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Description
Rattled

The Hell-Hawk’s bridge wasn’t a large room; the floor sloped downwards towards the front and set into it were three bucket-seats that fanned from a central point. They looked as though they may have once been comfortable, if not for years of use. Arranged around each seat was a digital consol and a pair of joysticks arranged in a fashion so they could fold, extend and retract as needed. They resembled the cockpit portion of a fighter. There was about enough room along the outside of the seats in the floor for a person to walk comfortably. The ship’s forward observation port was made of Shift-Glass and it sloped gently over the setup. Behind the cockpit sections were more consoles. These were built up from the floor and were U shaped. A rotating captain’s-chair was situated inside each of these U shaped consoles and each had a screen, along with a board of input keys.
Roderick was inputting set points at one of these when a buzzer on the consol went off. The Hell-Hawk was now in orbit betwixt Hydrotitan and Thai station. The ship’s sensor arrays were conforming what the three drifters could see for themselves. Incoming from a mass of black and silver warships was a miniature fleet of Czardekei boarding craft. Their intentions apparently were to intercept all craft fleeing from the station. Kit could see other fleeing Jumpers being boarded. The clan knew they couldn’t out run them like this, between a planet and what was left of Thai station. Roderick hoped that enough Jumpers were fleeing that they’d blend in, but in his heart, he knew better.

“We’re not in the green yet boys!” Jade said, realizing more trouble was on its way. She input a command that turned the forward Shift-Glass opaque. This function realigned the molecules in the material, strengthening it. It was meant for reentering atmosphere, but had long since proven an essential defense in the case of the ship coming under attack.
The defenses up, she turned on Kit, ready to knock his metal canines out for delaying them at the station. In her mind, they could have been gone long before all this happened, if only they’d stayed a course of get in and get out. She still had a sense of battle high rushing through her, and in her heart there was a rage building from standing witness to the destruction of Thai station itself.
The clanswoman raised her fist to Kit, intending to deal with her inner strife the only way she really knew how. Kit was ready for it, but to his surprise, Roderick caught her fist before she could bring it down on their shipmate. He placed his other hand on her shoulder and mouthed something Kit didn’t understand. Although he was standing behind her, Jade somehow sensed the words her brother had mouthed and she relaxed a little and appeared to regain her composure. “It’s not his fault,” her brother had said to her in the words of their ancestors. Kit felt suddenly like he shouldn’t be there, as he always did when he heard one of the siblings speak that airy tongue which sounded like nothing he’d ever heard elsewhere.
The three of them stood on the bridge in silence a moment. Thai station rained down on The Drip in massive chunks. OthaKit left the two siblings on the bridge and made his way to the engineering deck. Khrystilsha had fallen into step behind him. The two of them began attempting to devise a means of either escape or defense. Escape would have been ideal.
The girl was neither mute, nor def, but in spite of being perfectly capable of speech, she outright refused to communicate verbally. It was something Kit had long since accepted. The most direct of the ways by which Khryst and Kit communicated with each other was by signing back and forth to one another. Khryst had been around for skirmishes with the Czardekei before; in spite of her young age, she had a thorough understanding of the gravity of their situation.
Still on the bridge, Jade was working the joysticks that were the helm controls into evasive maneuvers. It wasn’t something she was good at, but Roderick simply did not fit into the bucket seat at the front of the bridge. With the forward Shift-Glass opaqued, she was forced to rely on the small projection of their surroundings in the consol. She did, however know what the Sards were trying for. The boarding craft would shortly be hailing them to open their hanger and prepare to be boarded.
The clan knew that standard operating procedure with Czardekei arrests was to hail, warn, and open fire on the noncompliant. That was unless for whatever reason the zealots wanted one alive. It was that simple, and very few arrests, as far as they were aware, resulted in anything less than a firefight. Kit had no clue why they’d want him alive and he had no intention of doing as he was sure they’d order. He was on the engineering deck, prepping everything for a speedy departure. His judgment told him they were too close to the planet for a jump, but the drifter didn’t see any other options.
Ideas of escape soon vanished however, when more buzzers throughout the ship started going off. The blare was deafening. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Kit yelled. The boarding craft had arrived and was waiting just outside the Hell-Hawk’s hanger. Jade passed her hands over an array of buttons and to Kit’s surprise, opened the Hanger, allowing the boarding craft to land in the ship bay.
“Um... Jewels, why are we rolling out the welcome mat?” Kit asked, speaking into a Comm on the wall, with a lost tone in his words.
“If I hadn’t, they’d have blasted the doors open.” Kit heard Jade’s womanly voice declare. The clanswoman spoke into a receiver on her consol. “This way prevents unnecessary damage to the ship.”
Roderick was making his own way to the engineering deck; his heavy boots made the grated floor rattle as he ducked through distressed, metaplast passageways and past chemically lit corridors to miscellaneous storage rooms. Occasionally there would be an open panel with exposed circuitry in the back ground, or uncovered ventilation ports.

The sides of the small rectangular boarding craft slid open and a troupe of ten Czardekei shock troopers filed out, assuming by open doors they’d meet little resistance. The leader walked over to the Comm on the wall and began, in a thick accent, addressing the clan. “Crew of zis vessel! Make jour vay to zis vessel’s ‘anger immediately. Failure to comply vill result in execution und seizer of zis vessel. Jou ‘ave vente seconds to respond.”
None of the clan had any intention of complying, but they hadn’t yet put together a solid defensive strategy. Nine of the ten soldiers were fanning out. One, the pilot, stayed behind to watch their craft. The clan’s twenty seconds didn’t last long. Roderick ducked into the engine compartment and joined Kit and Khrystilsha in the engine bay. Kit was tinkering with the ship’s components. He’d fill Roderick in on what he was doing in a moment. With poorly contained mirth, the drifter flipped a switch.
Suddenly, the power went down and the soldiers were surprised when everything around them went dark. Surprised, but not otherwise effected. Some emergency lights kicked in a moment later, casting eerie shadows over the walls from broken reflectors. The poorly maintained circuitry was unstable and in many places the emergency lights would flicker in and out, while in other places they didn’t work at all. The innards of the Hell-Hawk were now an inky unknown down these unlit corridors.
A few minutes went by and Kit was still scrambling around the engine bay when over the comm, Jade informed him, “They’re getting close.” She was watching projections of the corridors from the consol.
“Try and protect the bridge,” Kit told her, although he knew he didn’t need to. He tried to sound calm, but was unsuccessful.
Jade would have told him she didn’t need him to tell her what to do, but she was only giving him about half of her attention. With the other half, she was inspecting her own brace of matching revolvers. They were built with double barrels; one stacked atop the other and chambered for very large pistol cartridges. Each held six shots in a cylinder that swung out from a pivot point between the two barrels. She held the one loaded with hallow-pointed rounds and rolled the cylinder over the arm of her armored leather duster. The gun was loaded, the roll was smooth and the gentle clicks were consistent. She looked down the sights and the alignment was true. She returned the revolver to its holster on a double layered bandolier, loosely around her waist. From a holster at the small of her back, anchored to her belt, she drew the next pistol and repeated the inspection. Her heart and mind were racing in tandem.

Out of ideas, Kit asked Khyrst what to do next, but the girl-child simply shrugged. The clan knew if a confrontation were to occur, the bridge and engine bay were the absolute worst places for it. The ship’s components were just as vulnerable to gunfire as the crew themselves were. But the engine bay was the easiest place on board to defend. It had only one entrance and the passage leading to it served to bottle neck aggressors into easy line of sight.

“Jade you need to keep these shits from fuckin’ with the ship’s controls!” Kit told her over the Comm, but by now she was completely ignoring him.
There was a solution to this mess, Kit knew it. In the time he had been on the Hell-Hawk, several modifications had been made, including equipping it with all manner of sensor masks. Kit and Khryst took off deeper into the mechanicals deck. The drifters’ paranoia had also prompted the installation of a sub-bridge compartment, from which the most basic of the Jumper’s functions could be implemented. This compartment also served as an improvised security station, meant for exactly the situation they found themselves in presently. They always thought it would be pirates they’d be defending themselves against though, not armored shock troops. Kit turned on a jamming signal that was supposed to disrupt all communications within the ship. Its effectiveness was somewhat hit and miss; the clan’s personal Comms had an indicator light that would be green if reception was clear. Once the Jamming signal was engaged, their Comms’ indicator began to fade in and out at random.

Shortly after that, the Sard who remained with the boarding craft picked up a signal informing him that all the ship’s emergency escape pods had just jettisoned in rapid succession. He conducted a scan that confirmed the ship’s twelve life rafts were now falling into the Drip’s atmosphere. “’ay. I think they all jus’ bailed.” The pilot spoke, ignorant to the fallacy of his readings. He spoke his native tongue into the consol to his fellow Czardekei.
“We’ll check it out.” The leader replied in the language they spoke amongst themselves.
The clan intended to milk the benefits of a territorial advantage. “I always knew some’a this shit would serve a purpose,” jested Kit to his young tag-along. She looked at him and could see he was trying to reassure himself more so than trying to reassure her. His idea seemed to be working. Deep down, the young drifter wished they’d just blasted the hell out of the boarding craft upon its approach with the Hell-Hawk’s deck guns, but he knew that probably would have drawn the same kind of attention to the Hawk as the red pirate-shiphad drawn to itself when it tore its way away from Thai station.

Roderick brooded in the engine bay, feeling very much in the background. His faith in Kit stretched to the point that he didn't think Kit actually knew what he was doing, but he let it be. He knew that Kit knew more about the equipment than he did. So he focused on what he could do. Roderick did not yet have a role in the plan to play, and it was damaging the giant's calm nature. It was only a matter of time before the boarding party that was scouring their home ventured into depths of the Hell-Hawk and they both knew it.
He drew the large automatic pistol from the holster behind the satchel at the small of his back and pulled the slide back once, then let it fly forward of its own accord, chambering the first bullet. The gun was mundane in comparison to his sister’s revolvers, in spite of its lengthy muzzle, for a pistol. Roderick didn’t care; the pistol wasn’t what he trusted his life to. He recalled being told as a youth, “Only a fool trusts his life to a weapon.” He looked at it a moment, then remembered how the bullets had ricocheted off the troopers’ armor when Donovan shot at them back on Thai station. The poor apprentice gunsmith, short sighted as he turned out to be, was shooting at the Sards with a gun a lot more powerful than Roderick’s. He returned the thing to its holster and drew his sword, remembering that it was possible to stab through most bullet proofing.
Kit looked around and realized Khryst had gone off on her own. In his head the drifter cursed. He was afraid the girl would do something like this; she was very capable of escaping his notice as she moved without disturbing the loose floor gratings. He felt instantly responsible, as he’d neglected to tell her not to run off, although weather she would have headed such instruction, he couldn’t guarantee. This wouldn’t be the first time the child’s inquisitive nature had gotten her into trouble.

Khryst had left the mechanicals deck and now she was doing exactly what Kit feared she would. The little girl was actually stalking the troops. She knew the layout of the ship well enough; she felt she could do this with little fear of being discovered, adept at moving silently on her bare feet as she was. Seeing while remaining unseen was a concept Khryst was very familiar with. So long as she felt hidden, her skittishness was as though it was but a half forgotten memory. However it was a memory she was very quickly reminded of if her cover was ever blown, such as when she fell on Jade just a few hours earlier.
She had no intention of fighting these troops. She wasn’t exactly defenseless, but there were several more of them than of her. Plus, they all had guns.
She spied on the soldiers with morbid curiosity. The Czardekei she’d seen before were of the localized variety, which seemed to be a whole different animal. She was intrigued by their appearance and mannerisms.
They wore figure fitting, one piece body suits with synthetic, segmented armor plating over all except the bends in their joints. A high collar piece protected their necks and the material between the sections looked to be some sort of thick, tight mesh. Some wore gloves that seemed to be one with the rest of their armor, others wore fingerless shooting gloves. On their boots was a row of small hooks that protruded from the boots’ rectangular toes. The boots appeared to meld seamlessly to the rest of their armor. One had a knife in a scabbard anchored to his armor just beneath his collarbone; blade pointed upwards. Others carried edged weapons ready to be drawn from their hips. Some wore a helm, some did not, but they all wore a mask that hugged their heads and covered their ears, yet left their hair exposed. These masks vaguely resembled a skull, but not in a manner that made it appear intentional.
Although they did not all have on a helm, the ones who did had turned on a dim blue light with which the helmets were equipped. A similar light was built onto their guns. Even without these, Khryst’s keen eyes could have made out plenty of detail in the dark.
They moved as if a squad of enemy soldiers were laying in wait throughout the Demi-Jumper. She quickly bored with their lack of dialog though. Most of their communication occurred as hand gestures she didn’t yet understand. When they did speak to each other, it wasn’t in a language she understood. In spite of this, Khryst still enjoyed their speech. It was different than anything she was used to. It sounded precise and articulate.
For what seemed to be a very long time, the girl watched the soldiers. Interested in all forms of sign language, Khryst watched their signed gestures, and then watched for the return gesture; it wasn’t long before the girl gained a rough understanding of what it was the soldiers were saying to one another. Most of it was uninteresting single word messages: “Follow,” “Leading,” “Careful,” “Point,” “Flanks,” and other such tactical dribble. She didn’t learn the specific words, but she caught onto the meanings behind them.
She observed the bodies of the soldier’s guns: they were short, bulky carbines, with no stock and they had long, thick magazines and an elaborate site apparatus. At the front of these assault carbines was a bolt onto which a bayonet could be anchored. Khryst concluded it wasn’t something she wanted to be on the other end of. She took special care to remain stealthy enough as she stalked them to ensure they didn’t feel they had anything to shoot at. Something the Czardekei were known for was overkill. Their soldiers were never issued anything that shot a reasonably sized bullet. These were all carrying a close quarters combat load-out, which was built around standard assault carbines, equipped with Master Keys; an under-barrel shotgun used primarily for opening locked doors.

From the pieced together security station, Kit watched the holograms. They rendered the same shimmery image, regardless of lighting. The hologram projectors were gas filled, glass cubes anchored to an apparatus on the consol that projected the three dimensional image into the contained haze. They were newer than the screens on the bridge. Kit watched the small girl a moment more and decided she didn’t have the situation as in had she obviously felt she did. Roderick watched from over Kit’s shoulder. “I’ve got to go get her.” Kit said, beginning to panic. “I’ve got-”
“To what? Fight off a whole troupe of Shock Troopers we know we can’t shoot at?” Roderick interjected. Kit looked into the silver rings that were Roderick’s irises. The giant put a lot of effort into being hard to read, and at the moment he was doing a better job of it than usual. He stood there with his arms crossed, looking down at Kit with no expression at all.
“What would you have me do?!” Kit shouted at him in frustration. The drifter knew Roderick had never been particularly fond of Khryst and he never could for the life of him comprehend why. As far as he was concerned the girl was harmless, albeit something on the eccentric side; she kept very much to herself. Still, Kit didn’t believe Roderick wanted to see anything happen to the small blond girl-child.
“I’d not have you march into the dragon’s lair as the child has. You’re the adult OthaKit.” Kit knew his comrade was right, but he knew Khyst had gotten in over her head. The idea that she’d learned how to do that from him rang in the back of Kit’s head just loud enough to add to the point Roderick was trying to make. “We aint the ones in the dragon’s lair.” Kit said coldly as he flicked his wrist and flipped a butterfly-knife open. The rhythmic click-clacking resounded off the compartment’s metaplast walls. Roderick let out a sigh, then, gesturing to the array of buttons and screens, he asked, “This stuff need any more of your attention?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then let’s go.”

Several of the boarding party had separated from the procession. Nine was something of a lot of people to be clumped together when there was a whole Jumper to scout out. Three set off in the direction they surmised the bridge would be. Three others continued along a path leading deeper into the Jumper, towards the engineering compartment. The final trio set off for the Jumper’s escape pods for the purpose of confirming that they’d been jettisoned as the readings indicated. One member of each threesome carried a device which mapped out their surroundings by pinging a signal off of the walls, which echoed back to the device and created a three dimensional rendering of their environment
Khryst followed this third group; although she herself had no inkling the trio of trios had any set destination. They hadn’t communicated it in any way the girl was able to discern. They continued on in the dark, along the grated floor of the passageway, past dingy, unremarkable inner-ship scenery. Occasionally they would poke their guns into a lower storage room, or voice a comment about something mundane, but for the most part the Sards were beginning to find this endeavor routine to the point of boring.
Absently, one the Czardekei took off his skullish mask and anchored it to his right shoulder so that it resembled a sort of pauldron. As if on cue, his two companions did the same thing. Khryst observed in awe that they looked like brothers. Very nearly they looked like triplets, except their resemblance wasn’t quite that distinct. Their hair was neither short, nor long, but something of an average length of dull brown, their faces were ovular and unassuming. Their age was nigh impossible to ascertain by looking at their facial features. They appeared to be more than youths, yet less than experienced. They had hazel eyes and were for the most part very plane. If seen in a crowd and out of uniform these humans would likely gain no attention at all on account of their appearance. They continued at an obviously more relaxed pace.
After a time, Khryst came to realize that these three Sards she was following were trying to ascertain the location of Hawk’s escape pods. She watched them sign to one another for some time before she became able to interpret that piece of the conversation. Listening to them speak yielded nothing since she had no understanding of their language. The small blond girl-child didn’t know how much it would matter if they knew their readings were false, but she supposed it would give them reason to resume the alert they now seemed to have abandoned. Khryst decided to do something to prevent them finding what it was they were looking for. She set out to distract them. Her means was nothing short of reckless

Jade was on the bridge still. She could hear the footsteps of the three soldiers in the corridor outside. They’d made it to their destination after a bit of trial and error exploration. Immediately Jade’s hands held the two over-under barreled revolvers she carried. She heard them cursing into their Comms, imploring their squad mates to respond. Although she didn’t understand their words, Jade could tell they were frustrated with their hardware. The Internal communications jammer appeared to actually be doing its job to her surprise. She noticed the light on her own Comm flickering red rather than green.
The Sard at the front of the trio entered the bridge. His companions hung back, waiting for the all-clear. In his complacency he too had taken off his mask and presently wore it on his shoulder, and his gun was hanging from a strap around his chest rather than in his hands. He didn’t expect to have need of it by this point, but the soldier saw how wrong he was the moment he entered the compartment.
In a caption’s chair sat a clanswoman. She was as tall as a man of decent height. She sat in her chair bathed in the glow of the emergency lights, legs crossed as a man would and her arms folded across her ample breasts, apparently oblivious to the world, or so it seemed to the soldier. Her hair was the color of dried blood. Aside from lose strands and a lock which hung over her face, its length was wrapped in fabric, pulling it tight against her head and coiled about her shoulders so as not to drag the ground; it was very, very long. Another lock, behind her left ear was adorned with colorful beads.
The human stared into the cold blue rings around the white pupil of the clanswoman’s eyes. Contrasted by the black scleras, synonymous with clansmen, they were like ringed moons in starless skies. The soldier recognized that these eyes, although young, held no youth and reflected genuine experience. Her face was clean, angular and pale, marred only by a light scar which briefly interrupted her right eyebrow. A wire coiled through multiple piercings along the underside of both of her pointed ears, and held at the bottom of their lobes a small chain composed of three decorative links.
Her womanly figure was obscured beneath an armored, black leather duster-coat with segmented pauldrons over its shoulders and upper arms. There was also a single plate along her upper back, connecting the pauldrons on the shoulders. This segmented armor had clearly seen much use and was rimmed with some sort of golden metal. The coat came together in the front with hook and eye clasps, but these didn’t appear to see much use. Around her waist was a broad bandolier with two layers of very large pistol shells on it, and an empty holster. Had he not been so entranced, the solder would have (should have) thought to wonder where the gun was. This clanswoman’s pants were old, urban combat ware, held up by a tactical belt and not really as long as they should have been, falling several inches short of the ankles of her high, strapped boots.
The soldier took another step into the room, reaching for his gun as he did so. His hand never made it to the gun however, because as soon as he took his second step, Jade shot him square in the face, killing him instantly, as far as she knew. His squad-mates heard the gunshot and in their chests they felt a rush of panic. Immediately they ran to investigate the shot, knowing it full well for what it was.
They came into the compartment and saw their comrade’s body at her feet.
“Jou FUCKIN’ CUNT!” one shouted. He skipped asking who she was and opened fire, completely unloading his assault rifle in her direction. He said it in the trade language and she understood the insult perfectly.
“Dammit all!” thought Jade as she dodged behind some navigation equipment. The bridge was a poor choice of place for a skirmish. She didn’t realize the one she’d shot already hadn’t been alone She knew it was her own fault for not watching the surveillance feed from the consol. The fire stopped momentarily when the Czardekei realized their bullets weren’t completely penetrating the equipment she was behind. As soon as the chance presented its self, Jade stood up and moved several rounds of her own from her revolvers to their armor, only to be disappointed when the bullets ricocheted into bridge’s scenery. She knew the shift-glass was safe, but she hoped the instruments weren’t getting hit as she strafed around the room, dodging bursts of assault-rifle Fire. Jade continued shooting back, but she soon realized it was just a waste of ammunition if she couldn’t hit them in the face. One of her own bullets had bounced off their armor and grazed the metal plating on her shoulder. Her twelve shots were soon spent. Jade knew she had to come up with some alternate method of dispatching these two. She hoped their fellow zealots wouldn’t hear the firefight. The lights shorted out suddenly and Jade thought to herself that maybe things were in her favor after all.

The two soldiers stopped shooting when they couldn’t find their target. Jade was taking advantage of the darkness and had made her way to the corridor, where she found time to reload her guns. It had been over a year since the clan’s last close up encounter with Czardekei. They’d obviously improved their defensive armor to the point standard projectiles wouldn’t penetrate it. At least that was the effect of her pistol rounds.
Withdrawing hallow-points from the top row on her bandolier, Jade loaded one revolver, and then with solid pointed rounds she loaded the other. She slipped off her armored duster to improve her ability to be silent as she moved. She made her way back onto the bridge, thankful that she knew its layout well enough the darkness only minimally impeded her. Stealthily Jade came up behind one of the two and shot him point blank in the back of the head. Her hope was for the bullet to penetrate, but instead it just knocked the man’s head forward and made a great deal of electric noise as the bullet bounced off the man’s armor back into her own pistol, knocking it out of her hand and almost certainly causing damage to the gun itself, although she didn’t have time to retrieve it and check. The gunshot alerted the other Sard to her position as the one she’d shot stumbled forward and off his balance. He dropped his gun, which in this one’s case wasn’t strapped to his chest, so it clattered to the floor and without his hand on the grip, its light went out.
As the first was stumbling, the other one reacted to the noise and began shooting blindly in the dark in the direction from which he’d heard the gunshot, oblivious that he was shooting into the his comrade’s exposed cranium. Just at that moment the lights came back on and he saw what he’d done. Jade heard him curse in his own language. “GOD DAMMIT!” exclaimed the shooter as he realized what he’d done and rushed to his fallen. So focused was he on his dead squad-mate, he didn’t see Jade aiming her revolver at him before she landed a slug in his forhead. To her surprise, the bullet didn’t exit the back of his skull as she’d expected it to.
Three Sards now dead and on the floor, Jade plopped down in her usual chair and surveyed the damage to the room. It was pretty bad, but the damage to the bridge wasn’t at the top of her priority list at the moment. One of their bullets had managed to find her thigh, just above her knee.
It wasn’t a direct hit, but it sure hurt like hell, and she knew she wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry. She tore open the pant-leg over her right thigh and inspected the damage. She was grateful for the time she’d spent as a field medic as she assessed the wound; she knew it would heal, but that didn’t make her feel any better about it right now. A bullet had passed through the flesh of her thigh but managed to not hit bone or any major arteries. “A flesh wound,” she thought. The renewed combat high was keeping it from hurting as bad now as she expected it would later. Jade hobbled to a cabinet situated on the back wall of the compartment which contained first aid and basic medical paraphernalia.
From it she retrieved a suture kit with which to sew closed the hole, and a pair of forceps. Her skilled hands made short work of retrieving the bullet and sewing the hole shut. It was a task she’d done many, many times before, though not usually on herself. The first aid supplies also contained a powerful pain killer that insured the wound wouldn’t inhibit her further for several hours. She wrapped her thigh in bandages, and then laid back in the chair to catch her breath.
Jade had just decided to rest a moment longer before telling the guys about the skirmish on the bridge when gravity died. “Dammit,” said she in a flat, almost not caring voice. There was only one thing that would cause the gravity to fail and it was bad. “Something must be goin’ down on the engine deck.” Said Jade to herself as she got up, floated, and skipped her way to one of the consoles. Ironically the dead gravity was something of a personal blessing as it kept her from needing to put too much pressure on the wounded leg.

Description
Rattled

The Hell-Hawk’s bridge wasn’t a large room; the floor sloped downwards towards the front and set into it were three bucket-seats that fanned from a central point. They looked as though they may have once been comfortable, if not for years of use. Arranged around each seat was a digital consol and a pair of joysticks arranged in a fashion so they could fold, extend and retract as needed. They resembled the cockpit portion of a fighter. There was about enough room along the outside of the seats in the floor for a person to walk comfortably. The ship’s forward observation port was made of Shift-Glass and it sloped gently over the setup. Behind the cockpit sections were more consoles. These were built up from the floor and were U shaped. A rotating captain’s-chair was situated inside each of these U shaped consoles and each had a screen, along with a board of input keys.
Roderick was inputting set points at one of these when a buzzer on the consol went off. The Hell-Hawk was now in orbit betwixt Hydrotitan and Thai station. The ship’s sensor arrays were conforming what the three drifters could see for themselves. Incoming from a mass of black and silver warships was a miniature fleet of Czardekei boarding craft. Their intentions apparently were to intercept all craft fleeing from the station. Kit could see other fleeing Jumpers being boarded. The clan knew they couldn’t out run them like this, between a planet and what was left of Thai station. Roderick hoped that enough Jumpers were fleeing that they’d blend in, but in his heart, he knew better.

“We’re not in the green yet boys!” Jade said, realizing more trouble was on its way. She input a command that turned the forward Shift-Glass opaque. This function realigned the molecules in the material, strengthening it. It was meant for reentering atmosphere, but had long since proven an essential defense in the case of the ship coming under attack.
The defenses up, she turned on Kit, ready to knock his metal canines out for delaying them at the station. In her mind, they could have been gone long before all this happened, if only they’d stayed a course of get in and get out. She still had a sense of battle high rushing through her, and in her heart there was a rage building from standing witness to the destruction of Thai station itself.
The clanswoman raised her fist to Kit, intending to deal with her inner strife the only way she really knew how. Kit was ready for it, but to his surprise, Roderick caught her fist before she could bring it down on their shipmate. He placed his other hand on her shoulder and mouthed something Kit didn’t understand. Although he was standing behind her, Jade somehow sensed the words her brother had mouthed and she relaxed a little and appeared to regain her composure. “It’s not his fault,” her brother had said to her in the words of their ancestors. Kit felt suddenly like he shouldn’t be there, as he always did when he heard one of the siblings speak that airy tongue which sounded like nothing he’d ever heard elsewhere.
The three of them stood on the bridge in silence a moment. Thai station rained down on The Drip in massive chunks. OthaKit left the two siblings on the bridge and made his way to the engineering deck. Khrystilsha had fallen into step behind him. The two of them began attempting to devise a means of either escape or defense. Escape would have been ideal.
The girl was neither mute, nor def, but in spite of being perfectly capable of speech, she outright refused to communicate verbally. It was something Kit had long since accepted. The most direct of the ways by which Khryst and Kit communicated with each other was by signing back and forth to one another. Khryst had been around for skirmishes with the Czardekei before; in spite of her young age, she had a thorough understanding of the gravity of their situation.
Still on the bridge, Jade was working the joysticks that were the helm controls into evasive maneuvers. It wasn’t something she was good at, but Roderick simply did not fit into the bucket seat at the front of the bridge. With the forward Shift-Glass opaqued, she was forced to rely on the small projection of their surroundings in the consol. She did, however know what the Sards were trying for. The boarding craft would shortly be hailing them to open their hanger and prepare to be boarded.
The clan knew that standard operating procedure with Czardekei arrests was to hail, warn, and open fire on the noncompliant. That was unless for whatever reason the zealots wanted one alive. It was that simple, and very few arrests, as far as they were aware, resulted in anything less than a firefight. Kit had no clue why they’d want him alive and he had no intention of doing as he was sure they’d order. He was on the engineering deck, prepping everything for a speedy departure. His judgment told him they were too close to the planet for a jump, but the drifter didn’t see any other options.
Ideas of escape soon vanished however, when more buzzers throughout the ship started going off. The blare was deafening. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Kit yelled. The boarding craft had arrived and was waiting just outside the Hell-Hawk’s hanger. Jade passed her hands over an array of buttons and to Kit’s surprise, opened the Hanger, allowing the boarding craft to land in the ship bay.
“Um... Jewels, why are we rolling out the welcome mat?” Kit asked, speaking into a Comm on the wall, with a lost tone in his words.
“If I hadn’t, they’d have blasted the doors open.” Kit heard Jade’s womanly voice declare. The clanswoman spoke into a receiver on her consol. “This way prevents unnecessary damage to the ship.”
Roderick was making his own way to the engineering deck; his heavy boots made the grated floor rattle as he ducked through distressed, metaplast passageways and past chemically lit corridors to miscellaneous storage rooms. Occasionally there would be an open panel with exposed circuitry in the back ground, or uncovered ventilation ports.

The sides of the small rectangular boarding craft slid open and a troupe of ten Czardekei shock troopers filed out, assuming by open doors they’d meet little resistance. The leader walked over to the Comm on the wall and began, in a thick accent, addressing the clan. “Crew of zis vessel! Make jour vay to zis vessel’s ‘anger immediately. Failure to comply vill result in execution und seizer of zis vessel. Jou ‘ave vente seconds to respond.”
None of the clan had any intention of complying, but they hadn’t yet put together a solid defensive strategy. Nine of the ten soldiers were fanning out. One, the pilot, stayed behind to watch their craft. The clan’s twenty seconds didn’t last long. Roderick ducked into the engine compartment and joined Kit and Khrystilsha in the engine bay. Kit was tinkering with the ship’s components. He’d fill Roderick in on what he was doing in a moment. With poorly contained mirth, the drifter flipped a switch.
Suddenly, the power went down and the soldiers were surprised when everything around them went dark. Surprised, but not otherwise effected. Some emergency lights kicked in a moment later, casting eerie shadows over the walls from broken reflectors. The poorly maintained circuitry was unstable and in many places the emergency lights would flicker in and out, while in other places they didn’t work at all. The innards of the Hell-Hawk were now an inky unknown down these unlit corridors.
A few minutes went by and Kit was still scrambling around the engine bay when over the comm, Jade informed him, “They’re getting close.” She was watching projections of the corridors from the consol.
“Try and protect the bridge,” Kit told her, although he knew he didn’t need to. He tried to sound calm, but was unsuccessful.
Jade would have told him she didn’t need him to tell her what to do, but she was only giving him about half of her attention. With the other half, she was inspecting her own brace of matching revolvers. They were built with double barrels; one stacked atop the other and chambered for very large pistol cartridges. Each held six shots in a cylinder that swung out from a pivot point between the two barrels. She held the one loaded with hallow-pointed rounds and rolled the cylinder over the arm of her armored leather duster. The gun was loaded, the roll was smooth and the gentle clicks were consistent. She looked down the sights and the alignment was true. She returned the revolver to its holster on a double layered bandolier, loosely around her waist. From a holster at the small of her back, anchored to her belt, she drew the next pistol and repeated the inspection. Her heart and mind were racing in tandem.

Out of ideas, Kit asked Khyrst what to do next, but the girl-child simply shrugged. The clan knew if a confrontation were to occur, the bridge and engine bay were the absolute worst places for it. The ship’s components were just as vulnerable to gunfire as the crew themselves were. But the engine bay was the easiest place on board to defend. It had only one entrance and the passage leading to it served to bottle neck aggressors into easy line of sight.

“Jade you need to keep these shits from fuckin’ with the ship’s controls!” Kit told her over the Comm, but by now she was completely ignoring him.
There was a solution to this mess, Kit knew it. In the time he had been on the Hell-Hawk, several modifications had been made, including equipping it with all manner of sensor masks. Kit and Khryst took off deeper into the mechanicals deck. The drifters’ paranoia had also prompted the installation of a sub-bridge compartment, from which the most basic of the Jumper’s functions could be implemented. This compartment also served as an improvised security station, meant for exactly the situation they found themselves in presently. They always thought it would be pirates they’d be defending themselves against though, not armored shock troops. Kit turned on a jamming signal that was supposed to disrupt all communications within the ship. Its effectiveness was somewhat hit and miss; the clan’s personal Comms had an indicator light that would be green if reception was clear. Once the Jamming signal was engaged, their Comms’ indicator began to fade in and out at random.

Shortly after that, the Sard who remained with the boarding craft picked up a signal informing him that all the ship’s emergency escape pods had just jettisoned in rapid succession. He conducted a scan that confirmed the ship’s twelve life rafts were now falling into the Drip’s atmosphere. “’ay. I think they all jus’ bailed.” The pilot spoke, ignorant to the fallacy of his readings. He spoke his native tongue into the consol to his fellow Czardekei.
“We’ll check it out.” The leader replied in the language they spoke amongst themselves.
The clan intended to milk the benefits of a territorial advantage. “I always knew some’a this shit would serve a purpose,” jested Kit to his young tag-along. She looked at him and could see he was trying to reassure himself more so than trying to reassure her. His idea seemed to be working. Deep down, the young drifter wished they’d just blasted the hell out of the boarding craft upon its approach with the Hell-Hawk’s deck guns, but he knew that probably would have drawn the same kind of attention to the Hawk as the red pirate-shiphad drawn to itself when it tore its way away from Thai station.

Roderick brooded in the engine bay, feeling very much in the background. His faith in Kit stretched to the point that he didn't think Kit actually knew what he was doing, but he let it be. He knew that Kit knew more about the equipment than he did. So he focused on what he could do. Roderick did not yet have a role in the plan to play, and it was damaging the giant's calm nature. It was only a matter of time before the boarding party that was scouring their home ventured into depths of the Hell-Hawk and they both knew it.
He drew the large automatic pistol from the holster behind the satchel at the small of his back and pulled the slide back once, then let it fly forward of its own accord, chambering the first bullet. The gun was mundane in comparison to his sister’s revolvers, in spite of its lengthy muzzle, for a pistol. Roderick didn’t care; the pistol wasn’t what he trusted his life to. He recalled being told as a youth, “Only a fool trusts his life to a weapon.” He looked at it a moment, then remembered how the bullets had ricocheted off the troopers’ armor when Donovan shot at them back on Thai station. The poor apprentice gunsmith, short sighted as he turned out to be, was shooting at the Sards with a gun a lot more powerful than Roderick’s. He returned the thing to its holster and drew his sword, remembering that it was possible to stab through most bullet proofing.
Kit looked around and realized Khryst had gone off on her own. In his head the drifter cursed. He was afraid the girl would do something like this; she was very capable of escaping his notice as she moved without disturbing the loose floor gratings. He felt instantly responsible, as he’d neglected to tell her not to run off, although weather she would have headed such instruction, he couldn’t guarantee. This wouldn’t be the first time the child’s inquisitive nature had gotten her into trouble.

Khryst had left the mechanicals deck and now she was doing exactly what Kit feared she would. The little girl was actually stalking the troops. She knew the layout of the ship well enough; she felt she could do this with little fear of being discovered, adept at moving silently on her bare feet as she was. Seeing while remaining unseen was a concept Khryst was very familiar with. So long as she felt hidden, her skittishness was as though it was but a half forgotten memory. However it was a memory she was very quickly reminded of if her cover was ever blown, such as when she fell on Jade just a few hours earlier.
She had no intention of fighting these troops. She wasn’t exactly defenseless, but there were several more of them than of her. Plus, they all had guns.
She spied on the soldiers with morbid curiosity. The Czardekei she’d seen before were of the localized variety, which seemed to be a whole different animal. She was intrigued by their appearance and mannerisms.
They wore figure fitting, one piece body suits with synthetic, segmented armor plating over all except the bends in their joints. A high collar piece protected their necks and the material between the sections looked to be some sort of thick, tight mesh. Some wore gloves that seemed to be one with the rest of their armor, others wore fingerless shooting gloves. On their boots was a row of small hooks that protruded from the boots’ rectangular toes. The boots appeared to meld seamlessly to the rest of their armor. One had a knife in a scabbard anchored to his armor just beneath his collarbone; blade pointed upwards. Others carried edged weapons ready to be drawn from their hips. Some wore a helm, some did not, but they all wore a mask that hugged their heads and covered their ears, yet left their hair exposed. These masks vaguely resembled a skull, but not in a manner that made it appear intentional.
Although they did not all have on a helm, the ones who did had turned on a dim blue light with which the helmets were equipped. A similar light was built onto their guns. Even without these, Khryst’s keen eyes could have made out plenty of detail in the dark.
They moved as if a squad of enemy soldiers were laying in wait throughout the Demi-Jumper. She quickly bored with their lack of dialog though. Most of their communication occurred as hand gestures she didn’t yet understand. When they did speak to each other, it wasn’t in a language she understood. In spite of this, Khryst still enjoyed their speech. It was different than anything she was used to. It sounded precise and articulate.
For what seemed to be a very long time, the girl watched the soldiers. Interested in all forms of sign language, Khryst watched their signed gestures, and then watched for the return gesture; it wasn’t long before the girl gained a rough understanding of what it was the soldiers were saying to one another. Most of it was uninteresting single word messages: “Follow,” “Leading,” “Careful,” “Point,” “Flanks,” and other such tactical dribble. She didn’t learn the specific words, but she caught onto the meanings behind them.
She observed the bodies of the soldier’s guns: they were short, bulky carbines, with no stock and they had long, thick magazines and an elaborate site apparatus. At the front of these assault carbines was a bolt onto which a bayonet could be anchored. Khryst concluded it wasn’t something she wanted to be on the other end of. She took special care to remain stealthy enough as she stalked them to ensure they didn’t feel they had anything to shoot at. Something the Czardekei were known for was overkill. Their soldiers were never issued anything that shot a reasonably sized bullet. These were all carrying a close quarters combat load-out, which was built around standard assault carbines, equipped with Master Keys; an under-barrel shotgun used primarily for opening locked doors.

From the pieced together security station, Kit watched the holograms. They rendered the same shimmery image, regardless of lighting. The hologram projectors were gas filled, glass cubes anchored to an apparatus on the consol that projected the three dimensional image into the contained haze. They were newer than the screens on the bridge. Kit watched the small girl a moment more and decided she didn’t have the situation as in had she obviously felt she did. Roderick watched from over Kit’s shoulder. “I’ve got to go get her.” Kit said, beginning to panic. “I’ve got-”
“To what? Fight off a whole troupe of Shock Troopers we know we can’t shoot at?” Roderick interjected. Kit looked into the silver rings that were Roderick’s irises. The giant put a lot of effort into being hard to read, and at the moment he was doing a better job of it than usual. He stood there with his arms crossed, looking down at Kit with no expression at all.
“What would you have me do?!” Kit shouted at him in frustration. The drifter knew Roderick had never been particularly fond of Khryst and he never could for the life of him comprehend why. As far as he was concerned the girl was harmless, albeit something on the eccentric side; she kept very much to herself. Still, Kit didn’t believe Roderick wanted to see anything happen to the small blond girl-child.
“I’d not have you march into the dragon’s lair as the child has. You’re the adult OthaKit.” Kit knew his comrade was right, but he knew Khyst had gotten in over her head. The idea that she’d learned how to do that from him rang in the back of Kit’s head just loud enough to add to the point Roderick was trying to make. “We aint the ones in the dragon’s lair.” Kit said coldly as he flicked his wrist and flipped a butterfly-knife open. The rhythmic click-clacking resounded off the compartment’s metaplast walls. Roderick let out a sigh, then, gesturing to the array of buttons and screens, he asked, “This stuff need any more of your attention?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then let’s go.”

Several of the boarding party had separated from the procession. Nine was something of a lot of people to be clumped together when there was a whole Jumper to scout out. Three set off in the direction they surmised the bridge would be. Three others continued along a path leading deeper into the Jumper, towards the engineering compartment. The final trio set off for the Jumper’s escape pods for the purpose of confirming that they’d been jettisoned as the readings indicated. One member of each threesome carried a device which mapped out their surroundings by pinging a signal off of the walls, which echoed back to the device and created a three dimensional rendering of their environment
Khryst followed this third group; although she herself had no inkling the trio of trios had any set destination. They hadn’t communicated it in any way the girl was able to discern. They continued on in the dark, along the grated floor of the passageway, past dingy, unremarkable inner-ship scenery. Occasionally they would poke their guns into a lower storage room, or voice a comment about something mundane, but for the most part the Sards were beginning to find this endeavor routine to the point of boring.
Absently, one the Czardekei took off his skullish mask and anchored it to his right shoulder so that it resembled a sort of pauldron. As if on cue, his two companions did the same thing. Khryst observed in awe that they looked like brothers. Very nearly they looked like triplets, except their resemblance wasn’t quite that distinct. Their hair was neither short, nor long, but something of an average length of dull brown, their faces were ovular and unassuming. Their age was nigh impossible to ascertain by looking at their facial features. They appeared to be more than youths, yet less than experienced. They had hazel eyes and were for the most part very plane. If seen in a crowd and out of uniform these humans would likely gain no attention at all on account of their appearance. They continued at an obviously more relaxed pace.
After a time, Khryst came to realize that these three Sards she was following were trying to ascertain the location of Hawk’s escape pods. She watched them sign to one another for some time before she became able to interpret that piece of the conversation. Listening to them speak yielded nothing since she had no understanding of their language. The small blond girl-child didn’t know how much it would matter if they knew their readings were false, but she supposed it would give them reason to resume the alert they now seemed to have abandoned. Khryst decided to do something to prevent them finding what it was they were looking for. She set out to distract them. Her means was nothing short of reckless

Jade was on the bridge still. She could hear the footsteps of the three soldiers in the corridor outside. They’d made it to their destination after a bit of trial and error exploration. Immediately Jade’s hands held the two over-under barreled revolvers she carried. She heard them cursing into their Comms, imploring their squad mates to respond. Although she didn’t understand their words, Jade could tell they were frustrated with their hardware. The Internal communications jammer appeared to actually be doing its job to her surprise. She noticed the light on her own Comm flickering red rather than green.
The Sard at the front of the trio entered the bridge. His companions hung back, waiting for the all-clear. In his complacency he too had taken off his mask and presently wore it on his shoulder, and his gun was hanging from a strap around his chest rather than in his hands. He didn’t expect to have need of it by this point, but the soldier saw how wrong he was the moment he entered the compartment.
In a caption’s chair sat a clanswoman. She was as tall as a man of decent height. She sat in her chair bathed in the glow of the emergency lights, legs crossed as a man would and her arms folded across her ample breasts, apparently oblivious to the world, or so it seemed to the soldier. Her hair was the color of dried blood. Aside from lose strands and a lock which hung over her face, its length was wrapped in fabric, pulling it tight against her head and coiled about her shoulders so as not to drag the ground; it was very, very long. Another lock, behind her left ear was adorned with colorful beads.
The human stared into the cold blue rings around the white pupil of the clanswoman’s eyes. Contrasted by the black scleras, synonymous with clansmen, they were like ringed moons in starless skies. The soldier recognized that these eyes, although young, held no youth and reflected genuine experience. Her face was clean, angular and pale, marred only by a light scar which briefly interrupted her right eyebrow. A wire coiled through multiple piercings along the underside of both of her pointed ears, and held at the bottom of their lobes a small chain composed of three decorative links.
Her womanly figure was obscured beneath an armored, black leather duster-coat with segmented pauldrons over its shoulders and upper arms. There was also a single plate along her upper back, connecting the pauldrons on the shoulders. This segmented armor had clearly seen much use and was rimmed with some sort of golden metal. The coat came together in the front with hook and eye clasps, but these didn’t appear to see much use. Around her waist was a broad bandolier with two layers of very large pistol shells on it, and an empty holster. Had he not been so entranced, the solder would have (should have) thought to wonder where the gun was. This clanswoman’s pants were old, urban combat ware, held up by a tactical belt and not really as long as they should have been, falling several inches short of the ankles of her high, strapped boots.
The soldier took another step into the room, reaching for his gun as he did so. His hand never made it to the gun however, because as soon as he took his second step, Jade shot him square in the face, killing him instantly, as far as she knew. His squad-mates heard the gunshot and in their chests they felt a rush of panic. Immediately they ran to investigate the shot, knowing it full well for what it was.
They came into the compartment and saw their comrade’s body at her feet.
“Jou FUCKIN’ CUNT!” one shouted. He skipped asking who she was and opened fire, completely unloading his assault rifle in her direction. He said it in the trade language and she understood the insult perfectly.
“Dammit all!” thought Jade as she dodged behind some navigation equipment. The bridge was a poor choice of place for a skirmish. She didn’t realize the one she’d shot already hadn’t been alone She knew it was her own fault for not watching the surveillance feed from the consol. The fire stopped momentarily when the Czardekei realized their bullets weren’t completely penetrating the equipment she was behind. As soon as the chance presented its self, Jade stood up and moved several rounds of her own from her revolvers to their armor, only to be disappointed when the bullets ricocheted into bridge’s scenery. She knew the shift-glass was safe, but she hoped the instruments weren’t getting hit as she strafed around the room, dodging bursts of assault-rifle Fire. Jade continued shooting back, but she soon realized it was just a waste of ammunition if she couldn’t hit them in the face. One of her own bullets had bounced off their armor and grazed the metal plating on her shoulder. Her twelve shots were soon spent. Jade knew she had to come up with some alternate method of dispatching these two. She hoped their fellow zealots wouldn’t hear the firefight. The lights shorted out suddenly and Jade thought to herself that maybe things were in her favor after all.

The two soldiers stopped shooting when they couldn’t find their target. Jade was taking advantage of the darkness and had made her way to the corridor, where she found time to reload her guns. It had been over a year since the clan’s last close up encounter with Czardekei. They’d obviously improved their defensive armor to the point standard projectiles wouldn’t penetrate it. At least that was the effect of her pistol rounds.
Withdrawing hallow-points from the top row on her bandolier, Jade loaded one revolver, and then with solid pointed rounds she loaded the other. She slipped off her armored duster to improve her ability to be silent as she moved. She made her way back onto the bridge, thankful that she knew its layout well enough the darkness only minimally impeded her. Stealthily Jade came up behind one of the two and shot him point blank in the back of the head. Her hope was for the bullet to penetrate, but instead it just knocked the man’s head forward and made a great deal of electric noise as the bullet bounced off the man’s armor back into her own pistol, knocking it out of her hand and almost certainly causing damage to the gun itself, although she didn’t have time to retrieve it and check. The gunshot alerted the other Sard to her position as the one she’d shot stumbled forward and off his balance. He dropped his gun, which in this one’s case wasn’t strapped to his chest, so it clattered to the floor and without his hand on the grip, its light went out.
As the first was stumbling, the other one reacted to the noise and began shooting blindly in the dark in the direction from which he’d heard the gunshot, oblivious that he was shooting into the his comrade’s exposed cranium. Just at that moment the lights came back on and he saw what he’d done. Jade heard him curse in his own language. “GOD DAMMIT!” exclaimed the shooter as he realized what he’d done and rushed to his fallen. So focused was he on his dead squad-mate, he didn’t see Jade aiming her revolver at him before she landed a slug in his forhead. To her surprise, the bullet didn’t exit the back of his skull as she’d expected it to.
Three Sards now dead and on the floor, Jade plopped down in her usual chair and surveyed the damage to the room. It was pretty bad, but the damage to the bridge wasn’t at the top of her priority list at the moment. One of their bullets had managed to find her thigh, just above her knee.
It wasn’t a direct hit, but it sure hurt like hell, and she knew she wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry. She tore open the pant-leg over her right thigh and inspected the damage. She was grateful for the time she’d spent as a field medic as she assessed the wound; she knew it would heal, but that didn’t make her feel any better about it right now. A bullet had passed through the flesh of her thigh but managed to not hit bone or any major arteries. “A flesh wound,” she thought. The renewed combat high was keeping it from hurting as bad now as she expected it would later. Jade hobbled to a cabinet situated on the back wall of the compartment which contained first aid and basic medical paraphernalia.
From it she retrieved a suture kit with which to sew closed the hole, and a pair of forceps. Her skilled hands made short work of retrieving the bullet and sewing the hole shut. It was a task she’d done many, many times before, though not usually on herself. The first aid supplies also contained a powerful pain killer that insured the wound wouldn’t inhibit her further for several hours. She wrapped her thigh in bandages, and then laid back in the chair to catch her breath.
Jade had just decided to rest a moment longer before telling the guys about the skirmish on the bridge when gravity died. “Dammit,” said she in a flat, almost not caring voice. There was only one thing that would cause the gravity to fail and it was bad. “Something must be goin’ down on the engine deck.” Said Jade to herself as she got up, floated, and skipped her way to one of the consoles. Ironically the dead gravity was something of a personal blessing as it kept her from needing to put too much pressure on the wounded leg.