Back up Tanin? What did that mean…
“Breech to the rear stowage door. Five persons within rear stowage, moving to the first-floor main hallway,” Alred sounded really robotic now. All the personality and, for lack of a better term, humanity had been replaced with the tinny, fake, even timber of a machine.
“You sticking around, pretty thing?” Trove asked, his console expanding as he took over Sorbet and Tebros’ job.
“You going to tell me to hide too?” She asked, stepping further into the room.
“Was going to ask you what you planned to do with a mop handle,” he laughed.
Before she could answer, he pulled something from his belt and tossed it at her. She caught it with her other hand, looking at the stick curiously. It was like a bat but made at three-quarter scale. Shiny and black, with a rubber grip just a bit too big for her hand to comfortably hold.
“That’s a shock stick,” Trove said, back to trying to shoot at the ship that had already connected to them. “Twist the handle to the right to turn it on. A few quick whacks with that will have most drooling on themselves. I would suggest you go for the smaller guys though. Unless you think you can be faster than the big ones. Would only take one shot to lay out a little thing like you.”
Garnet grinned, setting the mop handle aside. “Got any suggestions for a place to hit?”
“Well,” he chuckled, giving her a three-eyed look over his shoulder. “Never met a male who could take a shock stick to the cock. Why don’t you give that a try?”
She snickered. “Isn’t that a dirty tactic?”
“What’s dirty? Your life is on the line. No such thing. Rear stowage is that way if you want to fight. Shelter is back that way if you don’t.”
With that, he re-focused on his task. Garnet didn’t want to keep distracting him, so she stepped back, looking down at the shock stick. It didn’t seem particularly threatening. Even when she grabbed the handle as he instructed and twisted, turning it on. She felt it begin to hum in her hands, though it didn’t look any different.
But it was getting warm as she tested the weight.
To fight or hide…
It wasn’t even really a choice. Garnet wasn’t afraid of a fight. She had a lot to protect, and she never let any bully, no matter how big and bad, keep her down.
She’d fought all her life, and she’d come to like the battle. She enjoyed proving herself. She craved the feeling of power it brought her when she overcame another obstacle. She never wanted the challenge to end; she only wanted to rise to meet the next one.
She turned and ran towards rear stowage.
The large storage area probably accounted for about half of the size of the ship – if Garnet were to guess based on what she had seen thus far. It was three stories high – alien stories, not human ones – taking up pretty much the entire back half of the vessel.
The door leading onto the second story landing opened as she came running in. Pained grunts and meaty thuds reached her ears before she stepped onto the metal grate, running to the edge and looking over into main storage, her hand tight on the shock stick.
Up here, she could see the three closed doors leading to the smaller storage rooms. The huge bay doors at the very back that she imagined would be used if they had to transport something big. And off to the left, the smaller door that was currently standing open that she knew was on an exterior wall. The other side didn’t lead to the vacuum of space, however, but to a grimy, dirty hallway she didn’t recognize.
As Alred said, there were five people down there that weren’t from their crew. They all seemed to be from the same species, though it wasn’t one that she recognized. They had four arms like Rok, but otherwise they were completely different. They were covered in velvety fur with a ruff around their heads. They had muzzles, like lions, with broad chests. At first, she thought they all had fluffy, large fanny packs on their sides, but she realized after one came loose that it was their tails, they had just tucked the ends at the front of their pants to keep them from flying around.
Apparently, it was a tactical decision, because as Garnet watched, one of the twins grabbed that tail while it was loose and yanked, making the person he grabbed roar in pain as he threw them against the metal wall with a disturbingly hard thud and crunch.
Therehadbeen five people. Now, three of them were unconscious, one in a pool of blood, and four more had run in to replace them.
Six on three didn’t seem fair, but it became clear very quickly that she didn’t have to worry.
Tanin was down there, as were Tebros and Sorbet. And they were decimating the pirates that were trying to rush through the small, one-person door. The bottleneck kept them from being overwhelmed all at once and put the invaders in extra danger.
Because those three weredominating.It wasn’t even close.
Sorbet and Tebros fought like they were one person. Moving around and reacting like they were reading each other’s minds. As she watched, Tebros punched someone into Sorbet’s fist, who knocked him right back to Tebros, who kicked the back of their knee, dropping them in front of Sorbet, who grabbed their head and slammed it into his knee. A crunch and gush of blood accompanied a roar of pain as his nose/muzzle was, doubtlessly, broken.
They were rather hypnotizing to watch. And eerie. Their expressions were usually so closed off and calm, but they had transformed. Sorbet’s face was icy cold and full of hatred, while Tebros’ was snarling, exuding rage from every little scale on his body.
But then, there was Tanin.
His expression was calm, just as untouchable as it ever was. And that might have been unnerving, if she wasn’t absolutely entranced by the way he moved.
