Here Be Monsters - Chapter 4

     Alex slid her right leg across Dirk's, and used her fingertips to trace circles around his left nipple as the perspiration from what had turned out to be an epic lay dried on her skin.  Dirk was gently digging his fingers into the soft skin just above her buttocks, just the way she liked.  She enjoyed being here with him after they had sex; he wasn't chatty, which counted as a huge win in the bonus column of their relationship.  He spoke when it was required, but he wouldn't talk her ear off.  Shifting position, his thumb started massaging the edge of the large muscle where it met the tailbone, and she pressed her damp mons against his thigh.  She could feel the slow metronome of his heartbeat as she rested her head in the hollow between his chest and shoulder.
     Alexandra Galilani Jarvia Chase had taken one look at Dirk when he first came aboard, and she'd thought, more or less:  'OK, how do I get one of those?'  The fact that she'd been 17 when they'd met had put a wall between them that she couldn't tear down; Dirk had some very old fashioned ideas about 'age appropriateness' when it came to sex.  Her own personal experiences had shown that attitude to be quite rare, she wasn't a virgin after all, but he'd been adamant.  She had gotten to know Dirk as a person before she pounced on him like a starving lioness, which had been about eleven hours after she had turned 18.  He hadn't disappointed.  He was easy on the eyes, he knew how to have a good time whenever the ship put in at a new port, and he was a demon in the sack.  
     He wasn't perfect though.
     She had come to realize that the man, now lying naked in her bed, had a complicated history that involved a lot of violence, and his experiences with the Alliance Marine Corps had been less than life-affirming and peaceful.  His life before his enlistment was something that he never discussed with anyone.
     Ever.
     It became obvious after their first massive blow out, which had started with her prying about his life before the AMC.  He hadn't raised his voice, but he had made it very clear that she had stepped way over the line.  Not that her own more obvious anger had made things better, it hadn't.  He'd been the first one to make a peace offering, and things had gone on as usual since.  Not without an occasional need for space, but calm for the most part.  She reflected that he really did have better interpersonal skills than most dirtsiders, and those skills were important when you had people locked in an airtight box traveling between the stars.  Her own were relatively good, but she had a temper that occasionally got the better of her, and when it did she could get ugly.  Dirk rarely ever blew up, but he wasn't shy about speaking his mind with a frank brutality that tended to rub people the wrong way at times.  She nearly laughed at the memory of the first time he'd done that to her; she had wanted to punch him, but that would have been a colossal mistake.  The Captain would tolerate a lot of joking around, bitching, and (as long as performance didn't suffer) crew hookups, but the last person to take a swing at another crew member in an argument was probably still trying to find a way home.  Cameron had formally blacklisted the man with the UniSys Interstellar Transportation Commission, and once the USITC pulls your ticket, you never work on a starship again.  Needless to say, getting blacklisted would not make her welcome at family reunions.
     Alex had been born on a starship; her family had been spacers since the First Exodus, when little was known about what lay beyond Earth's solar system.  Her great grandfather had seen the new stars of humanity's future from a reconnaissance and survey ship.  Her mother had been the Captain's own captain at one time and he had been responsible for introducing her to her future husband.  Alex had come to know her captain as 'Uncle Cam' when she was just a little girl, and when she'd turned 16 she decided to ask him for a berth to finish her spacer's certification.  He had made it clear that she would work her ass off if he said yes, then told her to make certain her parents were willing to let her.
     He hadn't been kidding.  She had never been afraid of work, but this had been a whole new experience.  The work load was as strenuous as anyone else's, and she had developed calluses, muscles, and skills in what seemed like equal measure.  Working two shifts eight hours apart was old hat, but the sheer volume of study they piled onto the work cut into what little free time she'd had.  The load slackened a bit between stars, but not much, the drain on the systems when the ship was in FTL meant that there were sometimes weeks or months of time to study.  Alex had wanted to get away from home and check out the universe.  One out of two had to count for something.
     She hadn't had her Able Spacer certification a week when she was given the task of helping with the installation of a new communications console on the bridge.  Her interest had been piqued regarding the whole process, and she had nearly driven chief engineer Ludmilla Brostowski nuts with a constant barrage of questions about what she was doing.  That was when and where she'd decided she wanted to earn her Electrotechnical Officer's certification, because that would a master key to just about any ship's crew.  Trained and certified EOs were hard to come by everywhere, and they could command some serious fees for their work.
     Alex's personal stroll down memory lane, combined with the steady rhythm of Dirk's heartbeat under her left ear, had been causing her to drift off when the Captain's call came in.  Dirk's reaction was predictable:  He swore.  A lot.  Then said "Aye aye, Captain!"  Cut the connection and started putting on his clothes.  She felt obligated to ask the obvious.
     "Do you think you can do it?  Get the lines on the cheap, I mean."
     "I don't even know if I can get the lines, period.  Captain's got two aging Freedom Arsenal FA-76B1 twin railguns mounted, right?"  She nodded her agreement, and he continued,  "His cooling system was originally designed to Alliance Navy specs, but since the Free Systems League's naval contractors just copied AN designs, the same lines will work in both.  The problem is that old AN spec SPC units tend to end up being bought by the League Navy and it's auxiliaries.  As a result, we may have to settle for what we can get."  He was pulling on a vintage black t-shirt he'd found in an antique clothing shop on the station, with the word 'ANTHRAX' across the front in angular block letters as he finished speaking.
     "Sounds like you have your work cut out, huh?"
     "Actually I could use your help.  I need a list of ships in system, and whether or not they have what we need.  If you can do that, I'll talk to some former colleagues of mine at the local Alliance Naval Station.  Maybe we can get what we need in time to enjoy a real bed and room service one more time before we leave port." He said suggestively.
     She had to admit that the idea of a soft bed in a nice hotel, and room service for real fresh food instead of prepackaged, no matter how good, was the only reason she agreed.
     "OK, Marine.  I'll help, but only 'cause you ask so nice." She teased with a smile, and swatted him on the backside as he walked past her bunk to leave her quarters.

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 3

     The Jester was still docked with New Detroit station, and Captain Cameron Valentine Marshall was in his private office just astern of the bridge contemplating the report being given by his long time friend and Executive Officer, Gandu Mkaba.

     "... And I can't see how it would be possible to replace the defective lines without expending significantly from our reserve capital.  We have little choice but to pay hard cash for them; the only merchant who has SPC lines compatible with our systems is refusing to extend us credit."  Gandu concluded.  Cameron was rubbing his temples with his thumbs, trying to massage some of the tension out of his scalp.  The last thing he wanted to do was spend any more of his hard cash for a problem he thought he had already solved.

     The Jester had been laid down in '27 and was more than five decades old now; but the engineers at the New Halifax shipyards in the Sol system had designed the toughest hulls in space, with over 90 percent of their hulls in Jester's age category still in use somewhere.  NHI-312B salvage/transport ships were generally thought to be the toughest; combining massive amounts of power with their extremely high deep space endurance, making them ideal privateer ships.  He had - for years - been putting away his corporate bonuses, along with a large chunk of his regular pay, in an effort to bankroll his own cargo ship; when one of his superiors called him to say that the company was going to be auctioning off a block of its fully amortised and depreciated assets - including several ships.  He wasn't sure if any of the ships were what he wanted at first, but after checking them out from bow to stern while they were laid up for some final maintenance, he decided on one with absolute certainty.  The only issue had been money, and he hadn't had enough of it.  He might have put a down payment on a smaller ship than the one he had in mind, but everything he could scrape together on his own had fallen short.  He had gone looking for every last favour he could call in, but in the end it still wasn't enough.  He had called his boss back to say thanks for the tip, but the dream of privateering would have to wait another couple of years at least.  The return message had floored him completely: 'Cam, pick your ship, and we'll see to it that it stays off the auction block.  The company will help arrange your financing on very generous terms if you'll work on contract for any of our salvage claims over the next five years.'  He'd taken possession of Lot#DG781A within the month, and had it re-registered as 'The Jester' the same day.  The company had done right by him, and while he wouldn't exactly call it a gift, the financing terms had been better than he could ever arranged on his own.  His five-year contract had kept him and his crew busy, doing what amounted to trash runs getting the company's damaged and derelict spacecraft back - either running or to the breakers for scrap.

     Those early days of doing corporate trash runs were looking pretty good right now.  "Where do we stand on everything else?  Fuel, life support, supplies for the galley, and the like?" Cameron asked, as he pulled his hands away from his face to look directly at his XO.

     "We are ready to go:  The bunkers are full to the brim, our galley is supplied with everything we need for a long term deployment - including the additional emergency ration packs you requested, our life support system is certified for a minimum full-time operational cycle of 12 months, every system has been checked and re-checked, spare parts have been laid in, and all of our auxiliary craft have new inspection tags.  We even have full ammo bins on the main guns;  all we need is new SPC lines for them."  He gave the Captain a sly grin and added, "Oh, and of course there is the issue of new hires on the dock.  I did a preliminary screening, and there are about two dozen or so with potential."

     Cameron gave a disgusted sounding sigh and asked, "How much potential?"  He truly did not want to have to deal with hiring new people, but he realized that New Detroit was the best place to do so, and his reputation for giving his crew solid pay and a decent bonus structure, along with a fairly generous benefits package, meant that he could be choosy about who joined his crew.  He knew that they needed more hands; but this next job was long term, and most newbies lasted long enough to get to a new world and jump ship, with little more in their pockets than their last paycheck.  All of which meant that he would have to be more involved in selecting crew than normal, and he wished he didn't have to.  It was his preference to let Gandu handle hiring and dismissals, while he settled accounts and lined up work, but a long term job with the potential payoff of the one he had decided to undertake this time required greater personal involvement on his part and there didn't seem to be any way of shaking it.

     "I would say that three of them will probably stay with us, regardless of how the new job goes."  He cocked an eyebrow in an unspoken question, but there was no further explanation forthcoming.  "We might get a dozen in all, but if the job doesn't pan out the way you hope it will, then our reputation might suffer.  Unless you are willing to go into the red to pay bonuses up front..."  Gandu let the unasked question trail off when he saw the look of disapproval on his Captain's face.  "Other than that, all I can suggest is that you be honest with them about the risks:  Big bonuses for success, basic pay and a good record if we fail.  The old hands will stick by you whatever happens, but you know as well as anyone that if you make promises, and can't keep them, then the good rep that gets us work is gone."

     Cameron knew everything he'd just heard was true and he had already decided to do pretty much everything his XO had recommended, but it was nice to see that Gandu was on the same wavelength.  Not that any of it was genius level thinking, just good people skills.  He grabbed his shipcom badge from its slot on his desk and punched a code in.  "Dirk" he said in an authoritative voice, "find me replacement SPC lines, whatever it takes, just get them.  Preferably, for no more than what we paid last time.  Understood?"  He and Gandu smiled at the delay in response, which usually meant he was cursing in a variety of languages.

     Dirk's "Aye aye, Captain!" came back over the com with crisp military precision, leaving Cameron feeling better for having dumped the problem in someone else's lap.  This gave him the mental breathing space to deal with his more pressing crew issues.  He looked back at Gandu before speaking again, "OK, get the applicants on the deck at 0800, and I'll talk to them in a group before we start interviews, maybe we can thin out some of the green and less than committed, before we start making headway.  I truly hope that we can get a few people with experience, did your preliminary screening happen to catch any old hands or able spacers?"  

     Gandu had always shied away from his boss' desire to take on 'old hands'; men and women who had worked on ships without being officially rated in a specialty, usually as dependents of spacers, sometimes just chronic wanderers with training in a wide variety of fields useful enough on board a starship to allow them to 'work their passage' and maybe put some money in their pockets when the ship hit its next port.  "One old hand, two able spacers, and at least five new ratings looking for a berth, as well as eleven or twelve who might make passable cargo handlers and janitorial crew.  Oh, there are two who want to take passage, and are willing to pay for it."

     "Passengers?  Willing to pay for a berth on a salvage ship?  Please tell me you checked with USPF and local law enforcement before agreeing to anything."  The last thing he wanted was to find out these so-called passengers were wanted on a local warrant or by the UniSys Criminal Court; that would be a great way to get himself blacklisted from ever docking at New Detroit again, and if that happened he might as well sell the Jester and quit.  Being blacklisted was worse than death for a ship owner, especially here, where virtually every ship in the populated sphere called in at some point.  Privateers like him could pick up contracts for transportation of goods, and in his case get information from a network of fellow privateers that led to potentially huge salvage claims.  And he wanted this happy state of affairs to continue.

     "Yes, I checked," said Gandu looking somewhat aggrieved, "they have no local warrants, and aside from a friendly warning from the USPF office not to gamble with the one named Rolland, they are not persons of interest to the Untied Systems either."

     "Then why would they want to ship out with us?  They would be a lot more comfortable on a regular liner, as opposed to a working ship.  I just don't get it, but if they have hard currency, then I really don't care, but you have to admit that it's a bit strange."  Cameron had taken on passengers in the past, but they tended to be people who couldn't afford the rather high prices most starliners charged for a decent berth, or just wanted to get there fast; since no 'liner could match the Jester's FTL speeds.  He had ferried a few USPF agents between systems, when they were in hot pursuit of a fugitive, for just that reason; and they knew he'd do it again in a heartbeat, since a USPF agent could authorise him to use faster insystem speeds than would normally be allowed.  He had gotten some nice early delivery bonuses during one such incident, and the USPF had gone to bat for him when the authorities on New Jerusalem had wanted to impound his ship and arrest him.  They even paid for the ride without much complaint or delay.

     "I admit it seems unusual, but the gentleman who contacted me said that he was traveling with a private nurse.  He apparently suffers from a rare type of emphysema which requires constant care.  He also said that starliners are crowded and slow, both things he was eager to avoid."  Gandu finished with a shrug of his broad shoulders.

     Well, I can't say that I don't agree with that," Cameron replied with considerable feeling, "Let's take a look at those applications..."

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 2

     "Hóu yīnjīng de xīshǔn jìnǚ!"  Rollie thought better of walking into the tight, confined space of the power and motor control room for the ship's dorsal railgun turret when he heard that particular curse (Monkey cock-sucking whore!) from its current occupant.  He chose to wait patiently out in the rather narrow, but uncluttered, service corridor instead; remembering the last time he had tried to offer advice on the crisis of the moment, and the rather spectacular end result.  He knew offering to help would just get Dirk's hackles up; he was constitutionally incapable of asking for help with anything, and any offer was likely to be rejected.  Rollie reflected that it was more than ironically hypocritical that he would be hurt if you tried the same thing with him.
     Dirk had come aboard the Jester over two years ago as a rating, less than a month after his discharge from the Alliance Marine Corps.  He was a veteran with a relatively clean record, and he seemed willing to do whatever work came along.  Captain Marshall had soon found out he had done two years as a weapons technician with a Fleet Marine detachment, as well as three ground combat tours in the Sigma Draconis system, and he put Dirk to work as his primary weapons tech and gunner.  That had been a very good decision, as it turned out, because they had nearly gotten jumped by a renegade privateer after coming out of FTL on the outskirts of the Jefferson colony's system.  There had been no warning, much less any time to power up the FTL drive for an emergency jump out of the system.  Dirk's quick thinking had resulted in the taking of their would-be attackers' ship as a prize and having it condemned by the local government; not that the prize money had been particularly high (at just three percent of the lowest possible assessment, the Jefferson authorities would never be noted for their generosity), but good enough to leave some extra spending money in the crew's pockets.  All of which had made Dirk a very popular man indeed.
     There was one last grunt of massive effort from the power room and the sound of the high pressure cooling system's pumps spinning up at their lowest setting.  This sound was followed within seconds by a loud bang and the unmistakable sound of liquid under pressure leaking in very large quantities.  The string of curses that followed could only be described as eclectic, coming as they did in at least a half a dozen languages; of which Mandarin, Alliance Standard English, and Gaelic were the only three which Rollie recognized.  Not that he could understand more than AS English, but he knew what he was hearing.  He once had the desire to ask him how he came to learn Gaelic, but the answer had been rather more enigmatic than revealing: "My father insisted, I felt obligated" was all he had said before walking away.  Rollie got the immediate sense that this topic of conversation was not one reopening would be looked upon favourably, so he decided to drop it, shrugged his shoulders and moved on.
     Rollie's musing was abruptly cut off by Dirk's sudden appearance in the corridor, looking for all the worlds like he had just bathed in a vat of the thick, viscous coolant fluid used to control heat buildup in the railguns' superconducting magnets; which only became truly liquid except at high pressure, and at temperatures high enough to cook a large turnip in less than a couple of minutes.  All of this was bad enough, but the bright pinkish colour of the slimy goop was an obvious cosmic insult, added to the sense of injury Dirk was displaying when he saw Rollie standing there, clearly trying not to laugh, and said:  "One word.  Not.  One.  Word.", before storming off down the corridor toward the emergency burn shower where he promptly stepped in and hit the controls setting the water mist and ultrasonics running in an effort to clean off the worst of the ooze covering over half of his body.
     "You gonna want clean clothes?" Rollie yelled over the sounds of water misting from the 8 nozzles in the shower and the high pitched buzz of the ultrasonic sound waves breaking up the gunk stuck to Dirk's exposed skin.
     Rollie didn't get an answer before the com-badge on his shipsuit collar started chirping with the sound of an incoming call.  He answered it with a drawling "Yeah?" that managed to come out as "Ee-yea-uh?"
     Gandu Mkaba, the ship's Executive Officer, spoke in a lilting, musical Swahili accent:  "What in punda shetani is going on up there?  I have at least three alarms going off on the bridge right now!  Who has activated the chem-burn shower?"
     Rollie decided on brevity over detail: "Dirk's inna shower.  Number one turret had a malfunction, an' he got covered in coolant goo.  Prob'ly figured there was no sense trackin' it all over the ship."
     There was an uncomfortably long pause, and Rollie could just imagine Gandu standing to his full 193cm height trying to scowl down at him through the damage control station com panel on the bridge.
     "I am sending Jinx and Erwin to you, and they will -" Dirk reached out of the shower and grabbed Rollie's com-badge, cutting him off.
     "I don't need a medic or engineer, Gandu, I need a clean-up crew, a real shower, and new SPC lines for the cooling system."  Dirk's voice carried a tone of exaggerated patience that was sure to rub the XO the wrong way, but he kept going.  "I warned you and the Captain that those so-called 'factory rebuilt' Mark 31 coolant lines you got for a 'great deal' were no good, and I was right; they didn't even make it past the low pressure test before popping."
     Rollie was sure he could hear the XO's teeth grinding over the com when Jinx and Erwin came around the corner.  Jinx took one look at Dirk and she laughed reflexively, not even trying to hide it, while simultaneously checking her datapad's link to the shower's limited medical sensors to be sure that Dirk wasn't seriously injured.  Erwin Koch looked as stern as he always did, and headed toward the turret room muttering something under his breath in German.
     "Thanks." said Dirk as he tossed Rollie's badge back to him and stepped out of the shower, his clothes soaking wet, but no longer covered in super pressure coolant.
     "Cap'n's gonna have some sharp words for ya over that chat y'just had with the XO, y'know."  stated Rollie with a rare note of genuine authority.
     "Better that he read me out, than end up in a tight spot with his guns out of action.  Worst he can do is beach me, maybe try to have me blacklisted, but I won't let that stop me from telling him he was wrong to ignore me when I told him those units were junk." replied Dirk confidently.
     Rollie gave that statement a remarkably fatalistic shrug of the shoulders, and said "Just sayin' is all."
     Jinx had finally gotten her laughing fit under control enough to ask questions.  "Other than your pride, are there any injuries you want to tell me about?  The chem-burn shower's sensors have limited capacity, but they tell me you are just wet.  Do you wish to go to the medical bay?"
     "Bù, Xièxiè, Jin-Xie. Wǒ hěn hǎo." Dirk replied in fluent Mandarin, 'No, thanks, Jinx.  I'm good.'  Jinx gave Dirk a respectful nod of the head and turned back down the corridor toward the crew area without further query or comment.
     Rollie watched her go, his wistful gaze firmly locked on Jinx's backside until she was out of sight.  Jin-Xie Kang, or 'Jinx' to the crew, was in his opinion, the best looking woman on the ship by a country mile (whatever a country mile was; it sounded big).  Her features combined the fine boned delicacy of a native Minotauran's upbringing in lower than normal gravity, with a pure Han Chinese ancestry; tall and lean, with curves in all the right places, hair so black that it shone blue under the right lighting, and that rarest of features for someone of Chinese descent:  Green eyes.  He wondered, and not for the first time, what a woman like her was doing on a ship like the Jester; as a nurse and sick bay attendant, no less.  Privateer ships tended to collect odd specimens of humanity (Rollie being no exception), but if she had a storied history, she wasn't letting on.  It just seemed weird to him that a girl that good-looking - and smart - wasn't a famous celebrity somewhere.
     Rollie's daydreaming was cut short by the far less pleasant sight of Second Engineer Erwin Koch coming back from the power and motor control room, covered from fingertips to his elbows in slimy pink SPC fluid, and looking grimmer than normal.  He appeared to be thinking very hard as he approached the shower station where Dirk was dripping dry.
     "Ve haff a big problem mitt ze guns, I think, Ja?"  Erwin Koch spoke with a German accent that was thick enough to stop bullets.
     "No kidding," Dirk replied dryly "I'd say the captain got royally screwed buying those Mark 31 SPC lines, no matter how little he paid for them.  Hell, even free they'd still be less than useless, which is why the Alliance Navy scrapped them to begin with.  'Factory rebuilt' my ass.  Did we keep the old Mark 27s?"  This last was addressed to Rollie, who could be relied upon for just about any mundane information regarding the movement of goods on, or off, the Jester.
     "Nope, they went out as soon as the new ones came aboard; sold 'em to the captain of a tramp freighter named Sarpedon; and before you ask - they hit the FTL locus to Dar Ash'Sham over 12 hours ago.  Sorry big guy." He patted Dirk companionably on the shoulder, his face a mask of companionable regret.

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 1

The following is the first in a series of what I hope becomes a full length story.  Enjoy it if possible.

     Bullard knew that the ship was lost;  they had overwhelmed his pathetically small security team before most of them knew what had hit them.  The lucky ones never saw what killed them, the ones who saw... Well that didn't bear thinking on.  The human mind can only take so much horror.  The crew had abandoned ship over 12 hours ago, leaving only the scientists who - foolishly or bravely, take your pick - had refused to leave, and Bullard's thirty-six man security team.  And them.

     The ship's power distribution network was failing, causing the already dim emergency lights to flicker and the artificial gravity to surge with each new short-out in the system.  Sooner or later the entire power grid would fail and then the lights, gravity, and life support would go with it.  The flickering lights lent a macabre carnival air to the long walk down the upper maintenance tube, causing enough stress that his bio-monitor cuff began to chirp anxiously.  Bullard did his best to throttle back the anxiety he felt, to little effect.  His team, while not perhaps much better than the average pack of rent-a-mercs that they were, had done better than he'd thought they would, but it hadn't been enough - not even close.  Bullard was a graduate of one of the hardest schools of warfare, he had learned his trade with the Alliance Marine Corps at Scatha on Sigma-Draconis, but Czakó had impressed him more than he would have thought any Terran merc could; she had wanted to emigrate to the Hungarian settlement of Új-Hazájában on the world of Nestor Ráj, and she was willing to put her ass on the line for the money to get there.  Dorina Czakó had been the last one to go, and she'd gone down fighting, buying time for him to get the crew and most of the scientists and lab personnel off of the ship.  At the end she'd held them back with just her pistol.  At least they hadn't taken her alive; she always saved one bullet just to be sure.
     'Broadway' was the nickname on most ships for the spinal maintenance and transfer tube.  At approximately 600 metres in length, Broadway gave access to all of the major sections of the ship; the problem Bullard was facing was how to get through each of the sixteen bulkhead doors before someone - or something - decided to come and check Broadway out.  Not for the first time he bemoaned the fact that he had been cut off from both the shuttle bay - and the armory - when everything on this Saints-forsaken ship had gone to Hell.  The armory at least would have given him access to his personal military-grade vacsuit, and SmartLinked heavy weapons, then from there it was a short jog to the shuttle bay where at least one emergency evacuation vehicle was left in addition to the small pinnace.  All of which was as inaccessible as if it was back on Minotaur.  He considered himself quite fortunate to have the weapons he did, their weight was reassuringly familiar; and the habits of years, surviving in some of the Alliance's most brutal war zones, came back to him without effort.
     He swept his shouldered rifle across his field of view as he headed forward, instantly at the ready should anything come his way.  So far, nothing had, but he didn't expect that to last much longer.  If they got to the bridge of the ship before him, he might as well eat a bullet himself; because they would be truly free, and Bullard knew that would be worse than a disaster.
     Bullard couldn't have said in that moment how he knew, but he became clearly and acutely aware that he was not alone on Broadway.  His Colt-Armacon M-125A1 was tucked in close, finger resting lightly on the trigger, as he spun around like a striking snake and saw two shadowy figures less than fifteen meters away.  He settled the aiming reticle of his rifle's smartscope on the larger of the two shapes, and subconsciously activated the recording function setting it to download into his own cranial link's on-board memory.  Pulling the trigger sent a stream of over a dozen hypervelocity flechettes at his first target, each travelling just over 1490 metres per second, and their effect was gruesome; while each individual flechette was not extremely dangerous, a dozen hitting within a few centimetres of each other certainly was, and the first target jerked a little death dance before dropping to the deck.  In a vacuum the rifle's shots would have been silenced by the lack of any conductive medium, but the deafening blast of noise would be as good as a personal invitation to his pursuers to come and butcher him like the rest of the personnel who had foolishly remained on board.  He swung his weapon to bear on the second figure coming at him with the smooth precise control of someone whose considerable skills were backed by the best reflexes that modern cybernetics could provide and that money could buy, and it was very nearly not enough.  The second attacker got to within less than two metres of him when the first round hit its mark and he simply held the trigger down.  He reflexively checked the rifle's ammunition level through the smart scope before checking the bodies, deciding he should get a better look at what he was facing.

     He rather wished he hadn't.

     The thing lying on the deck was a kaleidoscopic patchwork of tissue grafts and physical enhancements, each more horrifying than the last.  Bullard had never heard of Mary Shelley or read her centuries-old tale, but the old soldier recognized the work of a Dr. Frankenstein in this creature none the less.  He realized his weapon's innate armor piercing abilities had been the only thing to save him from certain death; the thing had dermally implanted impact armor covering the more vulnerable areas of the torso and head.  Most of the face had been surgically excised to make room for considerable cybernetic enhancement which appeared to have been grafted directly to the skull, leaving only the lower mandible intact, but with bulges that hinted at subdermal armor and muscular enhancement.  He was just starting to think of how terminally insane a person would have to be to subject themselves to the kinds of suffering involved in what had been done here, when he turned the body enough for the head to roll away from him.  It could be said that it was a testament to his humanity that he nearly vomited in disgust at the sight of the double-helix-and-barcode that had been laser branded on the back of the neck, denoting that this had once been a vat-grown GMH.  Anger and shock drove him to his feet and set them running now that he understood what he was facing; Genetically Modified Humanoids, enhanced with high end cybernetics and bioware.  He was certain he had no time left to get off the ship, but he might be able to get to the bridge and put a message on one of the ship's emergency beacons, in the hope that anyone coming to the rescue would be able to bring some justice to the ship's crew; who had died for the sake of some mad scientists' pet bioweapons experiment, now gone horribly wrong.

     He realised that there was only one more bulkhead to clear before he made to the bridge  A flash of motion caught out of the corner of his left eye caused him to spin around, reflexively bringing his weapon to bear on the source of movement.  The shock of impact was severe enough that he nearly bit through his tongue when the GMH sprang at him delivering a perfectly timed strike, throwing his aim wide to the right and high.  He could see that the blow had also broken his left forearm in two places.  Turning back to where his opponent was coming for him again he decided to get in close, but realised with a mounting panic that he couldn't breathe.  Looking down told him why:  The long bladed combat knife had perforated his right rib cage, transecting his lung from right to left.

     The thing squatted there looking at him with its head cocked to one side like a dog who has just been shown a magic trick making a cooing sound like a dove.

     It knew.  He was finished.

     That he had failed was the last thought Bullard had before the black took him down into eternity.