Crossed paths a tale of.., p.1
Crossed Paths: A Tale of the Dread Remora, page 1
CROSSED PATHS
A Novella Featuring The Dread Remora & Her Crew
By Aaron Rosenberg
First Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Copyright 2011 by Aaron Rosenberg
Cover Image by Aaron Rosenberg, Design by David Dodd
LICENSE NOTES:
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The Dread Remora: Crossed Paths
“Derelict ship dead ahead!”
“I can see that, Mister Pyle.” Captain Nate Demming leaned forward in his chair, the motion creating gentle ripples in the water all around him, and studied the view through the forward window. The ship ahead of them must be one of the two they’d detected, but which one? All their long-range scanners had noted was the presence of two vessels close together, which was enough of an oddity in and of itself that he’d felt compelled to investigate. Now one was gone and the other was floating, powerless and most likely lifeless, if the gaping hole in its side was any indication.
“Bring us in close, Miss Mills,” he instructed. “Let’s take a closer look. Perhaps we can learn something about the victim—and its attacker.”
“Aye, captain.” Lizette Mills shifted her weight slightly, the wheel rotating gently beneath her small, skilled hands. Her movements were as unconsciously erotic as ever, and Demming hid a small smile as he considered how many men—and perhaps a few women—onboard the Dread Remora would pay a great deal to feel the touch of those same slender digits. The ship responded easily, slowing pace and swiveling about so its sleek prow neatly brushed against the other ship’s side. The Remora was long, slender, and hydrodynamic, an important factor beneath the waters of their homeworld. Its upper portion, however, was short, stocky, and bristling with weapons, a factor that was far more vital out here among the ether.
“Mister Kesselman,” Demming called into the speaking tube, and was rewarded a second later with affirmation from the boatswain, standing by in the crew quarters. “Ready a boarding party. Full arms, please—it looks dead but let’s not take any chances.”
“Aye, sir!” Kesselman was a good bo’sun, solid and loyal. He’d have his team selected and outfitted in a matter of minutes.
In the meantime, Demming continued to consider the ship before them. What was it? Who had been on it? And what had happened to it?
“Miss Scutt,” he called into the speaking tube. As always, he felt a shiver of delight run through him when Amelia answered. “What can you tell me about our friend here?”
“Not much yet, sir,” she answered. Demming could close his eyes and picture her down in engineering, her long features drawn in concentration, that dark braid swinging gently behind her. Her voice was soft and low, and thrilled him far more than Lizette’s husky teasing ever had. “Medium size, lightly armored, minimal weapons—I’d guess a trader or a passenger ship, possibly a colonization vessel. Whatever hit it hit hard, though. Burned right through the plating, fried the engines and the weapons. They probably didn’t even get a shot off.”
He could hear the sadness in her voice. Amelia hated violence, particularly when it cost lives. She’d joined the Royal Navy for the adventure and the science, and had thought she was escaping any sign of bloodshed when she’d signed on to the Remora, the Navy’s first-ever ethership.
Little had they known, when they’d launched, that they would find not a vast empty space but an expanse teeming with life, filled with scores of other worlds and other cultures and other ships.
Some of whom preyed upon the weak, just like the predators back home.
The HMES Remora might have transformed itself into the Dread Remora, feared pirate ship, but Demming and his crew were Royal Navy to the core. They did prey upon other ships, both to resupply and to maintain their cover, creating tales of horror to frighten most into steering clear of them, but they never did more damage than was necessary and never left their victims unable to fend for themselves. Unless they were facing real pirates, in which case they acted as they would back home, eliminating the threat before it could endanger others.
They would never hole an innocent ship and leave its people to die.
Whoever had done this had shown no mercy, that much was already clear.
Demming just hoped they had moved on in search of other kills. He didn’t relish meeting such a monster.
~ * ~
“I’ve got something!” Leif announced. “Just beyond that asteroid belt!”
Merok turned to study the display over his friend’s shoulder. “Aye, that’s their trail, all right.” On the scope, the radiation traces glittered and gleamed like fresh blood melting into pristine snow. “Even in space, they leave blood spattered behind them like the ravening beasts they are.” He swiveled back around, fingers settling on buttons and levers. “Well, let’s go give those devils a surprise they won’t forget.” He flicked the engines to max and their small ship roared forward, hurling itself through space in a mad dash to close with its chosen foes. Merok’s free hand went automatically to the blade at his side, and he smiled grimly. Even here, his first thought was of the sword.
But he was practical enough to hope that closing with the fiends hand-to-hand would not be necessary.
“There!” Leif tapped the display. They were entering the string of asteroids, and their scanners could now pierce that rocky veil and paint a picture of the scene beyond. Two vessels hung there, as if pinned to the color-splashed backdrop of space. One was long and spiky and lit all around with light. The other was bulkier but smoother, lacking the weaponry of its companion, and lay cold and dead at the other’s side.
“We’re too late to save whoever was on that second ship,” Merok stated between clenched teeth, “but by the Blade we’ll give those devils reason to regret their atrocities!” He twisted a switch and the weapons console rose before him, sights appearing on the front display as the ship readied itself for targeting.
Leif nodded and busied himself with his own controls. “Shields at full,” he declared. “Weapons powered. Fire at will.”
Merok grinned, lips pulling back from his teeth as a low snarl escaped. “Take this, you hoary bastards! Taste the vengeance of the Starry Blade!”
He jabbed hard at the buttons, and their ship leaped toward its target, weapons spitting out bursts of righteous death as it closed the gap to its prey.
~ * ~
“We’re under attack!” Pyle’s statement was followed almost instantly by a dull shudder as something struck the Remora’s hull. “Another ship—it just appeared out of nowhere! It’s coming in fast!”
“Those must be the monsters who did this, either back to finish the job or laying in wait for whoever comes to their victims’ aid.” Demming banged a fist on the arm of his command chair. “Miss Cuny!”
“Weapons hot, sir,” his gunner’s mate replied at once. As always in combat, her usual soft whisper had been replaced by a sharp, clear voice as hard as diamond. Molly Cuny might be the most reclusive member of his crew, but she lived for battle. “I’ve already targeted the other ship’s weapons.”
“Good. Fire at will.” Demming wasn’t all that fond of violence, but he had no problem using it when necessary. And in the middle of an etheric battle was no time to hesitate. “After the weapons, go for the engines. Try to leave the cabin intact, however.” He got only a grunt in reply, but he knew she would obey his orders.
“Our armor is holding,” Pyle reported from his station to the left. “A few more hits to the same spot and we could have a problem, though.”
The ship trembled slightly as Miss Cuny fired her guns. A second later there was a faint shiver as the upper weapons also fired. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Demming remarked.
He studied the screens, where Lizette had helpfully put up an image of their new assailant. It was small, not even a tenth the Remora’s size, wedge-shaped like an arrowhead, and racing right toward them. But even as he watched the tiny ship was rocked to one side by the Remora’s return fire. Blossoms of light indicated direct hits, and the hail of fire toward them winked out completely. A second later the smaller ship began to slow, its engines dead but momentum still carrying it forward.
“Direct hits!” Miss Cuny repo
“Thank you, Miss Cuny—and you, Mister Mirsux,” Demming responded, remembering to acknowledge the alien assistant gunner’s mate who was manning the weapons in the Dread Remora’s upper half. “Miss Scutt, any chance we can draw that ship in without hurting its occupants—and without it slamming into our side like a floundering whale?”
“I think I have just the thing, sir,” Amelia replied. “Lizette, can you shift us back a pace, so we’re not in its direct path?”
“Not a problem,” their pilot replied. She glanced back over her shoulder for Demming’s permission, her long black hair framing her round, pretty face, but for once her mind was not on flirting. When she was on duty Lizette Mills was all business. Well, almost all.
Demming nodded, and she used the ship’s maneuvering jets to pull the Remora back slightly, leaving a gap between it and the damaged ship at its side.
“Perfect!” Amelia said. Demming could hear her flicking switches. “Now just hang on.” There was a faint thrum in the air, as if the water had picked up a subtle tone from somewhere in the ship. “Got it!”
Demming watched as the small ship began to angle toward them.
“I modified the electromagnetic pulse we’ve been using for docking,” Amelia explained proudly. “Instead of a short burst, though, this is a sustained stream. It’s drawing that ship toward us, and since it’s being tugged to one side, the sideways motion will actually steal most its momentum. I can reverse the charge at the last second, pushing it away, so it may just barely scrape against us but there won’t be any real impact.”
“Nicely handled, Miss Scutt,” Demming told her admiringly. There was a reason she’d been a shoe-in for the engineer position on the Remora. “Mister Kesselman, I want that ship reeled in and whoever’s inside brought in for questioning as soon as possible. Alive and as unharmed as you can manage. Let’s get some answers.”
He gripped the arms of his chair tightly and glanced back at the dead ship beside them. Yes, he definitely wanted some answers.
~ * ~
“They’ve got us!” Leif announced unnecessarily. Merok had felt the demonfire pummeling their vessel, had been forced to yank his hands back quickly as the weapons console began to spark and smoke, and had noted the sudden silence as their ship’s engines had failed, leaving them adrift and defenseless.
Or so the demons supposed.
“They’re reeling us in like a batch of fish,” Merok muttered, studying their monitors. Those still worked, and showed them moving toward the spiky ship, their pace slowing as they went. “They think we’ll be helpless and meek, like most of their victims.” He drew his sword and admired its gleaming length and fine edge.
“Well, we’ll soon prove them wrong.”
~ * ~
“Contact!” Kesselman announced. The tall, rugged bo’sun turned as the door behind him opened and Demming stepped through. “Captain?”
“Don’t worry, Mister Kesselman,” Demming assured him, “I won’t be accompanying you this time.” He’d made that mistake before, forgetting his place and his responsibilities to ship and crew in his eagerness to see other ships and other races—with near-disastrous results. “But I wanted to be on hand to see our new friends once you brought them back aboard.”
“Of course, sir.” His concerns satisfied, Kesselman turned back to the three men with him. “Weapons ready.” All three carried sonic rifles and clubs drawn from the ship’s weapons stores. The bo’sun himself carried a sonic pistol, a club, and a sheathed dagger. Demming had not come unprepared either—at his side was his own pistol and the curving blade he had taken off a smuggler and in his boot was his diving knife.
“Seal active,” the slim olive-skinned man by the forward port announced, studying the console there. Xander Twist was Amelia’s second in engineering, a good man to have around. And far less squeamish than his boss, which was why she’d sent him in her stead. “Cycling the lock now.”
Kesselman nodded, raising his club. He held manacles in his other hand, and more jingled on his belt. His men hoisted their rifles as Twist opened the portal, revealing a pitted expanse of russet metal just beyond, and then affixed a small device to the other ship’s lock. The electromagnetic seal kept the two ships’ hulls bonded together so no air could escape and so the surrounding ether could not seep in. Demming had seen firsthand what could happen when a ship was breached out here, and he shuddered at the memory. A faulty seal would kill them faster than any enemy fire.
After a second the device beeped, and the other ship’s entrance began to open as well. Everyone tensed, unsure what they would face.
The opening was barely wide enough for them to see past when two men came charging through it at a dead run. Both had swords—swords!—raised, and were bellowing at the top of their lungs.
“Drop your weapons!” Kesselman shouted, backing up a pace to give himself room to move. “Drop them or we will be forced to fire!”
“Kill us if you can, Moringen,” one of the men responded, swiveling toward Kesselman and aiming a powerful blow at the bo’sun’s head and shoulders. “But we’ll take a few of you devils with us, at least!”
Fortunately, the Royal Navy trained all of its members in personal combat, both armed and unarmed. Kesselman used his club to block the sword blow, the heavy inlaid stone stopping the metal blade easily. Since his other hand still held manacles he couldn’t draw his pistol—instead he slammed that fist into his assailant’s stomach, the force of the blow doubling the other man over.
The second intruder had glanced around, seen the men with raised rifles sighting on him—and spotted Twist, standing off to the side. Unarmed. He’d angled toward the engineer’s mate, arm cocked back to bring his blade whistling around on the hapless crewmember—
—and Demming’s sonic pistol took him in the small of the back.
The weapon’s concussive burst took the intruder off his feet, slamming him into the wall as Twist hastily stepped aside. The sword clattered to the floor, and the man dropped to hands and knees beside it a second later. One of Kesselman’s men was already moving in, rifle slung back over his shoulder, manacles at the ready. In an instant the second intruder was bound, ankles and wrists.
The bo’sun had been trading blows with his own foe, and the stranger had landed several punches, a few kicks, and one head butt, fighting like a crazed animal. But Kesselman had managed to keep the sword itself out of play, and had given as good as he got. One of the strongest men on the Remora, his own blows had left the stranger reeling, and finally a solid punch to the jaw sent the man back and to his knees. He was manacled before he could rise again.
“Nicely handled, Mister Kesselman,” Demming complimented, and the bo’sun’s broad, fair features flushed with pride. “Are there any more in there?”
“None, sir.” It was Twist who answered. “We only detected two life signs aboard.”
“Good.” Demming watched as their new captives were patted down, and daggers removed from each. No firearms, though, which was curious. “Escort them to the brig. Let’s leave them to stew a bit before we press them.”
“You’ll get nothing from us, foul demon!” the first man spat through bloodied lips. “Do your worst! In the end, your kind will pay for what you’ve done!”
Demming leaned in close to examine the man. He looked human, Demming noticed—the first they’d encountered out here who could make such a claim. Two arms, two legs, two eyes, one nose, one mouth, normal body hair, even normal teeth from what he could see when the stranger snarled at him. No gills, which was interesting, but otherwise the men could have come from their own world. Their gear was unusual, though, and not just the swords that looked like they’d been stolen from a museum—both attackers wore what seemed to be flexible suits of interlocked metal rings, under sleeveless tunics belted at the waist. Heavy, metal-plated gloves and thick leather boots completed the image of men who belonged more on the surface vessels of legend than out in the ether.
