Chapter 19

The ship sam was on shuddered a bit and suddenly red lights started flashing around the ship with that annoying alarm klaxon again.  Something wasn’t right.  She lifted the lid of the crate off and looked around to see herself in a large cargo hold.  It was nothing special aside from having many containers.  The ship she was on was likely a cargo ship and didn’t have many passengers.  That would make fighting to the bridge easy enough if she needed to.

Climbing out of the crate, she felt some light claws in her ankle, “don’t leave me, sister.  I come!  I help!”

“Are you sure you can keep up?”

“I have your blood.  I will keep up.”

“My blood?”

“We bond!”

Sam thought that was a bit creepy but pulled the cub out of the crate to follow her around the ship anyways.  True to its word, the cub was keeping up, though, Sam wasn’t running that fast as it was.  Sam found an open door and peeked in, seeing a room with some passengers in seating similar to that of an airplane but much wider.  Down at the other end of the hall was the airlock of the ship for loading passengers and crew and it was turning a bright red right now.

Sam ducked into the room with all the passengers, knowing they’ll react badly to her, just to avoid whatever blast was about to come from the airlock.  Sam ducked in not a moment too soon either and the moment her and the cub were both in the room the door exploded inwards with massive force.  The whole ship rocked from the blast.  Many of the passengers in the room screamed for their oncoming demise.  Sam on the other hand walked out of the room and headed towards the airlock.  The dust was settling still and Vey’Ral were starting to pick their way through the wreckage.  They stood taller than Sam by a head and were closer to white with black marks while Sam was a beige with reddish brown markings and feathers.  Their wings were also much smaller and their faces more reptilian than feline but still close to human.  They actually looked partially like Voldemort from the Harry Potter movies but with fur.  They were pretty ugly.  Come to think of it, the only resemblance she shared with them was the cheek marking and wild mane.  Even their ears were different.  How could she even get confused for one of these?  It was frustrating and confusing.

The first one through the door finally noticed her and said something in their language.  They all suddenly looked in Sam’s direction and smiled, one even rubbed his crotch.  Ugh, gross.  Before they could charge, Sam advanced on them, giving them even bigger smiles.  A couple people popped their heads through the doorway to see what was going on in time to see Sam grab the arm of the first Vey’Ral and throw him into his comrades.  Her mentor had told her during training to not hold back on Vey’Ral.  Kill them or they will do worse to you.  It was still difficult to kill so easily.  The next closest she gave a hard kick to the chest to send back into their comrades as well before a volley of blaster shots went past Sam causing her to hit the deck.

Sam got up slowly once the shooting stopped.  The Vey’Ral that had been trying to invade the ship now had several smoking holes in their bodies.  Those were some powerful blasters.  She eyed them a bit, “have any extras of those?”

The crew looked between each other and handed one over to Sam.  She sighted down the gun and checked the trigger before thanking them and heading down the hallway.  Sam couldn’t read the markings on the gun but she hoped this thing had a lot of ammunition to it.  She rounded a corner and seven Vey’Ral were walking towards the doorway.  She aimed and blasted them in the heads.  Their skulls turned to smoking holes.  It was absolutely terrifying but she didn’t want to sit around and wait for more to come.  Who knew how many were going to come and overwhelm the ship.  Sam had a new appreciation for these energy weapons as she stepped over the bodies and moved into the ship.  She walked through the corridors, shooting any she came upon.  No amount of training could keep her from freaking out as she listened as carefully as she could and walked silently on bare feet through the metal corridors.  She noticed the marking on the gun seemed to be counting down as she took down Vey’Ral so she figured it had a limited charge and hoped she cleared most of the ship before it ran out.  She was starting to feel more jumpy as she went along, hesitating around corners as she went trying to find them and avoid being jumped.

Finally she came to a room that she hoped she’d never see. It was a holding pen.  One holding women in various stages of pregnancy.  A couple of quick shots and the Vey’Ral in the room were down and Sam stepped in to survey the damages.  Most of the women were barely pregnant but a few were quite far along.  One was actually in labor and giving birth, much to Sam’s horror.

Walking over, she helped the hippo woman birth the Vey’Ral child.  It’s head had popped out so she gripped it and pulled the rest out.  It’s wings hadn’t formed yet but apparently the fucker had claws and sharp teeth as it attacked Sam’s arm.  She freaked out, ripping the thing off her arm and breaking its neck in the process.  The woman was horrified and howled at Sam for killing her baby.  Sam stared at the hippo woman, confused as she thrashed around in her bindings, before walking away slowly to see about releasing some of the others.

She looked around the room and all of the women had eyes on her.  “Are you all going to attack me if I let you out?”  They all looked around confused and one spoke a language that Sam did not know.  Sam muttered a curse and walked up to the one who spoke to look into her eyes.  The woman looked away when Sam walked up but she tapped the woman’s shoulder and gestured to look into her eyes.  It just took a minute but Sam absorbed enough to engage her in conversation and make it less awkward.

“I’m not here to hurt anyone.  I’m here to help.  How long have you been here?”

“We don’t know. Some days, others months.  We lose track of time in here. No planet to tell time on a ship in space.”

“How do I get you out of here?”

“There is a control in the back of the room.  I don’t know how it works nor have I seen it.”  

Sam left her and headed to the back.  Sure enough there was a touch panel in a language she really had no idea what it said.  She tried a button and it leaned a chair back, the adjacent button righted it.  Another button seemed to do nothing but trying the other button made the chair adjacent to the last move.  Another button released her harness and Sam jumped a bit with joy, using the two buttons to cycle around the room to release the remaining women.  She hesitated when it was time to release the hippo woman.  Sam really didn’t want her trying to maul her.

The other girls noticed Sam’s hesitation, “we will steady her.  Go ahead and finish releasing everyone.”

Sam nodded and finished releasing everyone and true to their word, they held back the woman to console her.  She didn’t understand how anyone could be so emotional about the death of a Vey’Ral, even if they birthed it.  Yeah, Sam was having a hard time with killing them, but it was more because it was a traumatizing experience than sympathy.  She had been educated on what they were like and did.

“Ladies?  If I could have your attention?  I’ve killed a lot of the Vey’Ral in this ship already between here and the ship docks.  There is a ship they captured in that,” Sam pointed in the direction she had come, “general direction if you would like out of here.  I am continuing in the opposite direction to see what I find.  If anyone feels the need for revenge on anyone left they find, have fun.  I have no idea how many are left.  I am sorry I have no weapons besides this one and I need it still.  Be safe and stay in groups.”

Sam headed past them and readied herself to continue her trek through the ship.  She left it up to the women to figure out what they wanted to do.  Sam figured that the women were likely to head towards the ship docked for safety rather than to follow her into the ship farther.  Who in their right mind would follow someone like Sam without a weapon?  Then she remembered she hadn’t even paid any attention but the cub was actually still following her.  Dutifully scrambling along at her heels.  

“Are you okay down there?  You don’t mind following me around?”

“Gun good for now.  I help when gun dies.”

“Alright.  So what do I call you?”

“We are Corran.  I can not accept name until bond sets.  Will know when does.”

“I don’t know if I will.  Are you sure I can’t call you something in the meantime?”

“No!  Is tradition!  No name!”

“Alright, alright.  No name.”

After a while, Sam turned a corner and found a huge crowd of Vey’Ral.  She started firing, one shot for each, and backing up as they jumped over their fallen.  The stream didn’t seem to stop.  Suddenly the gun emitted a click and a whine, ceasing to fire.  Now it was hand to hand melee at full strength or risk being overwhelmed.  The remaining Vey’Ral in the hall cheered as they rushed her only to be met with claw and fist.  Sam straight kicked the first one in the chest hard, sending him flying backwards into the rest of them at high speeds.  She was going to have to hit hard enough to crush rib cages and skulls to get through this mob.  She knew that first one was down from the crunch she heard when she kicked him.  The next one tried a flying leap over the others though.  Sam met him with a force palm upwards into his face, snapping his neck backwards at an odd angle.

Sam had to push.  She needed to get them out of this hall so she could have more room.  There just wasn’t enough room to get any sweeping attacks or to use her wings for leverage.  A few more kicks and punches pushed them back into the room they were flowing from.  The worst part was having to move around the ones she’s hit laying on the floor still in their death throes.  The gurgles of blood filling their lungs or twitching from a broken neck or smashed skull.  The Corran would savage any that tried to reach out to Sam that had energy left to try to stop her or trip her up.

Finally they pushed into a large room and Sam was able to give a wide sweep of her foot claws, gouging a few in the neck that had been too close and hadn’t moved out of the way fast enough.  Those she caught stumbled back to bleed out from severed jugulars.  Sam’s long sickle claws on her feet were razor sharp and cut through flesh like a well honed blade.  There was easily twenty still in this room that she had pushed into but it was easier to attack more than one at a time now that she could sweep around and slash or use acrobatics to do multiple strikes.  It sped up the process though the results were definitely more personal than using the gun.  More intimate, in a sense.  She felt like the fighter in a Kung Fu movie fighting a horde of grunts coming for them.  It was the only way she could keep her mind on the fight and away from the approaching breakdown of everything she’s done since leaving the ship.  She did silently wish she stayed but with how many she had gunned down just going through this ship, she wondered what would have happened and how many would have died at their hands.  She had the skills, though previously untested, to take on this ship, so why not do what needed to be done.  They say it gets easier with time.

Finally the last one fell.  She had done a twisting flip over one, breaking his neck, and brought her heel down on this one’s skull.  She looked down at her hands, covered in red blood, and started shaking.  It wasn’t so bad with the gun, less personal, but she just went through forty of the Vey’Ral in hand to hand, not counting the ones she had gunned down initially.  They had no self preservation instincts and it made Sam feel crazy.  They literally were lemmings; diving off the cliff because the first one jumped.  So much blood and gore covered her arms and legs that she felt like throwing up.  It was disturbing, disgusting, nauseating.  She wanted to clean herself, scrub every inch of herself with a wire brush and pumice wash until her fur all fell off to make sure she was clean.  It was too much for her to handle.

The Corran was lucky that she had red fur so the blood did not show up so well on her but Sam could see the matted fur around her mouth.  Sam felt the blood dripping from her hands as she stepped over the bodies and walked from the room.  She picked up the discarded rifle and draped the strap over her shoulder.  She got back to the T in the hall where she went right and looked the opposite way.  There was nothing down there except one more door but it looked large and imposing.  She needed to know what was behind it.  There were no other doors down this hall so Sam did not walk cautiously but instead lumbered along wearily from the past hours she’s spent going through the ship.

When she was about ten feet from the door it slid open on its own and Sam’s eyes opened wide.  Through the doors she could see out the windows to the stars beyond and some of the surface of the ship.  She was so transfixed at looking out the windows she didn’t even look around the room when she walked in.  She had a really good peripheral vision and could see most everything but didn’t catch the movement of something from behind a panel after she moved to the middle of the room.  She heard something just in time to turn around as a Vey’Ral that looked different than the others was walking up behind her.  He still looked like a Vey’Ral but was a little taller, leaner, and composed himself like he’d been around a while.  He was fast too, apparently, because he tried to grab Sam’s throat.  She reacted fast enough to catch his hand an inch away and he struggled to move past her strength. He tried pushing harder and just pushed her backwards.  Not much she could do only weighing in at 70 pounds.

She stepped back a few feet and regarded him curiously.  He was obviously stronger than the others by a long shot.  Much faster too.  Something about him had Sam on edge.  He wasn’t blindly attacking her like the others had.  He was calculating.

“I haven’t seen one of your kind since the end of the purge 8,000 years ago.  You’ve all been in hiding.  Fancy finding a female too.  Didn’t know they could come in that variety.  How old are you, little one?  How many millennia have you been in hiding?”

Sam was confused about some of what he’d said, and more about that he’d spoke a language she understood.  The others hadn’t, “millennia?  8,000 years ago? What purge?  I’m barely 37 years old.  I don’t know any of this.”

His grin faltered for a second as he stared at Sam, “how?  There is no way!  We wiped out the Ren’Dal!  None remained!  The last died at the end of the purge!  You can not be so young!”

“Hey, I don’t make the rules, old man.  I’ve just been living my life and most of this shit is just as confusing for me.”

“Old man? You insolent little child!  Do you not know who I am?”

“Nope. Not a clue. I get the feeling you’re going to tell me though.”

The Vey’Ral bristled and stood taller, “I am general Kalaknar!  One of the 6 last generals of the Vey’Ral!  We are the strongest and most dangerous in the universe!”

“That’s nice. So what makes you the strongest and most dangerous?”

“I… what? Why do you question me?!  Everyone knows about the generals!”

“Yeah, no.  Not everyone.  Look, the last two days have been really rough on me.  My home world doesn’t even have galactic travel.  Why don’t we just skip to the part of me leaving.  I’m just too tired for this.”

“You are not leaving!  My brethren will enjoy using you over and over as you provide us with strong whelps!  We could use some new generals!”

“Hey!  I am giving you a chance to walk away old man.  I’ve dealt with enough crap today.  Don’t threaten me with rape.  I will rip your dick off and shove it down your throat.”

“You think you can stand against me?  Hah!  None of your brethren are strong enough.  Neither are you.”

He tried lunging for Sam’s throat again but this time she grabbed his wrist and pushed it over her head and hit him with an uppercut to his solar plexus that sent him sailing over and past her.  He spun in the air and landed on his feet, albeit sliding a bit and held himself.  That hit had hurt and he knew it.  He wouldn’t be so careless any more.  He came back at Sam at a jog and when he was close enough did a leg sweep to take her legs out.  Sam jumped into a front flip to bring her heel down on his head but he barely caught it over his head.  He tried to grab it but the force of the blow nearly broke his hand and sent Sam flipping back over and away from him.  She went on the offensive this time, using his trick against him.  She swept at his feet but he jumped straight up to avoid it but Sam kept spinning, bringing her foot back around to slash across his stomach with her claws fully extended.  Suddenly he was very aware of the differences in Sam’s anatomy to the others of her kind as he watched the two inch sickle claws drag through his abdominal muscles while he was still in the air from jumping over the leg sweep.  He stumbled backwards as the pain flared to life once he hit the ground, his blood pouring down the white fur of his front.  He went to go lunge for Sam again but a sharp pain at his ankle stumbled him and distracted him.  His head turned minutely to the side from the pain and Sam charged a force palm into his chest.  The added force from the charged Qi blowing him backwards into a pilar and collapsing his chest.  Sam thought it was done but she noticed the wounds on his stomach and chest starting to heal.  He was starting to get up so she took drastic measures.  She did a flying kick into his chest as he was just getting to his feet, knocking the wind from him again and slumping him over.  She used one of the two magic abilities she had access to as the “ten tailed kitsune” as she put her hand on the back of his head.  Foxfire engulfed his head as his scream pierced the air and echoed through the ship’s corridors.  His head burnt to a crisp and his body crumpled forward to the ground.

Sam shook herself out.  She still felt disgusting and having to watch what foxfire did to a non-kitsune was gruesome.  She was shaking the last of the loose blood from her hands as a few women walked into the room, startling her.

“Sorry about the mess.  I don’t know how to work this ship or I’d see if there was some way to clean it up.  Anyone know how to read these symbols?”

The women all shook their heads.  Then while Sam was poking at a panel with no results a white orb with a black spot came down from the ceiling and hovered over to her.  Sam heard a beep behind her and turned to see it moving closer.  When it got extremely close to her face she put a hand on it to push it back.  She felt a heat on her similar to the dna scan gun that Terry had used followed by another beep.  The heat stopped and Sam stopped pushing it.  It hovered there for a few seconds before a probe shot out of the side of it at a lightning fast speed that even Sam could not stop as it plunged into her temple.  She swat away the arm once it impaled her before falling to the ground in agony.  Hot tendrils were digging through her skull as electrical pulses shot through her body at random and the tendrils moved about.  It was the worst agony Sam had ever been in and it just wouldn’t stop.  This was worse than the neurotoxin she was shot with and the pain of every bullet combined.  Finally with a buzzing pop in her ears the pain subsided.  

Slowly and gingerly Sam tried to get back up.  The women sat around her but not too close.  They had worried expressions on their faces and were reaching out to her.

“Savior?  Are you okay?”

Savior. That was new.  “I think so,” her voice was hoarse and she had to clear her throat a bit at the pain.  

“You were screaming and thrashing around for a while. We tried to hold you still but you are very strong for a small girl.”

Sam looked down a bit, sheepish, “sorry.  I don’t know what happened.  That was the worst pain I have ever experienced, though.  I certainly never wish to deal with that again.  If I see that sphere again I’m destroying it.”

Trying to stand was a little much for Sam right now so she settled for sitting on the ground.  The women moved closer.  One had a cloth from somewhere and wiped at a few places on Sam’s face. The cloth came away orange.

 “Blood?  I’m bleeding?”

“The orange is blood?  Strange. Never seen orange blood before.  Ours is red.  Blood came out of your nose, eyes, and ears.  Not much, just a few drops. Probably from the stress.”

“Oi. Okay. That makes sense at least.  I didn’t even reali—hurk!!”

Sam seized up as whatever had been implanted in her brain turned on.  She didn’t spasm or flail out but her eyes narrowed to thin slits as information flooded her brain in an assault.  The women saw the glazed look in Sam’s eyes and tried to lay her back only for all of her muscles to be locked in place and so rigid she couldn’t be moved from her sitting position.

It took a minute but Sam finally took another breath, unsteady as it was, and looked around.  The women couldn’t see it but the implant was feeding information directly into Sam’s brain and showing a readout in her vision of what was in front of her.  It was unnerving and invasive to see so much information listed out that probably should be private.  It even listed out the power levels of the girls.  She didn’t know why that was relevant, though. 

Then suddenly an explanation was in her vision.  It apparently was the class levels that races, and in rare circumstances individuals, are garnered to govern laws and allowances on things like assault and competitions.  A level five has a great advantage over a level two so laws and limits are set up accordingly.  If a level two goes after a level five with a knife then the level five is only allowed to disarm.  Also if a level two uses sneaky tactics to kill a level five, they are charged with more serious crimes because of what they had to do to commit the murder. Inversely, higher levels need to be careful because they can get in trouble without realizing it for accidents because of their higher power levels.  One could get excited and swing an arm out and smack a lower level, injuring them on accident and getting in trouble.  Often times there is just a fine and they pay for lost time from work but if it is negligence then there may be jail time.  This was all very interesting but then she realized she wasn’t paying any attention to the women around her and had been completely quiet.  This was going to take some getting used to.

“Sorry.  I think I got an encyclopedia implanted in my brain.  I am getting so much information fed to me. It is overwhelming.”

“Oh yeah? What does it say about me?”

Sam looked at her for a second then read off the list, “Drayla, 157 pounds, 6’1” tall, age 45, three months pregnant, level three class.”

“Wow, that thing is good.  So what else does it do?”

“Uh hold on.”  Sam queried and got back that it was the AI for the ship they were on and that it could control the flight, weapons, drones, repairs, cleanup, operations, and communications.  “Apparently everything.  It’s the ship AI.  Does that mean this is my ship now?”

All three of the women were surprised but nodded yes and the AI queried back ‘affirmative’.  Sam thought back to it to clean up the dead Vey’Ral and it began the process immediately.  Gingerly Sam got back up, more steady on her feet now.  She wanted to walk through the ship more but wasn’t sure it was such a good idea yet.  Suddenly a red and green cub bounded up to them.

“There you are. I was wondering where you ran off to.  How’d you like that general?”

“Strong opponent.  We kill!  He not bother anyone any more.  What we do now?”

“Well you’re welcome to explore.  Apparently this is our home now.  The ship is mine.”

“We have home?  Yay!”

Sam just chuckled as the cub ran off to explore.  The women just looked at her weird.

“What? I speak a lot of languages.”

They just laughed it off, “so what now?  Where will you go?”

Sam shrugged and looked around, “I don’t know yet.  I should probably head back to the other ship but I am a little unsteady on my feet still.”

“We will walk with you.”

Sam thanked them and they walked slowly through the ship, keeping up a light conversation.  They were curious where this strange person had come from that was able to rip through Vey’Ral with ease yet had a kind demeanor with them.  She answered what she could along the way until they made it back to the ship.  The crew were still standing guard outside with guns drawn but lowered them when they saw Sam back.  The pile of Vey’Ral had grown at the front of the ship.

“You return!  What tidings do you bring?”

“I bring an empty gun and a lot of dead Vey’Ral.  The ship is working on removing what is left that I didn’t get.”

“This is very good news!  This ship has been a bane to shipping lines for centuries.  Any time we get too close without realizing it we get trapped and boarded.  It’s good to know we can finally destroy it.”

“Destroy it?  But I just took it over!  It’s mine now.  I control the ship AI and everything.”

“That is impossible!  It can only be manned by a Drakorna!  That is why it hasn’t moved in over a thousand years!”

“Yeah well I’m half Drakorna so I guess that makes me able to handle it.  Not that it was easy.  Damn did it hurt too!”

“You are half Drakorna?  You look nothing like them though aside from the fur.  Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.  And if what Kalaknar said, the other half of what I am died out 8,000 years ago so me existing is even more of an issue.  No one thing should live that long.”

“It is said the Drakorna are immortal or at least they live for a very long time.  No one knows. No one has been around long enough to record how long they live besides the Drakorna themselves and the extinct Ren’Dal.”

“Where I am from, normal life expectancy was 60 to 90 years.  And the last years you weren’t doing much more than shuffling around your house.”

“90?  Most races of the universe live to be 200 years old.  And that is the short lived ones.  Some are up to 500 years.”

“Wow. So I have a pretty long life ahead of me.  Good to know.  Before I left I figured I was halfway through my life already.”

“If you are half Drakorna as you say, you are still a juvenile.  You probably will not be an adult for another 800 years.”

“Eight hun— I’m going to be a considered a kid for eight hundred years?!”

“A sad fact of life! Thankfully only the Drakorna will care about that.  As far as everyone else cares you act mostly like an adult.”

“Oh hah hah.  I’ve been dealing with a lot.  Anyways, what are we going to do about this door?”

“Well we don’t exactly carry a spare.  There is enough room in here to fix it but we need supplies and tools.  This is a pretty big ship.  You claim it is yours now… would we be able to move to Cordon 3 to repair it since that is our home port?”

The information listed out in Sam’s eyes and she nodded to herself, “yeah, this ship is still fully capable of travel and hyperdrive movement.  It might just need some extra time to warm up slowly since it’s been so long since it’s run.  It will take about twenty minutes to warm up then two hours to arrive at Cordon 3.”

“Damn this thing is fast!  We were still another 4 hours away when we got trapped.  How old is this ship again?”

The info scrolled for Sam and she was completely boggled, “three… three thousand years!  Good lord my home planet wasn’t even been able to work more than brass three thousand years ago!”

“Most civilizations were just starting space travel that long ago.  Only a few were big travelers.  One being the Ren’Indral.  They built this thing. It is a war ship.  Which reminds me.  Don’t drop out of hyperspace close to the planet. Make sure you’re a good distance away so we don’t raise any alarms.  This thing is pretty intimidating.”

“I can imagine.  Apparently it failed in whatever it was doing if it was overrun by Vey’Ral though.  But this is my home now.  I won’t let them fuck with me or anyone near me any more.”

He nodded before the ship shuddered a bit, casting a questioning glance at Sam, “hyperdrive started.  It’s big and distorts the frame around it a little.  We’ll be fine.”

He shrugged and Sam went back into her ship to explore more now that she wasn’t trying to fight her way through.  It all seemed like a very basic ship with nothing exciting.  A large bank of crews quarters and empty rooms, no game rooms or anything of the like. No real entertainment anywhere.  Sam definitely knew there would be a lot of renovations she would be doing to this ship.  There was just nothing to do for fun anywhere.