Chapter Nineteen
The giant listened to the report coming over his earpiece then turned to Sebastian. “The control bunker reports that the enemy sub has been completely destroyed.”
Although I had known what had happened from watching the sensor scan, I still felt a hollowness in my chest at the finality of those words. The typical attack sub carried a crew of a hundred and forty six. All of those lives had been erased in an instant. Anger started to build inside me and I turned toward Sebastian, but the look I saw on his face brought me up short. He actually seemed upset by what had happened.
Sebastian walked slowly back to the dining table and dropped himself into his seat. For a moment he sat staring at the surface of the table, his face drawn in a tight mask of conflicting emotions. “It was their own fault,” he said finally. “They forced Us to defend Ourself. If they hadn’t threatened Us We would never… It didn’t have to be like this.” After another few moments he raised his head. “They brought it on themselves by threatening Us,” he said to no one in particular. He seemed to be trying to justify his actions to himself more than anything else.
Oblivious to Sebastian’s conflict of conscience, the giant had been slowly pacing the floor listening to his comm-link when he suddenly stopped.
“They did what?” he said. He listened for several seconds. “How did they get inside in the first place?” Another pause. “I’ll deal with that later. Right now I want you to take every man you can find and… I don’t care about… Now you listen to me!” His voice had taken on a lethal quality. “I don’t care what you need to do but you get in there and you stop them. I want them turned into lifeless corpses by the time I contact you again or I’m going to turn you and every one of those incompetent idiots stationed there with you into corpses!” He cut the connection and spun toward the Commandant.
“Four men in battle armor have locked themselves in the generator room for the particle cannons,” he announced.
Sebastian frowned. “Our people?”
“No,” the giant fixed his gaze on me. “From what they’ve been able to piece together they got into the bunker through the main airlock.”
“Did they come from that sub?” Sebastian asked.
“I don’t think so,” the giant said as he continued to stare at me. “None of the perimeter alarms were tripped. They must have already been inside the base.” He took a step toward me. “And there’s only one ship here with outsiders aboard.”
Sebastian followed his gaze to me. For an instant his eyes widened, then a look of fury descended on his features. “Guards!” he yelled.
Several things happened in that moment. Springing to her feet, Morgana reached behind her neck, withdrew the knife she had secreted there, and in a single motion hurled it toward the door to the room. The balanced blade spun through the air and landed dead center in the small control panel beside the door. The panel erupted in a shower of sparks and the doors which had barely begun to open froze in position, leaving a finger’s breadth gap. From the hallway I could hear the frustrated shouts of the guards on the other side of the doors as they struggled vainly to force the heavy security doors apart.
At the same time Sebastian surged to his feet, knocking his chair over backward as he reached for the saber at his side. He freed his blade in one quick, practiced motion and pointed it at me as I pushed myself up from my seat. A vicious grimace twisted his features as he glared at me. His enraged expression reminded me of the last time I had faced him in the senate chamber on Haven, only this time there was no one nearby to hand me a blade of my own. Behind him I saw the giant round the head of the table and move toward me. Sebastian held his position as his bodyguard strode past him, hanging back to let his man work. I began to back away from the table as the servants ran about in confusion and dove for cover.
The giant was almost on top of me when another imposing figure stepped between us.
“I got this, Captain,” Ian said as he placed himself between me and the giant.
Ian balled his right hand into a fist and smacked it into his palm then gestured for the giant to come to him. The giant’s eyes slid from me to Ian. After a moment he smiled and began to move toward my engineer.
As big as Ian was, the giant stood a full head taller than him, but that didn’t seem to bother Ian as he took a solid stance and readied himself. The giant might be taller than him but Ian’s frame was thick with muscle.
When he was less than a meter away, the giant lunged forward, launching a right hook that looked powerful enough to rip Ian’s head from his shoulders. With surprising agility Ian slipped under the arc of the punch and sank a punishing blow deep into the giant’s middle. The air was driven from the giant’s lungs as the strike actually lifted him onto his toes. As his heels came back down Ian followed up with a left cross to the side of his face. The smack of the blow sounded loudly in the room and the giant’s head snapped around from the force of the punch.
Ian danced away, watching for his opponent’s reaction. For a moment the giant simply stood frozen in a fighting crouch. Then he shook his head and looked back over his shoulder at Ian. His eyes narrowed. He straightened and turned to face Ian again. Reaching up with the back of his hand he wiped away a thin line of blood from the corner of his mouth then licked his knuckles clean. He twisted his head from side to side and rolled his shoulders, loosening his muscles before bringing his fists up again. He bent into a fighting crouch once more and started forward.
Slowly the two began circling. They closed with each other and began trading blows that would have crippled anyone else. I watched as Ian raised his right arm, blocking an especially savage punch that was aimed at the side of his head as he slipped inside the giant’s guard to deliver a straight jab to the middle of his face. I could hear the crack of the giant’s nose shattering and saw the spray of blood explode behind Ian’s fist. The blow should have staggered him, but the giant acted as if he didn’t feel it. Moving with sudden speed he caught Ian on the side of his jaw with a vicious elbow strike. As Ian’s head snapped around from the blow, the giant followed up with a series of punishing punches to the ribs and stomach. Ian’s body shuddered from the pounding and I was sure that he was going to sag to the floor at any moment. Instead, he surprised both me and the giant by lurching forward and grabbing him in a bear hug, locking their bodies together.
As I watched the two big men struggling to gain an advantage over each other, I caught a sudden blur of movement from the corner of my eye. With Sebastian visible on the other side of the brawling men, I had no idea who it could be. I was just starting to raise my hands defensively when Morgana leapt past me and delivered a flying kick to the figure coming at me.
“Oh no you don’t, sister!” she said as she landed a solid kick in Angela’s side, launching her at the dining table. Angela slammed into the edge of the table with bone shattering force and tumbled backward across it with a crash of breaking dishes. Rolling off the far side of the table, Angela fell to the floor amid a shower of broken dishes and glassware. For a moment I wondered if Morgana had killed her. But sooner than I would have thought possible she popped up and brushed herself off.
She glared at Morgana, then suddenly sprang forward. Planting one hand on the table top she executed a one handed handspring high in the air, tucked her legs and completed a forward somersault to land lightly on the near side facing us.
“That’s going to cost you, bitch!” Angela hissed.
Morgana assumed a fighting stance. “Bring it.”
Doc Jacobs hustled Chris out of the way as the women eyed each other. What Doc had learned from his medical scans of our passenger was that she was a product of genetic engineering. What he had finally realized was bothering him about her genetic profile was that her DNA was unnaturally perfect. Someone had spent a fortune to resequence her genes while she was still a fetus to make her into a superwoman. Unlike a normal person’s g
enes which showed occasional mutations here and there, Angela’s profile showed no defects whatsoever. According to Doc’s scans, her modified DNA made her faster, stronger and more intelligent than most people, with almost super human agility and an accelerated healing capacity. He also found that she possessed the ability to control her body’s endocrine system. In particular she could consciously manipulate her pheromone production. This enabled her to influence the men around her by making them infatuated with her. This effect was even more powerful if she touched someone, allowing her chemical influence to be absorbed directly through their skin. The one drawback to this ability was that her biochemical charms had the opposite effect on members of the same sex. Women in range of her influence were repelled by her, which explained Morgana’s instant dislike of her.
Once Doc had made me aware of her special nature, I found it possible to ignore her attempts to manipulate me. Given her special abilities it didn’t seem likely that her being aboard our ship was mere coincidence. She had been sent for a reason, probably to see if we were truly the independent trade ship we claimed to be. Looking back I realized that her migraine attacks had been a ploy to get unrestricted access to the ship so that she could search for any signs that we were something other than a down on our luck merchant vessel. Unfortunately for her, Doc had a more critical eye than she expected.
For a time I wondered if the Pirate Brotherhood might be composed of a number of such supermen and women, but Doc’s scans during our initial visit to the base had revealed that no one else we encountered was a product of gene manipulation. Not even the giant, the one person I had been certain was such a modified individual. Ironically, Doc’s scans had revealed that his size was actually the result of a natural mutation, a condition known medically as acromegaly.
While the specifics of Angela’s background were still a mystery, it seemed obvious that she was an agent for the pirates. As she and Morgana squared off against each other I worried that Morgana might be outclassed. Morgana was one of the most skillful fighters I had ever seen, but I was worried that her skills would not be enough against Angela’s enhanced abilities.
After a moment the women stopped circling. Suddenly, faster than seemed humanly possible, Angela sprang at Morgana. For the next several seconds they both launched and parried blows that were almost too fast to follow with the naked eye. Both of them seemed to be holding their own for a while until Angela spun about and lashed out with one foot, catching Morgana in the stomach. This time it was her turn to fly backward. She slammed against a wall and slid heavily to the floor. Clutching her middle with one arm, Morgana glared up at her.
“Get up. I’m just getting started with you,” Angela said.
Morgana cautiously got back to her feet and pushed herself away from the wall. Cold fury shone in her eyes as she stepped toward the slight form of her opponent. Angela stayed where she was and held her hands low, almost daring Morgana to strike her. Morgana advanced on her slowly as Angela held her ground. When she was close enough, Morgana let loose a flurry of punches and kicks at her adversary. Angela moved with inhuman speed, sliding away from every strike at the last possible moment without bothering to block anything thrown at her. Morgana stepped back and paused after just missing her target with a spinning kick that would have caved in the side of her skull had it connected.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Angela taunted.
Morgana took a deep breath and adjusted her stance, shifting her feet slightly to increase her traction. I could see her tightening her hands into hard fists as she studied her opponent. Then she launched another series of powerful strikes and kicks, each of which Angela again dodged with apparent ease. Then, just as Morgana was retracting her leg following an unsuccessful hooking kick to the ribs, Angela lunged forward and drove her fist into the center of Morgana’s body just below her sternum.
Morgana expelled a powerful gush of air as she folded in half around that fist. Her feet lifted into the air and she slammed face down on the floor. I started to move toward her when a roar from the other side of the room drew everyone’s attention.
The two big men had somehow fought their way around to the far side of the table. I looked up to see the giant hoisting Ian over his head, feet bicycling uselessly in the air. The giant’s face was twisted into a mask of animal fury with a grotesque goatee of blood painted across the bottom half of his face beneath his mangled nose. With an enraged shout he body slammed Ian onto the dining table. The table collapsed, splintering under the force of the blow. Dishes, cutlery and serving platters were hurled in all directions. Ian groaned and feebly tried to roll from his back as the giant stood over him.
As the giant reached down to grab Ian by the throat, Angela turned back toward Morgana with a sadistic grin.
“Giving up so soon, dear?” she said as Morgana lay on her stomach and struggled to draw a breath. “I had hoped you might be able to put up a better fight than this.”
I was moving to place myself between the two women when Sebastian stepped in front of me.
“Not so fast, Captain Pell,” he said as he pointed at me with the tip of his saber. “We have some unfinished business.” As I looked up at him he narrowed his eyes and gestured with his weapon. “As you can see, your people are outclassed. As for you… If there is one thing We cannot abide it is disloyalty.” He advanced toward me, holding his saber threateningly. “And there is only one penalty for disloyalty.”
As he continued to advance toward me I backed away until I felt myself pressed against the wall. With nowhere to retreat to I watched helplessly as Sebastian closed to within striking distance and drew back his sword arm.