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Lyriana quirks her brows at me in silent question. She’s probably been listening to my conversation with Astra and is now wondering whether I’ve lost my mind. I might have, but in the best way possible.
Like always, Faelin is much more open with his affections. He clasps my shoulder and gives me a wide smile. “She sounds lovely! I’m so happy for you, Tareq. What does she look like? Does she have fur? Extra limbs? Sharp teeth? Is she really from a primitive planet? I didn’t understand what she was saying, but she sounded intelligent. I thought we were rescuing a bunch of animals, not sexy ladies. Are there more of them?”
I chuckle over the flurry of his questions. “Now’s not the time, Faelin.”
“No, it’s not,” Zarkan agrees. “I’m sure Tareq will provide us with an in-depth explanation later but for now, let’s take out the rest of these slavers. Remember our orders. Capture alive if you can, kill if you can’t. Don’t put yourselves in danger. D’Aakh?”
“Ready on 3.”
Zarkan looks at each of us to see if we’re ready, then counts to three. The blast door to the bridge gives an awful screech as half of the servomotors fight to keep it closed and the other half, those which D’Aakh has hacked, try to open it. Our half wins. It always does.
We lob a sonic grenade inside, covering our ears to shield ourselves from the noise it emits. Without my usual protective gear, my ears hurt like a motherfucker, but I don’t have time to complain.
Faelin charges in before the door is fully open, roaring and swinging his hammer around like a barbarian. I exchange an amused grin with Lyriana as we follow Faelin inside.
The bridge is in disarray. The Genixarians are running around like a flock of scared chicks, yelling at each other. A few are fighting each other to get to a small door at the side of the room, which no doubt leads to a ready room that can be sealed from the inside.
“Initiate emergency procedures!” one of them shouts. His bodysuit is gray like the others’, the Genixarians aren’t into colors, but he has black symbols printed on his shoulder indicating he’s the captain.
“Emergency procedures initiated,” a computerized voice responds.
Oh, great. This ship has AI.
I hate AIs. Sure, they can autopilot the ship, run the scanners and do all kinds of useful stuff, reducing the need for a large crew even on the biggest of ships. But I always found their disembodied voices coming from everywhere and yet, nowhere in particular, downright creepy. Plus, the thought that a computer might just decide to turn off the oxygen due to its own messed up logic is not a pleasant one.
Two or three Genixarians manage to get inside the safe room before the door closes. The captain is left outside, cursing them up and down in a rather non-Genixarian way. At the sight of us, he throws his hands up. “I surrender!” he yells. “Take what you want, pirates, but let my crew live.”
Pirates? I roll my eyes at him and I’m not the only one. I’m not wearing a uniform, but the rest of my squad is and the UGC logo is clearly visible. The Genixarian hasn’t missed it and I wonder what his point is.
“We’re not pirates,” Zarkan calmly announces, looking over our captives. The fight ended before it even began. When their captain surrendered, the rest of the crew swiftly followed. D’Aakh is working on breaching the ready room door while the rest of us round up the surrendering crew and tie them up. Lyriana, Omni and Faelin begin escorting them away to lock up somewhere until we can hand them over to the relevant authorities.
“We’re here on the orders of the United Galactic Council,” Zarkan says. “You are trespassing. This is a forbidden system.”
“We were experiencing a malfunction in one of our power converters,” the Genixarian lies shamelessly. “We needed to drop out of hyperspace to make emergency repairs. That is not in violation of the Non-Interference Directive.”
I growl at his outrageous lies. “What about the slaves in your cargo hold? And the shuttle full of your men that has just returned from the surface of the planet, carrying several kidnapped primitive creatures? You won’t talk your way out of this.”
“My men landed on the planet, yes. It was unfortunate, but necessary to finish our repairs. We will pay the necessary fines for that, but as it was an emergency procedure, it is exempt from the Non-Interference Directive. Any primitive creatures found hiding in the shuttle must have snuck on board without the knowledge of my men. That was an oversight we will clearly apologize for.
“But as you can see, no laws were broken. In fact, you and your fellow pirates are the ones who’ve invaded my ship and killed my men. I will surely demand reparations from the UGC, along with an official apology and your punishment.”
I want to throttle the arrogant asshole. It’s a good thing I’m not the leader of our squad because I would have killed this idiot on the spot. Zarkan, however, remains calm. “I see you have all your bases covered,” he says. “But what about the slaves aboard your ship?”
“There are no slaves on board this ship,” the Genixarian captain replies, smirking victoriously. “There might be some leftover hunks of rotting flesh in the cargo bay, but no slaves.”
I punch him. Faelin and Omni drag me away before I can turn the bastard’s face into mush with my fists. At least his nose is now crooked and bleeding.
Zarkan squeezes my shoulder. I know he wants me to calm down, but I can’t. The life support failure on the lower levels was no accident. He did it on purpose to kill the slaves and get rid of any evidence. He tried to kill my Astra and nearly succeeded. I want him dead. I don’t give a shit that we’re supposed to bring him in for trial. I want to beat him to death with my bare hands.
Astra’s voice sounds from my comm. “Uhm, Tareq?”
She sounds scared and I immediately stop struggling against my friends and shake off their hands to tap on the device. “I’m here. Everything is alright, we’re in control of the ship now.”
“Yeah, that’s great. Except…” She hesitates, a somewhat hysterical giggle escaping her. “We’re not on the ship anymore.”
“What? How?” My thoughts race. How can they not be on the ship? She was safe in the escape pod and— Oh, fuck. The Genixarians initiated emergency protocols, which means that active escape pods would have been launched. And I told Astra to activate theirs. “The pod launched, didn’t it?”
“I think so. There’s just this tiny window on the door but well, it showed the spaceship getting smaller and smaller and now I can’t even see it. This is bad, isn’t it?” She’s trying to sound calm and collected as if she doesn’t want to scare the others, but I can hear the panic in her voice.
