Quoted By:
You cycle the hatch and airlock, wrenching your helmet off to suck in the savory, stinging salty ocean air. It’s befouled by both the pitter taste of iron and ozone, but makes better than the recycled, scrubbed air you’d been working out of for the past few hours. After checking to see that your pistol as a fresh clip of ammo, you exit the Magellan, and hop onto the foredeck.
“What a fucking mess,” you murmur tiredly.
Most of the torpedo boats are on fire. Some might be saved, others not. Still, the burnt-out husk of one might make for a pretty penny back with the Salvage Guild. Damned shame about the loss of the jamming technology, but you aren’t about to weep over shrapnel.
The sound of distant gunshots below deck means that the fighting isn’t nearly over. Even if it largely is. The raiding force has been defeated, and while the Calypso took heavy casualties, she’s still under the sovereignty of her original, Babylonia crew.
You ignore the pleas of mercy, for death, kicking aside weapons and limbs that grasp at the hem of your NERVlink suit. It isn’t petty cruelty that motivates you to ignore them as much as the fact you’ve got other concerns. Really, it isn’t.
But as you inspect the solitary ship that isn’t on fire, an attack boat with several spears and its glass blown out…a sudden shadow in the window that you might’ve missed if you didn’t blink.
“Movement,” you shout into the radio, drawing your pistol, “I’ve got movement in one of the boats!”
Among calls for you to standby and wait, you’re already moving. The Magellan lumbers after you ever-so-slowly, piloted in a limited capacity by HOPI. Hardly fast or precise enough for quick trigger reflexes or delicate work, but enough to keep herself upright.
Leaning over the safety rail, you aim your gun below and warn, “You’ve got five seconds to come out before I have my PUEXO cook you alive.”
A yelp of fright, then a stream of words in the Khanate’s pidgin language. Then…
“Wait, wait, wait!” the survivor screams desperately in heavily accented English, “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot! I surrender!”
…he couldn’t have been more than sixteen. The youth who emerges, pale and frightened beyond belief, is thin and gangly. Not malnourished, but definitely lacking the bulk of his fellow raiders…if he could even be called that. He isn’t wearing any armor, and the belt of tools on his waist speak more of a repairman or engineer.
Not that you fail to notice the pistol strapped to his thigh.
You pause, momentarily taken aback. A member of the Khanate surrendering. What kind of trickery is this? But you don’t let the surprise last long. Eyes narrowing you put the sights right between the kid’s eyes.
“There anyone else with you?!” you demand.
“N-no, it’s just me, I swear!”
“You better be telling me the truth, boy.”
“I am! You and the marines, you all killed…everyone else is dead!”
(cont.)
