames." The smoke was thinning and a moment later the old man waved for them to stop. "Right, can you hear that?" Ryouga paused and listened. Someone was speaking the alien's language in a gruff and angry tone.
"Something, sounds angry," he whispered back. The old man nodded and readied his rifle with one hand.
"Right, we'll jump them, try to be quiet," the old man said, "If we're lucky we can get through the line and take their front from behind. That'll give the soldiers an opening and you can go back to wrecking hell without getting shot. Sound good?"
"Sounds good to me," Ryouga said softly. The half a dozen civilians with them nodded their agreement.
"Good, no one shoots until I say so… or I get shot. Either works," he said. The civilians mumbled their agreement and the old man took his rifle up in both hands. "Let's go kid." He patted Ryouga on the shoulder and pulled a knife from his boot. Ryouga readied his umbrella. The weapon was crispy in a few places, but it was holding up better than he had honestly expected. It was amazing what a bit of ki reinforcement could do to even rice paper.
The smoke thinned and the source of the voices became clear. One of those lizard men was threatening a grey-skinned alien with the nubs of horns on its chin. The old man waved to Ryouga then the big guy. He nodded back. He could drop the big lizard easily enough.
The lizard had picked up the other alien by the neck with one hand and was saying something as it struggled and kicked. Ryouga rose from behind the crates behind it and brought his umbrella down on the alien's skull. Something cracked and it dropped like a rock, dropping its victim, who promptly ate a knife to the neck from the old man who dragged it down behind the boxes. There was enough smoke that, as Ryouga sank back down behind the boxes himself, they likely hadn't been spotted.
Ryouga winced at the pooling blood from the knife wound as the old man prodded the alien with the blade. "Thought so. Humanoid profile, humanoid weaknesses. Important organs in the head means strong blood flow through the neck. Carotid artery, or something like it, is just an inch or so off from human, but it's there," he said before cleaning the blade off. He peered around. "You hear anyone else?"
Ryouga listened for a moment, but he couldn't hear anything that wasn't gunfire and distant screaming. "Nothing close," he said.
"Anyone else?" The old man looked around but the civilians shrugged. "Right. Keep low, do not fire yet." The old man took the lead as he sheathed his blade and took hold of his rifle in both hands. Their little group snuck through the thinning smoke and after a dozen meters the old man waved them down behind a stack of boxes.
Ryouga joined the old man in peering around their cover. A group of robots were busy fighting the fire with hoses while a line of aliens and those humans of, whatever group this was were trading fire with the JGSDF soldiers pushing down the opposite side of the hangar. Further into the hangar, Ryouga could see groups of aliens busy stacking boxes and bringing up heavier weapons.
"Look," he said, gesturing down the hangar.
"I see it. Crew served weapons. Right, while we're getting into position, why don't you start moving that way? Those things are looking pretty nasty. I don't even want to imagine what they'll do to the unsupported infantry-"
"Tank!" one of the civilians hissed. Both martial artist and mercenary turned to look. Fire from the enemy line in front of them slackened as everyone stared at the tank that was being hauled through the air.
"K2 Black Panther, Korean," the old man said, "Nice trophy, Korea isn't living that one down anytime soon."
"Why not?" Ryouga asked.
"Because that's one of the most advanced tanks in the world and a bunch of space pirates just sailed off with it. Course, that just means we'll have to steal it," the old man grinned, "After you deal with those big energy weapons of theirs. That way they can't just zap it to-" Their conversation was interrupted by the familiar red flicker that was Ranma at full speed leaping up to the tank.
"What on earth-" the old man started as Ranma cut the first cable then danced to the second, and finally the third where she paused a half-second. Ryouga raised an eyebrow as she practically teleported across the vehicle to slice the last two lines apart in the same instant. It was a rare moment when Ranma moved quite that fast.
"Well fuck. You get moving on those guns kid," the old man said, slapping him on the shoulder, "Ladies and gents, we'll be opening fire on that lot in a second, pick a target and fire when I do."
Ryouga shook himself and nodded. "Stay safe old man," he said, patting the man on the shoulder before breaking from cover in a sprint. Behind him, the barking of energy weapons commenced to screams from the surprised aliens.
Ahead a few alien heads turned his way as he clotheslined a big human from behind and smashed the next guy with his umbrella before turning on his heel out of the way of the raygun shots. The bolts of energy were terribly slow in Ryouga's opinion. They might have been a little faster than a baseball, but he couldn't say for certain. Either way, it was a little disappointing compared to what he'd been led to believe from TV.
He still didn't want to get hit with one after what Ranma had mentioned on the trip up.
So he kept moving, crashing through one group to grab a case of some unknown metal and hurl it with his next step at one of the tripod-mounted weapons that were being turned in his direction. The entire mechanism was sent tumbling along with its operator.
He jumped and landed atop one of the parked ships, jumped the ridge in the middle of the craft, and came down amidst the defensive line itself. His umbrella crushed a tripod-mounted cannon as long as he was tall and came up to catch a lizardman in the chest. The alien flew off into the airspace of the hangar and disappeared somewhere as Ryouga wielded his umbrella as a maul. Each swing pulverised equipment, shattered cover, and sent broken bodies flying. He didn't stop there. His free hand alternated between launching ki-infused bandana's to cut weapons and break important-looking pieces of equipment from afar. Like the hoses that connected the big cannons to what looked like some sort of power supply.
"Hey, P-Chan!" He twitched and put more force than intended behind a blow that caught one of those twin-tentacled aliens in the stomach. They flew across the hangar and pegged the front of a dropship that was in the process of taking off.
Ranma landed beside him and swept into the enemies at his flanks like a hurricane of red hair, fists and feet.
"Need a hand?" the redhead chirped.
"Not on your life. I've got this handled," he snapped back as he spun on a heel and launched a bandana that cut in half a rifle that was being levelled at Ranma's back. He only vaguely registered the fact that she tossed a rifle like a javelin into the stomach of a big lizard who was about to do the same to him.
"Sure looks like it. Try to wreck less of their toys, the soldiers want them," Ranma chided.
Ryouga sidestepped the wild swing of a panicked-looking human and dropped him with a chop to the neck before meeting some bone-plated alien's headbutt with one of his own. There was a loud crunch and it dropped to the ground unconscious. "Sure, I'll do that when its not being shot at me," he said sarcastically, "Were they at least happy about that tank?"
"You saw that?"
"Everyone saw that, Ranma."
Ranma breezed through the guard of a human and snapped his arm just below the shoulder before she tossed him, screaming, into a group of horrified looking men in overalls. "Fairly happy, I think. Didn't really stick around. Oh, by the way, they keep slaves as pilots on-board their ships. Keep an eye out for anyone else with a collar. They explode when you rip them off."
"We already knew they were slavers," Ryouga replied, kicking a box up to block a flurry of red bolts from a two-man gun emplacement before slamming another kick to knock towards them. A spray of melting metal went in all directions as it flew straight back down the stream of shots and crushed the aliens and their gun. He was starting to feel a bit numb to the injuries he was inflicting.
"Yeah, but they're using them all over. So if you see someone with a collar, try to take them down gently," Ranma replied. She rolled under a bolt and flipped over a stack of boxes tossing two of them from the top of her arc at the aliens.
"I'll keep an eye out," Ryouga replied. As he did, a trio of rockets from the soldiers shattered an emplacement that had been set up behind a sheet of spare hull plating. Behind them Ryouga could see an elevator. "I think we're nearly done here anyways."
Ranma flipped over his head and dropped foot first into the face of a lizardman. "You actually managed to find the door before me, I'm impressed," she said with that infuriating teasing tone.
"Oh shut up," he snapped, punching another lizard a bit too hard. He tried to ignore how it flopped and bounced across the floor to the sound of shattering bones. Oh did he try.
This place was hell and he couldn't even blame Ranma for it.
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They were getting close, Lieutenant Haru Misuzawa could see the doors leading further into the ship as he crashed hard into cover behind a landing strut. Energy bolts spattered across the ground where he had been a moment before. Watanabe's Minimi let loose a burst of fire, but if it hit the Corporal's target then Haru couldn't tell. There was just too much noise in the hangar.
Dozens of injured screamed for help in earth and alien languages, while others shouted curses and a combination of bullets and ray gun blasts crisscrossed the hangar. It was an assault on all senses that just went on and on and on.
Despite that, they were getting close to being done with this mess.
"Status Toriyama!" He demanded into his radio. The Sergeant was thirty meters to his right with the other half of the platoon. The part that wasn't with Corporal Miyata at least.
"They're starting to break," the Sergeant replied, "Just spotted a trio of bug-eyed bastards running for the exits."
"Keep the pressure on them," Haru said, spying another 290 entering the hangar. As it drifted toward the secured landing zone a rumble rolled over the hangar as the hangar doors started closing. "Hangar doors are coming down," he said into the radio.
"All forces, clear the hangar and locate the controls for the hangar doors," Major Sando said a moment later, "We aren't getting any more reinforcements until we control the doors."
A moment later the K2 opened fire for the first time. A makeshift bunker of spare plating and boxes flew to pieces clearing away a large group of the lizard people and their larger guns. With that, the opposing forces' firepower slackened hard. A second shot ripped apart the last automatic ray gun emplacement. With that outgoing fire dropped to near nonexistent and a cheer ran up and down the Earther line.
"They're breaking. Push the slaving fucks out of the hangar!" Haru shouted, planting several rounds through the chest of a beefy-looking bug-eyed alien. The bulb-headed one next to him turned and ran. He only managed a couple of steps before a burst from the Minimi sent him to the ground.
"Lieutenant, on my way back," Corporal Miyata said through the radio as Haru ducked back behind the landing strut.
"Cleared to the hangar door?" he asked.
"Yes sir. Likely why the enemy decided to close it," the Corporal said.
"Possible. Help clear out the side hangars then rendezvous at the hangar exit," Haru ordered. He peaked around the corner and tuned out the Corporal's affirmative. The slavers were definitely breaking. Entire groups were fleeing for the exits and those left behind were rapidly moving to join them. It wasn't a coordinated thing either. Aliens would elbow each other out of the way as they tried to force the doors leading deeper into the ship.
Then a blur of red flew from the corner of his vision and crashed into the swarming aliens around the right hand exit. His side. Haru grinned viciously. "Platoon, advance! Let's see if we can get a few prisoners!"
The K2 fired again as his platoon broke cover to advance. A stubborn knot of aliens was blasted apart and with that, the last major opposition to his platoon died. It was but a few minutes of blood and death as they secured the last two 290s on this side of the hangar, including a twin-tailed slave pilot, and advanced to where the redhead was finishing off the last of the opposition.
"Saotome!" He shouted, waving as they advanced. She waved, opened her mouth, then promptly backflipped out of the way as the exit slid open and a lizard person with a rotary raygun stepped out spraying rounds. Two more followed with their own rifles and Haru dived for cover. He didn't have to say anything as his unit lit the three aliens up.
Ranma landed atop a fourth as it froze in the doorway. She slammed it back through the door and disappeared. Flashes of red and green lit up the hallway behind along with screams.
"Sergeant, assist her, get me some territory in the halls!" He shouted his order and Sergeant Toriyama's team rushed the door, "And tell her to come back here! We've got slaves to uncollar!" He turned his radio to the command net, "Lieutenant Haru Mizusawa to Major Sando, exit secured."
"Good work," the Major's reply came instantly, "Order your men to push through and see if they have a local control room. I don't relish the idea of taking this ship without more reinforcements." Neither did he, honestly. The idea of taking a nearly nine-hundred-meter-long maze twenty to forty times over was not his idea of fun.
"Understood," he replied and flipped channels, "New orders. We're pushing in to find the enemy's control center for this hangar." The sooner they reopened the supply lines the better.
The Sergeant's team was the first through the wide sliding door. Gunfire was heard immediately and a few moments later a static-filled callout of, "All Clear." was heard over the radio.
The gunfire that had rattled the hangar was quieting down, leaving only the sound of burning fuel and ruptured pipes behind. Other teams were breaching the other entrances to the maze that undoubtedly made up this cavernous vessel.
"Time for us to move. Watanabe, pack that gun up. Time to join the Sergeant. Move up team," He shouted to his command squad as he finally stepped out of cover, jogging for the door. As his team reached it a familiar redhead reentered the hangar. "Saotome," he greeted.
She waved absently as she looked about. "Your guys said something about slaves?" she asked.
"Another pilot, probably others as well. They've been sent back to the CP where we landed," said pointing out the spot halfway down the length of the hangar. Looking back it was like staring down the length of a Cathedral made of metal. You probably could have fit a football stadium in the hangar. Maybe not quite vertically but…
"I'll deal with it. Ryouga's sticking with the leading guys by the way. Don't let him take the lead. You might just find yourself on Pluto if you do," Ranma said with a snort before she jogged off at several times his best sprint.
"Can't be that bad," Private Takado said.
"Don't be so sure," Haru reprimanded him, recalling some of the briefings that the Nerima Garrison's officers had gotten. They had been, if anything, underselling the local martial artists. If Saotome thought it was even slightly possible then he wasn't going to second-guess her. "C'mon. Let's make sure Sergeant Toriyama doesn't wind up assaulting the bridge by way of the sewers by accident."
The hangar had been somewhat dim, the lighting on the ceiling only doing so much for the floor of the hangar, but it had nothing on the corridors beyond. The interior didn't show the caking of dirt and debris that the exterior of the ship did, but the lighting was terrible. One in three lights was either dead or missing and the rest had even odds of whether or not they were flickering. The only nice bit was that they were wide corridors, clearly intended to move large items to and from the hangar. Items… or people.
"Some ship," Private Watanabe said as they followed the echoing sounds of gunfire through the corridors.
"We've clearly been hit by the bottom of the barrel," Haru said as they reached a T-Junction. Two men from Toriyama's squad were covering the intersection. "Get moving and catch up with the Sergeant," he ordered them before detailing two of his own to cover the intersection until relieved. He glanced down the corridor and distantly saw several men from a different platoon pushing forward.
"This is going to be a nightmare unless we can find a map, Sir," Watanabe said. Haru grimaced.
"You aren't wrong, Corporal," he said before pulling out his radio, "Lieutenant Mizusawa to Major Sando, can you hear me?"
The reply was filled with static, but he could make out her words. "Just barely, how far in are you?"
"Maybe fifty meters at most. Probably half that. This place is going to be a maze, Major. We don't have the manpower to hold every junction," He said.
"Then don't bother, Lieutenant," the Major said after a moment, "Keep your platoon together and find that control room. Lock it down and hold it. I'll task Fukuda's platoon with securing the perimeter here in the Hangar. Get me that control room."
"Yes Sir," he replied before switching frequencies, "All Squads, regroup on me." He gave directions to his location and picked a corridor to keep an eye on.
"We're engaged, sir," Sergeant Toriyama replied a moment later, his voice filled with static.
"How badly?"
"Mostly the same trash we've been fighting this entire time." The sound of those ray guns firing echoed in the background. "We could fall back, but they'll pursue us."
"How far out are you?" he asked, trying to figure out if they could push up to him quickly. Haru could hear the weapons fire, but there were flashes coming from quite a few openings and the walls were echoing with gunfire from multiple engagements.
"Two intersections further, then a right-hand turn. We're at the next intersection from there."
Haru frowned and considered the timing. "Hold position, we'll push to you once the rest catch up to us," he said. It was a tense few minutes before the pounding of feet behind them announced the arrival of Corporals Yuichi and Miyata and their men.
"We're pushing to the Sergeant's position. Move it," he shouted, waving the two corporals onward. Platoon mostly reformed, he let his men take the lead despite the temptation to rush ahead. He still jogged with them, his eyes scanning the doorways as they hurried by.
One intersection, clear. Second-
The leading two men ducked back as raygun shots came from the direction of the Sergeant's position.
"Sergeant?" Haru demanded into his radio, "We're taking fire."
"Stray shots, Sir. Be careful, we've got a bastard with some sort of LMG type firing down the hallway," the Sergeant replied after a moment.
More shots pattered off the back wall of the t-junction. "Watanabe, suppress the shooter. Yuichi, your team is pushing once he's suppressed. Relieve the Sergeant," Haru barked and a path opened for the LMG-toting young man. He peaked then leaned back from several bolts.
"Looks like a woman," the LMG operator said, "Kinda hot actually."
"Just shut up and shoot her," Takado groaned.
"Yeah yeah. First alien space babe I see, and I have to shoot her," the LMG operator grumbled as he braced the gun on the support strut. The long burst of fire that followed would have deafened Haru if not for his earplugs as the roar echoed in the metallic hallway. Panicked shouting went up from the other end of the corridor.
"Yuichi, go!" Haru barked the moment the fire slacked and the squad broke cover dashing across the hallway to keep out of Watanabe's line of fire before advancing. There was more gunfire, more shouting.
"Got her," Watanabe shouted, leaning back from the corner. "Alas, hot alien, it wasn't to be."
"I swear if this turns into another Macross ramble," Takado started.
"Both of you be quiet. Good work, Watanabe," Haru said, getting a grin from the gunner then his radio crackled.
"Corporal Yuichi is here. We've got the intersection," Sergeant Toriyama said. A low cheer rolled through the men.
"Excellent. Miyata, push forward. We'll follow," Haru barked, "Sergeant clear out the contacts, then we're moving on. We need to find stairs going up."
"What is up in space, anyways?" one of the passing men asked another as Miyata's team hurried forward.
"Why stairs, sir?" Toriyama asked.
"Because I saw windows looking into the hangar. At least two floors up. We'll start there," Haru said as he turned the corner and advanced down the hallway. If the other hallways had been in poor condition, this was far worse. A hole in the wall halfway down was large enough to put a car through, as was the hole in the far wall.
He peered at the metal walls and frowned. Haru's father and older brothers were blacksmiths. Not swordsmiths, but blacksmiths whose business was making items by hand. Pots, decorations, other strange requests. He had spent a little bit of time learning while in High School. Unfortunately, he hadn't had a lick of either of his brothers' talents and had eventually gravitated to the army.
That was to say, he wasn't very good at smithing, but he could recognize different metals. The walls here were made from something that was clearly oxidising. It was taking an odd grey tone in areas that weren't painted. And then there were the support braces.
Haru knelt and ran a hand across the metal supports. It was smooth, oddly so given the obvious disrepair of much of the ship. He would have expected rust or worse to be taking a toll. Its colour was like steel, but darker, bluer in a way, with a strange ripple pattern through the material. It was a bit like seeing a replica Damascus blade or a katana.
"Strange. Wonder what this is," he muttered, tapping it once with a knuckle. The ring of metal was muffled by the sounds of war.
"Sir."
He looked up to see Toriyama kneeling beside him. "Report," he said.
"Two wounded. Very minor grazes that left first-degree burns," the Sergeant said.
"On?"
"Upper arms, sir. They can still fight, but I've ordered the medics to tend them quickly," the Sergeant said, resting the butt of his rifle on the floor, one hand wrapped around the foregrip.
"Good. Is the intersection secure?" he asked.
"As it can be. We lost the martial artist who was with us, however. He went through these walls then didn't come back," the Sergeant said, waving to the opening.
"It's a spaceship, Sergeant. We'll see him again at some point," Haru said as he stood up and adjusted his helmet. That was, of course, assuming that Ranma's prediction of Pluto didn't somehow come true. There wouldn't be much they could do for the boy if he managed to wander across the entire solar system. "Let's push on. Find me those stairs, Sergeant," he ordered.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Dealing with the slaves took only a few minutes, but Ranma was already feeling antsy as she left the hangar behind. The sound of gunfire and rayguns echoed off the walls as she hurried through the corridors. She could move faster, but there wasn't much point in searching the ship for Akane and Kasumi if she got completely lost in the process.
Searching the ship was a matter of trial and error since she wasn't exactly eager to kick down locked doors aboard a rickey spaceship. Who knew which compartments had been sealed off because they were compromised? That, and they might want to be able to close said doors themselves later.
Her first encounter that wasn't a locked door was a pair of bug-eyed aliens. They didn't even see her before she clotheslined one of them and kicked the other one into the wall. She jumped to the side to avoid shots from the alien's friends before springing into the center of the group in a flying kick. The group were swiftly knocked out, their rayguns scattered or broken as she continued on.
Other groups lasted about as long as she hurried through the halls and checked the rooms within. She smashed a group pinning down one of the JGSDF platoons and another that had taken refuge from a squad inside of a storage room.
The first sign of a way up was a gunfight between a platoon of JGSDF and nearly three times their number of aliens.
"Heads up!" Ranma chirped as she hopped over the soldiers, grabbing a low-hanging pipe to swing out into the room. At the end of the widest corridor on the floor, the same corridor which ran by the hangar, the room had been converted into a circle of barricades about a blast door nearly the size of the hallways. The roof was half-again as high as the hallways, which was perfect for Ranma as she flipped through the air over the barricade.
The pirates were manning a pair of their repeating ray guns on tripods. They had been hosing down the other entrances to the room, and were the first to go in flashes of ki as twin Moko Takabisha shattered their positions. A shower of boxes, bodies and guns hammered the positions around them as Ranma slammed her feet into the skull of a shouting lizardman. Something snapped in its neck and she winced as she rode the motionless body to the ground before sweeping into the survivors.
Thirty seconds of screaming and panic later what had been an improvised bunker was little more than scattered wreckage and bodies beneath the flickering lamps that characterised everything wrong about the ship.
"Nice work Saotome!" Lieutenant Mizusawa called as he stepped out of cover. His men swarmed forward, sweeping the room and descending on the alien's.
"Everyone good here?" she asked, patting out a small fire on her sleeve started by a near miss from one of the pirate's rayguns.
"A few injuries, but we seem to have training on our side. This place would have made us bleed though, so thanks," Mizusawa said before turning to the blast door. "So, engineering, or an elevator of some kind?"
"Probably an elevator," Ranma replied as a squad formed up around the door.
"Ready!" Their sergeant shouted.
"Hit it!" the Lieutenant shouted. The man in charge of the squad triggered a button and a few moments later the door started opening to reveal what looked a lot like a lift. A rather large one with a pair of worried-looking aliens pointing guns at them. One of them jerked their weapon toward Ranma and the Lieutenant, only for both of them to promptly eat bullets from multiple angles.
After that burst of violence, the squad stepped into the elevator.
"Holy hell this goes up a ways," one of the soldiers said as he stared up the shaft.
"Oh come on, what floor are we on?" another one complained as he examined the control panel, "There's like a hundred buttons here!"
"Everyone on! Try the bottom and we'll work our way up," Lieutenant Mizusawa said as he rushed onto the elevator.
"I'm coming with you," Ranma said, jogging onto it beside him. The rest of the platoon rushed on, some of them hauling boxes between them for some improvised cover.
"Bottom button does nothing. We're probably bottomed out then," the complaining soldier said.
"Or the button's broken," another one said.
"Wouldn't be surprised," the first agreed, "This shit's falling apart. Uuuh, next floor up."
The doors rumbled shut and the elevator started moving with a remarkable lack of complaint. It seemed that whoever had been skimping on the lighting hadn't done the same with the elevator. The shaft itself didn't seem to have a roof for the elevator, instead going all the way up. It was tall enough to make Ranma slightly dizzy staring upward.
"Get some cover and get ready," the Lieutenant barked as he joined his men. Ranma simply eyed the doors as the platoon fanned out around her. A spark of Ki floated above her palm, flickering in and out of existence.
The elevator came to a halt with a loud thunk and the doors rumbled open. The moment it was wide enough for a single person Ranma threw herself through it. Beyond was another room much like the one they had just come from, right down to the barricade. Only this one was facing toward them with a single repeating raygun.
Hands came up and the ki roared as she unleashed it on the line of jumpy pirates. Raygun shots pattered around her as the repeating gun position exploded. She slid under a few shots and sprang up to vault the barricade in a sweeping kick at face level. Aliens were tossed aside and anything further was drowned out by the roar of rifles as the JSDF opened fire.
In moments the room was clear as the squad pushed forward and through the wrecked barricade. "Spread out! Cover the approaches. Saotome, if the control center for the hangar is on this level it should be straight down the same corridor as was down below. We need the hangar doors open again for more reinforcements. Mind opening us a path?" The Lieutenant asked.
"I can spare a few," Ranma said, stretching and only slightly leaning to one side to avoid a raygun shot. Those things were so darned slow. She glanced down the corridor in question as the soldiers opened the door. A flurry of raygun shots came out of it as they ducked back. Aliens were in every available bit of cover. "You've got a bit of a welcoming committee," she said.
This was going to be annoying.
"We're popular today, but we've got places to be," The Lieutenant replied with a grin, "Mind showing them the door?"
"I'll give them a real close look," Ranma replied before sprinting into the corridor. She slid under a flurry of bolts, bounced off the wall into a dive forward, and smashed the first alien against the bulkhead with her fist.
Toss him into the next hard enough to knock him out.
Spin around the next shot.
Dive. Kick. Bounce. Slide. Punch. Toss. Dive. Repeat.
It was a bit like charging the rain while trying to dodge every raindrop, but she had experience with foolish things like that. Bees, rocks, or hundreds of fists. Really, there wasn't much difference between them or a wall of ray gun blasts.
In minutes she'd slammed open a path through the aliens, tossed several Moko Takabisha's down side corridors, and sent even more aliens fleeing into the depths of the floor. The JSDF soldiers flooded into the corridor in her wake, sealing doors behind them as they went. Suppressive fire went out down side corridors as they pushed hard. Twice she had to backpedal to help them as the aliens attempted to cut them off.
Eventually, they reached the t-junction at the end of the corridor. The blast door closed behind them as they shone flashlights down the other two hallways. Movement was met with bullets even as the occasional raygun bolt hit the wall near them.
"Which way?" Ranma asked.
"I don't exactly have a map," the Lieutenant replied as he stepped back from the corners.
"We went basically straight. Was there a window to the left or right?" Ranma asked, trying to recall if she had even seen a window.
"Uuuh, right. That way," Lieutenant Mizusawa pointed left.
"Big lizard with a really big gun!" One of the men shouted as a bolt the size of Ranma's head came down the indicated corridor and splashed harmlessly off a support strut. Another one gouged out a chunk of the wall a few moments later in a spray of sparks and molten metal. The half dozen other aliens around it, all large and armoured, fired a variety of weapons down the corridor at them.
"I'll lead then," Ranma said before taking off down the corridor. A large lizardman in a suit of thick armour was carrying a raygun with a diameter closer to that of an autocannon. Bullets pinged off his armour harmlessly as he fired from the hip. Ranma barely moved, stepping slightly from side to side as she raced up the corridor. As she closed the alien swung the butt of the rifle at her face.
It slapped into her waiting palm. The Lizard tried to pull it back and Ranma could see the moment it realised it couldn't rip the weapon out of her grip. She yanked it to the side, pulling the alien off balance before she knocked its feet out from under it. She dropped the rifle and grabbed a heavily armoured leg. Metal whined and crumpled as she exerted her full strength and swung the lizard.
She leaned minutely to the side to avoid a panicked shot from one of the aliens, then swung her improvised weapon. Armoured alien met smaller armoured alien and the more armoured won as she flailed her impromptu weapon about.
Aliens, walls, ceiling.
Floor. Several times.
She dropped the unconscious, and possibly dead, lizardman and waved for the soldiers to follow before continuing down the corridor. The only other enemies they encountered was a loose collection of a dozen aliens who fled up the corridor at the next t-junction.
They seemed to be scared of her.
Behind her, the soldiers were breaching each room they passed. Gunfire rang out in a few. It wasn't exactly a thorough sweep of the floor, but it had confirmed via one storage room with a window that they were immediately beside the hangar. With a bit of luck, the control room for it was on this level.
Ranma paused at the next junction. The hallway continued on for a ways, but it was empty for the moment and a glance down the side passage revealed no one. It seemed they'd concentrated their forces at the elevator. There had to be another method of going up and down though. Just an elevator seemed a bit… lacking. So where were the rest?
A loud shout of "Breaching" was followed by gunfire then, "I think we have it!" Ranma glanced back at the soldiers. Lieutenant Mizusawa looked into the room.
"I'm going to try and figure out which button opens the hangar doors," He said before turning to the rest, "I want a perimeter. That crossroad," he pointed to the one they'd just passed, "to that one," he pointed to where Ranma was, "and all the rooms immediately around them."
The Sergeant started barking orders a moment later as Ranma walked over. "Found what you need?" she asked.
"Should be," he said before testing his radio, "This is Lieutenant Mizusawa to Major Sando, I believe we've found the control room."
There was a moment of silence. "Excellent work Lieutenant," Major Sando replied, her voice crackling only a little. They only had a single wall between them. "What path did you use?"
"We found a freight elevator at the end of the widest hallway," the Lieutenant replied, "It seems to run through most of the ship. Be aware that the enemy had the elevator fortified facing it. Without Saotome's help we would have suffered severe losses taking them."
"Understood. Current combat effectiveness?"
"Plenty of ammunition for the moment and none of my men are combat incapable or severely injured. A few have minor injuries from near misses."
There was a pause. "Understood. Hold your position. We need that door kept open," the Major said.
"I'm going to need a translator up here. We aren't going to be able to read the labels," He replied.
Ranma shot him a look, "Seriously?" He shrugged. Well, it hadn't occurred to her either so she probably shouldn't give him too much of a hard time.
There was a moment of silence. "Understood. I'll retask one of the other platoons to deliver one of these protocol droids," she said, "Hold your position and let Saotome know that any chaos she and her friends can stir up right now would be wonderful."
"Saotome's right here," Mizusawa said.
Ranma snorted.
"Then tell her to have fun."
The redhead rolled her eyes. "We're here to rescue people, not fun," Ranma said, turning on a heel, "Tell her I'm going to look for my Fiancee. I'll try and beat up the guy in charge while I'm at it."
The Lieutenant snorted. "Be safe kid," he said before lifting the radio, "She's headed off Major."
Ranma broke into a run down the hallway. She'd do a circuit of this floor then she'd catch the elevator again and head up to the next level. Floor by floor all the way up-
The sound of ray guns firing echoed from up ahead as a trio of aliens ran into sight. They paused for a moment to fire back down the hallway as another dozen rushed by then they turned to leave. Two of them died as a volley of knives caught them in the side. A moment later Mousse darted through the intersection. Screaming was accompanied by raygun bolts flying down the hallway they had come from.
Ranma doubled her speed, rolling under a wave of raygun bolts as she rounded the corner. "Hey! Mousse!" She shouted as she came out of the roll just in time to see him decapitate a wrinkle-headed alien.
"Saotome," he acknowledged as he caught the last runner with a throwing knife to the back of the knee. They went down with a scream and he pounced. Their weapon, most likely like the weapons that seemed to be missing from the ground, was stuffed up a sleeve before he hauled them up and slammed them against the wall with one hand.
"Are you trying to interrogate them? None of us speak their language," Ranma said with a grimace as she stepped between pools of multi-colour blood. There was a wide variety to the colours of liquid coming out of these aliens, though some had a similar red shade to human blood.
"That's why I have this," Mousse produced the head of one of the translator droids from his sleeve.
"Oh no, not again. Let me go, you monster!" the head exclaimed. The alien Mousse had pinned to the wall stared at the head before saying something that sounded unflattering. "And indeed, he is a madman." The Amazon boy shook the head.
"Where are you keeping the prisoners?" He demanded, "Ask him!"
"That's a female."
"Then ask her!"
Ranma pinched her brow as she watched the myopic boy argue with the head of a droid. "Hey! Just ask the question already," Ranma sighed, "And stop threatening it, Mousse. You look crazy."
"Thank you!"
"Saotome!"
She gave him a flat stare. "We've already killed how many people? Sure they're aliens and slavers, but this isn't our normal fights. No need to make it worse," she said, crossing her arms and staring pointedly. She'd been trying to ignore it, but between the carved-apart bodies and Mousse's attitude, a feeling of nausea was stirring in her stomach.
The head started yammering in the alien language and the alien replied. They went back and forth a bit as Ranma and Mousse stared at each other. Finally, the glass-wearing boy let the alien go. It, or she as the robot had said, hit the floor with a yelp and clutched at her injured knee. Ranma turned her attention to the robot.
"So?"
"They are on the next floor up in the slave pens," the head said.
"And where upstairs are the slave pens?" Ranma asked. The head translated.
"The entire floor as well as the next two above are slave pens," it said.
Ranma glared at the alien. Three entire floors just for slave pens? She grabbed Mousse's arm as he started to draw a sword. "It's not fighting back anymore. Leave it," she said.
"It's a slaver and the moment I pull my knife out it'll start bleeding out anyway," he replied. She glanced down at the slowly growing pool of blood.
"Hand me some bandages," she said as she grabbed the alien and shifted it to the side where there was less blood. It let out a pained gasp as she knelt down.
"I say, most people would just shoot a pirate," the talking head said.
"Shut up," Mousse snapped at it before stuffing it up his sleeve.
"Not into the void aga-" the robot wailed before vanishing into the depths.
"I've only got so many of these," the Amazon grumbled as he passed her a roll of fresh bandages.
"Two or three tons of them unless I miss my guess," she replied as she started treating the very confused alien's wound. Pirate she might be, but it felt wrong to just leave her to bleed out. "We can leave them with the guys in the control room around the corner. They can probably use that talking head as well since they can't read the controls."
"And if we need it later?" Mousse asked.
"We need those doors open either way," Ranma replied, "We need more people and we need a way to get off the ship that doesn't involve just jumping into an escape pod."
"Assuming they have any," he muttered, "Fine. We'll hand over the robot. I'll have to get another one after."
"Where did you even come up from? You weren't on the elevator earlier," she asked.
"Stairs. There's a stairwell back that way," he gestured back down the hallway, "Doesn't go any higher than this level. Probably just meant for accessing storage up here for the hangar area."
"Likely. Stop squirming," Ranma fixed the pirate alien with a glare before plucking a knife from its hip that it had been reaching for. It swallowed and went fairly still. Ranma glanced down at the knife and noted a button on the handle. Pushing the button caused the blade to produce a humming noise and the slightest feeling of vibrations in the handle.
"A vibrating knife?" Mousse said with disbelief.
Ranma hit the button and pocketed the blade. "Apparently," she said as she tied off the alien's bandages. They looked annoyed at her taking the knife. She had to wonder what the point of a vibrating blade was. Done bandaging them, Ranma stepped back. "You stabbed them, you carry them."
Mousse grumbled but tossed the alien roughly over his shoulder. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered.
Ranma led the way about around the corner and down the corridor toward the control room. The sound of gunfire echoed from nearby rooms. "Hey, Lieutenant!" She said as she entered the control room, waving in greeting.
"Saotome, back already?" The officer looked up from where he was examining the button on a console.
"Yup, and we've got a few things for you," she said, stepping aside so Mousse could enter, "One alien prisoner, a talking head," Mousse dumped the alien on a chair before pulling out the head of the protocol droid.
"Here," he said, tossing the droid to the soldier beside the Lieutenant. The young soldier fumbled the head several times before finally catching it.
"Please don't let him send me back to the void," the protocol droid head pleaded.
"And the location of the prisoners," Ranma finished as she walked over, "Apparently they're one floor up." She politely ignored the existential dread the droid was displaying.
"You've been gone for five minutes," Lieutenant Mizusawa grumbled as he took the head of the robot, "And how is this even working?"
"The power supply for my databases and vocal processors is located in my head alongside them," the robot helpfully explained.
"It's been rather helpful," Mousse said, "It helped me find the stairs."
The Lieutenant set the head down. "One thing at a time," he said, "Prisoners, Saotome?"
"The next three levels are slave pens," Ranma replied with a scowl.
"The next three?" Misusawa repeated. Ranma nodded. "Right, I need to call this in. What are you going to do?"
"Start searching," Mousse said as he started walking back to the door.
"We're going to find the stairs up and start working our way through the guards," Ranma replied as she stepped aside to let Mousse out, "And you?"
"We'll get the doors open again and go from there. We don't exactly have the numbers for extracting the thousands of people they've taken so far," The Lieutenant said, "We'll probably need to take the entire ship before we can really start shuttling people back to earth. The engine room and any other hangars at least."
Ranma nodded. "I'll keep an eye out for those places," she said, giving a jaunty wave before leaving. Behind her she could hear him discussing things with the talking head. She'd leave the logistics of getting people off this ship to the military. For now she needed to find Akane and Kasumi.
She paused in the corridor. Where was Mousse?
"That blind idiot," she grumbled before breaking into a sprint down the corridor. He never wanted to work together.
-0-0-0-0-0-
The bridge of the Darkness Falls, formerly the Deliverance, was brightly lit, unlike the lower decks. It was a wide and spacious room with high ceilings, wall hangings and luxurious carpets that were, admittedly, somewhat stained after years of neglect in the hands of pirates. A large meeting table of actual wood ran behind the throne that sat above and behind the Captain's chair. It was there that the officers of the vessel had congregated around their leader.
"Deck forty-two aft hasn't been reporting in since the hangar control center was engaged."
"Secondary boardings on both main flight decks. The port hangar door is refusing to close."
"We've lost contact with the forward ventral turbolasers."
"Forces dispatched to the slave pens are in position at the stairs and the turbolifts."
Dack Gaian suppressed the urge to growl and lash out at his bridge 'officers' as report after report flowed in. None of them were good, but killing one of them wouldn't help him. He didn't have that many competent replacements especially with the lower ranks getting butchered in the hangar bays.
"Set up secondary lines at section A5 on the port flight deck," he said, trying to lean on the force to guide him. It was frustratingly unhelpful in this situation. If not for the reports he'd haven't a clue they were getting boarded. While he hadn't been the most attentive Padawan during his days with the Jedi his senses were good. His old master had loved to complement his instincts before they'd parted ways. "Do we have any word on those force users?"
"One is wandering near engineering," a Trandoshan comms officer growled, "It's the yellow one."
"Impossible, he was at the ventral turbolasers two minutes ago!" another officer said.
"Well tell them that."
Dack ground his teeth as his anger surged. He twitched a hand and a nearby data-slate snapped as the force cleaved into it. He sighed. "Forget about the yellow one. He's clearly using some kind of translocation skill. We'll simply have to deal with him last," he said. They had more to worry about than the aimless wanderings of a single man. "What about-"
"The Wookiees are rebelling!" The Trandoshan officer barked, "Pens G18 through G23 have been broken open. They're attempting to-erk." The room fell silent as the Trandoshan scrambled at thin air around his neck. He gasped for air as an invisible force ripped him from his seat to Dack's side.
"We're being boarded and now you're telling me the Wookiees are rebelling?" Dack hissed as he tightened his telekinetic grip on the lizardman, "The big walking carpets Rukt assured me he could keep in check? The ones he said would be useful for labour we haven't needed? Those Wookiees?"
"Argh ahh- Do- you know- aah-" The Trandoshan hissed air in, "any-ah other?" He gasped as the grip tightened before Dack abruptly released him. He clattered to the deck.
"No, I do not. Contact Rukt, and tell him to meet me down on detention level three. I am going to deal with this before we have both boarders and angry Wookies to deal with." He raised a hand toward his chair and his lightsaber, his since he had made it as a youngling, jumped to his hand. "Coordinate the response to the upper hangar invasion. I will deal with the lower hangar once I finish dealing with these Wookiees." Without waiting for their affirmations he stormed from the bridge.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Ranma slammed a wrinkle-headed alien into the bulkhead before tossing him up the corridor into the path of a repeating raygun that was trying to suppress her. It was like this all over the vessel. Small groups setting up defences clearly intending to push back the JSDF. They lasted moments against her. Many times she would find more bodies filling the defensive positions that had been cut down by sword or knife.
She had to give it to him, Mousse was thorough in his slaughter. Even if it did make her skin crawl to think about. She'd never taken his threat to kill her seriously before, but perhaps she should have. It had to be due to being an Amazon. They really didn't value life like everyone else did.
Her red braid whipped to the side, just narrowly avoiding a ray gun blast, as she danced around the shots from the crew served weapon. A light spring in her step led into a flying kick that smashed straight through the makeshift barricade. She rode the rubble down onto a pair of humans before knocking aside the barrel of the heavy raygun as it swung to shoot at her. A single step inward and she bounced the alien manning it off the far wall with an open palm.
And with that the stairs leading up were unguarded.
Ranma looked up the steps to the next level. The door in front of them was jammed half open, a large metal rod, warped and bent from struggling against the forces opposing it, was stuck deep into the mechanisms. Fortunately, the door opened left to right instead of up and down.
She could see a dim glow from the next level, somehow even darker than the level she was on with its broken hallway lights that flickered in the gloom. She snorted and bounded up the steps. Another heavy blast door was shut just out of sight at the top of the stairs. A control panel offered a chance she might be able to open it.
The panel was little more than three buttons and a hole. One white, one red and one blue. There was little chance that they considered all colours the same way they did on Earth. Hells, Japan treated many colours differently than the Americans let alone a bunch of aliens.
"Blue I guess?" she muttered as she hit the button. There was a thunk and a beep and the door made a few noises before falling silent. So, either that wasn't the right button, or they'd locked the blast door. Since they were defending it the door probably didn't lead into a depressurized compartment so…
"MOKO TAKABISHA!" The orb of confidence fueled ki crashed into the middle of the door. Metal shrieked and buckled, bowing inward from the strike. A thin crack along the seam let a vague hint of light through. She dragged up her power with both hands. "DOUBLE MOKO TAKABISHA!"
Metal wailed and came apart as the blast door was ripped open by the twin explosions of ki that carried on down the hall popping lights before smashing through something in the distance. Angry shouts and screams echoed off the metal walls.
Ranma brushed a lock of sweaty hair to the side and stepped through the wreckage of the blast door. A faint sense of tiredness, which was rapidly going away, tingled across her body. The Moko Takabisha was always taxing. Dredging up a mix of emotions and your very life force was the opposite of an easy task, but she was well used to it.
A glance revealed a broken barricade, a large raygun with its barrel bent at ninety degrees, and a number of unconscious or dead aliens. She was about to check on them when a series of loud roars came from her right, down a hallway with significantly more lighting than the one she'd just brutalised with the martial arts equivalent of an artillery barrage.
Well, she didn't exactly have a clear address for where people from Japan were being kept so she may as well pick a direction and toward the roaring of monsters sounded as good as anything else. She'd probably have to deal with them either way before they could get off this ship. It's just how these things tended to work.
More roaring was followed by the sound of ray guns firing and what might have been the screaming of those lizardmen. Ranma rushed down the hall. No point in wasting time after all.
Heavy-looking doors, much like smaller-scale versions of the door she'd blasted open, lined both sides of the corridor. The floor was heavy metal plating that clattered even under her light steps.
She hooked the corner ahead with a hand and took it at a sprint. Up ahead more roaring and screaming was mixed in with raygun fire before a loud clatter that shook the hallway silenced everything. That was a bit ominous.
Then she came across a body. It was tall, easily seven feet, and covered in a thick layer of fur across its entire body. It was facedown with a pool of blood forming around its left arm where the limb had been halfway ripped off. A belt around its waist suggested it was probably an intelligent species. She knelt and rolled the alien over, grimacing at the smell of burnt flesh and hair as it mixed with that of a filthy unwashed dog. The chest of the alien was seared bare and bleeding slowly through cracks in the blackened skin. It gave no signs of breathing.
"Are you a pirate or a slave?" Ranma asked the body before leaving it be. She hurried on. The roaring had been replaced by what sounded like a chorus of victorious snakes hissing. She found more bodies, around a dozen, splayed out across the corridor in various states of dismemberment. A couple were unlike the rest. Their wounds were cauterised like something impossible hot had carved them apart.
A voice was speaking, his words echoing into the corridor from an open door up ahead.
She hurried as silently as she could to the door and peered into the room. It was a cell block with at least a dozen cells lined either side of the room, each large enough that she could see several dozen bodies stuffed into each one, and it stretched upward for three floors. A staircase to one side was visible through the hulking bodies of dozens of lizardmen who encircled all three floors. They kept their ray guns pointed at the cells filled with the living versions of the large furry aliens she'd seen out in the hallway. Also unlike the ones she'd seen outside these had large explosive collars on them.
In the center of the bottom floor were four aliens and what looked like a human. One of the large furry aliens, who seemed a little smaller than most of those dead outside, had been forced to its knees by two large lizardmen. A third lizard, larger than all the others, was standing to the side of the human with one of the heavy repeating rayguns cradled in his hands.
The human was a man in his late twenties or early thirties, vaguely European with high cheekbones and dark robes over a fancy purple doublet. In his hand was something that made Ranma stare. A blazing sword of blue light emerged from a hilt of metal. He was holding it over his head as he gave some kind of speech. The laughing, cheering and hissing of the lizardmen alongside the alien on their knees made it clear what was going on.
She'd just missed them putting down a slave rebellion and they were about to execute someone they viewed as an instigator. She scowled and stepped into the room. A lizardman beside the door noticed her. It hissed something and reached down to grab her. The sound of its screaming as she snapped its arm like a twig was cut off before it could start by a strike to the neck. That didn't stop the sound of breaking bones from drawing attention. The two nearest Lizardmen had barely enough time to notice her before she slammed their heads into the wall hard enough to crack the metal plating, and presumably their skulls.
Ranma wasted no time as she surged forward. Heads turned toward her as she jumped the ring of lizardmen. She planted her foot into the face of one, sending it to the floor, as she hurtled through the air.
The beam sword-wielding man paused in his speech before jumping up to the railing above without looking as she came crashing down on his position. Ranma twisted on her heel and slammed a kick into the side of the largest Lizardman as hard as she could before pivoting into the two brutes holding down what looked distinctly like a female version of the furry aliens. They were laid out in a heartbeat as the alien looked up with clear astonishment.
The largest lizardman flew over the heads of the rest and crashed into the bars of a cage hard enough the metal bent around his body. Furry hands immediately latched onto the big lizard from behind the bars with primal roars. The sound of tearing flesh heralded the removal of his head and limbs from the rest of his body by the angry slaves.
Ranma paid it little mind as she knelt down and snapped the manacles holding the alien's hands together. She tossed them absently over her shoulder at a charging Lizardman hard enough to knock him out before holding a hand out to the alien. "C'mon, let's get you out of here," she said despite knowing the alien couldn't understand her.
A massive hand grasped her own and she pulled the alien to their feet.
A loud voice shouted at them from above and Ranma turned her gaze to the sword nut above. He was pointing a sword at her. "You know I can't understand you?" She asked as she glanced at the lizards surrounding them. They were visibly agitated, hissing and snarling at them. She noted the alien she'd just saved taking a place at her back. The alien roared at those around them.
The swordsman snorted and shouted at those above. A moment later, with a plaintive wail, a translator robot was hurled over the side of the third floor catwalk. It plummeted a full floor before the man thrust out a hand and the droid came to a halt midair before floating to the man's side.
Telekinesis.
He. Had.
Telekinesis.
"So they're psychic now, great," Ranma grumbled as she recalled her last run in with a psychic.
The man shouted something and the hissing lizardmen fell quiet. The other aliens quieted down as well, though some still rattled the bars and roared.
"My master," the robot said, "Requests the name of the one who has interrupted him."
"Ranma Saotome, and you can ask him why the hell he thought his thugs could kidnap our people and not get his ass beat," Ranma replied.
The robot passed it on, though with too few words to make her think it had passed it all on. It probably wanted to keep its head. "Ranma Saotome," the robot said after a moment, "Be known to my master, the great Dack Gaian, Captain of the Darkness Falls."
Captain huh? So this guy would be the one in charge. That fit how things normally went. Some big strong guy at the top and a bunch of minions running around making trouble.
"You can tell him to hand over our people, and I'll consider not kicking his ass," Ranma replied. The odds that a guy like him would just give up were pretty slim, especially when he had an entire spaceship full of pirates at his back. They'd eat him alive before they even left the planet. Not that they'd be allowed to leave. Not after the damage they did.
"My master rejects your offer," the robot said after a few moments, "And suggests you surrender immediately. He says it would be a shame to ruin your beauty with his lightsaber."
She scoffed and flipped 'Dack Gaian' the bird. That, it seemed, needed no translation. The swordsman laughed, his voice reverberating off the walls of the cell block. Then he spoke and the robot translated. "Trandoshans. Your leader is dead, killed by this slip of a girl. You've already disappointed me with the rebellion of the Wookiees."
Wookiees? Was that the species of alien in the cells? Wookiee… Ranma glanced at the big 'Wookiee' behind her. Odd name, but it worked a lot better than 'the walking carpets'.
The 'Trandoshans', an interesting name for lizards, hissed and snarled. "But I am magnanimous. The one who kills this 'Ranma Saotome' shall replace Rukt as my right hand. Bring me her head and you shall have power!"
"And now the cliches start," Ranma sighed, "Whimp! Sending a bunch of weak lizards to do your dirty work!" There wasn't enough time for the robot to translate her words before the first Trandoshans charged.
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A/N: Space pirate lizard slavers, oh my! … Doesn't really work does it?
Gekkou: He's a Cold Blooded Lizard!~ Look into his eyes!~ Oh No!~ He's been tellin Lies!~
Grounders10: That works better :p I'm not feeling the most creative at the moment, but fortunately I have a Gekkou. *holds Gekkou_Yoko up like Simba at the start of the Lion King* *Waves her around* Behold! The Great Editor!
Gekkou: *waves lazily* Hey.
Grounders10: *sets her down in lap* and now a thanks to my patrons on for their patience these last few months. I hope you've all enjoyed the chapter~