Eric Olafson: Space Pirate Page 10

  A being, covered in a similar cloak, climbed from behind a crude-fitted windshield. The billowing cloak made it impossible to determine the exact species; it had the correct number of limbs to be human but was only about 150 centimeters tall. It wore the hood of the cloak buttoned up on the front, with just enough opening for a pair of dust goggles. “I came as fast as my Xtry can walk after I received your summon. Do you need help with your luggage? It will be two one-weights to Bennard’s Cut or three if you want the air conditioning.”

  My companion pressed three coins into the gloved three-fingered hand of the being, and we climbed over a creaking ladder into the back and through a curtain into a single room interior with four wooden benches. What he had praised as air conditioning were three battery-operated fans. A fourth one was there as well, at least parts of it, and quite obviously inoperable.

  The fans did little to ease the heat, but the shade provided by the wagon’s canopy felt really good. The entire contraption croaked and creaked as it started lumbering the other way.

  Through the veiled curtains on the windows, I watched the sad, gut-wrenching train of Union citizens prodded and whipped. Most, however, seemed to have lost all hope and complied with the brutal and inhumane treatment. If there ever was an unfair situation, then this one took the cake. It took all my self-control not to jump out of the wagon and stuff those whips and prods up those slavers’ arses.

  But all the fancy Sojo weaponry would do me little good against these heavily armed bastards. Well, I could take out the left with the needler and then use him as a shield to take out the—

  She hissed, “Sit down!”

  Only now, I realized I was halfway to the door. I wanted to say something but sat back down.

  The rattling of the wagon became more intense, and looking past the driver, I saw the lizard now really moving. The driver turned his head and yelled against the croaking noises, the wind, and the thumping of the lizard’s feet, “Just got the word over the squawk-box, we got a T 8 coming from the Glagadrinn. I sure hope we make it!”

  I turned to ask her, “What does he mean?”

  She pointed outside the back of the wagon and said as loud as she could and with concern in her voice, “Out there is the Glagadrinn, it’s the great desert. That gray funnel cloud coming our way is a tornado. If it reaches us before we reach the canyons, we are in serious trouble!”

  As I followed her pointing finger, I saw it, too; a monstrous funnel of dust-brown swirls and dust was coming toward us over the coverless flat landing field.

  The lizard was now running, whipped to speed by its owner; I could see sturdy stone buildings at the sides of a narrow gap between the enormous cliff walls. We were still at least two thousand meters away, and the tornado behind us was gaining fast! It reached the chain of slaves, who tried to outrun this terrible force of nature, without any chance. Even though the same fate would most likely reach us, too, I could not help but feel grim satisfaction to see one of the slavers, ripped off his feet like a weightless toy, sucked up and disappear in the swirling dust.

  We had tornadoes on Nilfeheim as well, and they were powerful and dangerous to any surface ship, especially in the first year of Shortsummer, but our burgs were sturdy and could withstand them. Being out on a flat surface in a wooden and metal contraption on wheels was something completely different. The howling of the wind made any conversation, no matter how loud I tried to yell, impossible. A thousand meters or less, the narrow gap and the sturdy stone buildings much closer now, but the lizard was at the end of its powers. I could tell as we slowed down!

  Everything rattled, vibrated; the gray and dust brown whirling wind behind us now so close I saw it as one solid wall.

  The tornado reached us. Up and down no longer had any meaning! I saw the canopy dissolving in a flash, pieces of wood. I tried to yell and hold her, but she was lifted and disappeared. Sand grains whipped to speed sanded and pelted me. The cloak gone, feeling the sand hammering my face with a painful stinging sensation, made me realize the Sojonit mask was gone as well. Something hard hit me over the head. Dazed, but not completely out, I finally fell and slammed like a wet fur hard on the rocky surface. Something hit me again, and that was all I remembered.

  How nice it was to float in the ice-cold oceans of Nilfeheim. I was gliding deeper into the dark green abyss. Not far away, I could see the blurred dark outlines of Olafson rock as it looked from underwater. I was not alone! Narth was swimming nearby, and so were Har-Hi and Wetmouth, even Cirruit and Krabbel. I also felt a huge unexplainable presence that reminded me of something I should know. Then my mind somehow reeled at the sight of seeing Cirruit and Krabbel swimming. Cirruit could not swim. Har-Hi hated water and Krabbel, my spider-like friend, was equally unsuited for this environment.

  As I put my mind around this strange sight, I began to realize this was a dream and I was slowly rising to the surface. No matter how much I wanted to stay, I drifted upward toward a bright light. The closer I went, the more I felt pain, and the last dream images faded away and were replaced by the sensation of lying on a hard surface. The first thing I really noticed was the grinding dry grid in my mouth and nostrils. I blinked and remembered where I was. I spat and coughed and opened my sand and dust-caked eyes.

  I was lying on the landing field, and to my surprise, it seemed that other than a few scratches and bumps, I had survived the tornado’s fury otherwise unharmed. Yet I could not get up!

  I cursed as I saw it was the lizard’s tail that was pinning me down. It was thick as two men and still attached to the big animal that was lying on its side, bleeding from numerous wounds. If I had to make a guess, I didn’t think it would survive much longer.

  I prodded myself up and tried to pull myself out from under that heavy fleshy weight. My efforts were successful; I was getting out.

  Looking around, I could not see the Mother Superior, just debris of the wagon, several bodies of slaves, and an Ogrh slaver. Just as I was about to pull completely free, something hit me just above the shoulder blades and then, while I could hear the hissing hum of high voltage and see blue sparks dance between my fingers, I convulsed in painful muscle cramps caused by some sort of shocker weapon.

  “On your feet, you piece of shit. The wind didn’t kill you, but if you don’t move and get back in line, I will!”

  I turned and saw a Togar warrior cat standing there like a black scissor cut against the blinding sun, bulging with muscles under its short fur, and holding a shocker prod with one hand and a whip in the other. “If you try to pretend to be hurt, I’ll kill you right here and now. We lost much merchandise; one more won’t make a difference.”

  “I am not a slave or your property. I came—”

  He flicked the whip across my chest. “I can tell you did not arrive on the Sorrow with us, but you are property of the Mulwhur Trading Company, now. Get up!”

  I noticed I was almost completely naked, only a few shreds of the Sojonit outfit had survived the sand-blasting fury of the tornado. The wig, the mask, and most of the body-altering costume accessories were gone; just a few shreds of bio-skin were hanging from my chest. To the Togar, I guess I looked just like any other human.

  He used his whip again, but this time I caught the whip’s end. I had been whipped by my father, and I had been tied to the post at the exercise yard at Camp Idyllic. I hated anyone using this cowardly weapon, and I pulled as hard as I could. He was a Togar, three or four heads taller, much stronger and like all members of his race known to be vicious fighters.

  But I was getting angrier by the moment. Angry at the situation, realizing I was stranded on a planet even farther away. Angry at these bastards enslaving humans, angry at Togars seeing humans as prey and food and angry at the world. I was no longer just a brawler of a backwater planet. I was a Union Fleet officer, and he would have to pay!

  I put all my weight into that pull. From the Neural uploads I had received at the Sojonit temple, I knew where Togars were most vulnerable and hammere
d my palm upward, aiming and hitting that gland and nerve cluster sitting right behind the cat-like creature’s lower jaw.

  With deep satisfaction, I felt something break, and followed up with a left blow to his kidneys, while he raked his clawed hand over my back. I felt the trickle of blood, while the Togar staggered back. I noticed the handle of a heavy-bladed knife on his leather harness, grabbed it with one hand as he tried to get a hold of my throat, and plunged it deep and repeatedly into his abdomen while his left claw closed around my throat.

  He gargled, spat blood into my face and sank to his knees. Holding the knife now with both hands, I brought it down right between his eyes above the elongated snout filled with inch-long fangs. I split his skull almost in half and kicked him in the chest. He was dead long before his body slumped into the dust.

  A blaster shot peppered the ground before my naked toes; an Oghar out of my imminent reach held an old Ult blaster aimed at me. He had rounded up three human slaves who now stood behind him. “You will bring much money! Now drop the knife!”

  One of the filth and sand-caked slaves, his hands already or still bound to his back, lowered his head and with a short spurt of speed, rammed his shoulder into the back of the Oghar.

  This did not bring the Oghar down but distracted him long enough so I could throw the knife. It was not well balanced and not a throwing knife at all. Instead of hitting the greenish-skinned brute tip first in the chest as I intended, it sliced a big chunk of flesh right off his left cheek. The Oghar howled in pain, spraying blood and firing two randomly aimed blasts in my general direction. Grabbing the dropped shocker prod my first opponent had dropped, I crossed the seven meters that separated us, simply ignoring the blaster shots, and rammed the prod with force deep into his open maw while pressing the activator at maximum intensity.

  The Oghar gurgled and collapsed, and I shoved the long prod with a sharp push deeper and held it there until the Oghar stopped twitching.

  The dirty man rolled over his shoulder, grabbed the Blaster with his hands still tied behind his back, fired, and vaporized the head of a third Slaver Togar running toward us.

  I looked around; the slaver ship was still there in the distance, too big to be really damaged by the Tornado, toward the other directions were the solid rock buildings and the knife-like cut into the thousand-meter-tall cliffs, marking the entrance to the canyon system the Sojonit Mother had told me about.

  Debris and bodies lay all around me, and I counted about fifteen slaves on their feet or slowly rising, but I did not see the Sojonit. If she had lost her costume and clothing like I did, she could have been among those standing and I would not know if she was one of them.

  I also noticed I could not see any slavers.

  The dirty man caked with sand, sweat and stinking filth that smelled awful, like human feces, turned toward me. From beneath the dirt, bright blue eyes and a set of white teeth smiled at me. “You fight like a banshee unleashed from Hell, my friend.” Unlike the Squawk the guards had used to talk to me, he spoke Union Standard.

  I cut his bonds and said, “And you shoot like the devil.”

  He got up, and we went to the other two slaves. One of them was human and now I noticed the short stance and the paper white skin of the completely hairless other being. Also basically human in proportions and shape, but with unusually high cheekbones, burning black eyes and a bloody crusted wound at the chin; this was a Kermac!

  The Union man, however, cut the Kermac’s bonds as well and the rest of the surviving slaves slowly gathered around us. I called and yelled for the Mother Superior, but I did not get an answer. None of the bodies I could see within reach looked as if it should belong to the woman. I knew next to nothing about the planet, but I was sure we could not stay here for too long. There were more slavers in that ship, I was certain, and perhaps those buildings near the canyon entrance contained even more. We had little options; we could try to reach the town, which meant certain capture. The desert meant certain death; there was no shade and no water. The only other alternative was to storm the slave-trader ship; it would also give us a chance to reach Union space.

  I told them exactly that, and they all agreed this was our only chance.

  Our ragtag group consisted of fifteen humans, two Klack, a Saresii, an Oghar and a Kermac. With me, we counted twenty-one. I almost shot the Oghar, but he wore a slave collar and his hands were tied as well. The dirty man with the blue eyes told me that the Oghar was from the Union Oghar and captured and enslaved just like the rest.

  The humans were the first who gathered anything usable as a weapon and the rest followed finally, even the Kermac. With obvious disgust in his face, he took a long piece of wood and carried it like a club.

  I fell into a fast trot, to cover the distance to the ship as fast as I could, hoping to manage to board it before they closed the boarding ramp. If there was anyone in there watching, our slim chance of boarding the ship would be gone if they closed that ramp!

  We had to make it. Somehow, we simply had to! That ugly piece of Velorian Fangsnapper dung, infested with armed slavers, was my only chance to see Union Space again and by Odin, I would. I would see it again! I was a Neo-Viking, I soon hoped to be a Union officer and then I would do my share to keep them safe. The heat was almost unbearable. No longer did I wear boots. I had left them underneath the tail of the lizard, and every step on this hot stone burned like hell.

  My sunburned skin felt doused by boiling oil, and I was certain I would look like a peeling tomato if I ever survived this. Despite all this, I somehow managed to run faster.

  My eyes were no longer protected by that technical marvel of a Sojonit mask; the sun was glaring, and the dust and grit chaffed what hadn’t been raw already. What an irony. I would die on this bone-dry world, running my feet to a bloody pulp.

  Somehow, I reached that ship, and now I saw why they had not closed the hatch. They had been waiting for us—two Oghar and a human.

  The human stood behind a portable Neuro Ripper, a big thing on a mechanical arm lowered from an opening in the ship’s hull. The two Oghar held slave prods and were armed with holstered blasters.

  The man behind the controls of the Neuro Ripper commanded me to stop at about ten meters’ distance; I did, but I could barely stand.

  He clapped his hands and said with a mocking laughing voice, “Most impressive, most impressive indeed. You look like a raw steak, my Union friend. I am assuming you are Union, right?”

  All that kept me on my feet was the rage I felt and wishing I could twist his head slowly from his body.

  Before I could answer, the man behind his cannon suddenly screamed, the muzzle of the ripper swung around, and I heard the high-pitched hum, the inhuman agony the two Oghar guards felt as they collapsed while every nerve ending in their body overloaded their brains with pain impulses. I heard similar screams of agony from inside the open hatch as the ripper sent its waves inside the ship.

  I did not wait to find out why this miracle happened and bolted the rest of the way, pulled the stunned and perplexed human off his seat and said, “I am going to expose your body piece by piece to that Neuro Ripper beam until you tell me the access codes for this ship!”

  He gurgled and struggled. “There are no access codes! This thing was stolen eighty years ago in the first place! Access codes! You must be a Union man, psionic talents to boot. I should have fired at you while I had the chance.”

  I shook him. “I am Midshipman Olafson, currently assigned to the USS Devastator and you can tell that to whoever you meet next!”

  He blinked. “You letting me go?”

  I fired the old Ult blaster point blank in his chest while I held him with my other fist and grunted to his corpse, “Not bloody likely! Slave trading scumbag!”

  The Kermac and the Saresii woman, helping each other, limped closer and the woman said, “That was the first known Kermac Saresii psionic cooperation in history, my psionic energies, his telekinesis.”

  “I think
we can celebrate this later. Let’s get everyone in and see if there is anyone left alive and then I suggest we try to leave this place!”

  The ship was in no better condition inside than it was outside, but at least the rest of the crew was either dead or on the verge of dying and we helped them along. Somehow, I could not find an iota of mercy within myself when dealing with these slavers. I could understand how a man or a woman could find piracy appealing. But to take a being’s liberty, to treat a thinking person like that and take away all their dignity and their freedom was worse than killing someone in my opinion.

  The ship stank and its cargo holds had been transformed into cages with filthy rotten straw and sawdust on the floors for comfort and to absorb whatever bodily waste.

  The engine room was a mess, and it reminded me of Rocinante, the ship I had taken from pirates near the Igras Expanse. It had the appearance that the art of engineering and keeping a clean and well-organized engineering department was something only important to the engineers and crews of the Union Fleet.

  At least it was all from the same source of technology. Not that I was an engineer or had any real experience with alien technology, but all the base components needed to fly a spaceship seemed to be there.

  I was really hurting now; the sunburn was bad, and I felt woozy and suspected I had a light heat stroke.

  The ship, to our combined relief, did have a sickbay, and it was surprisingly well equipped. Dirty, disarrayed, but well equipped. The dirty man explained that the slave traders used it to treat slaves they thought could bring more money if healthy.

  It took much longer than I liked to fix and doctor us up, identifying the various machines and drugs. The dirty man and I appeared to be the only ones with any medical skills until one of the Klack revealed he was an MD.

  At first, I was angry at the ant-like being for not coming forward, but again the dirty man told me that it took Klack much longer to adapt to new social situations and once they did, they functioned like robots.