Chapter 20

The hyperdrive finished powering up and they shot off through space.  Sam looked out through the windows from the bridge and was hoping for some special effects but you really didn’t see very much.  It was really just stars zipping past at fast speeds.  The ones that were farther away moved slower just like they were traveling in a car and driving through town.  Simple and boring.  Why couldn’t things be more exciting?  She didn’t want fighting to be the only thing that got her heart racing.  She really didn’t want to fight that much.  Her training from the kitsune was actually against it.  Only when necessary.  Clearing off the ship was definitely necessary, though.

The AI was able to give a visual 3D graph of the ship for Sam to look at and to make modifications by thought and hand motions for accuracy.  The ship came equipped with plenty of robots, drones, and such to do plenty of tasks.  It’s a wonder it had a humanoid personnel force at all.  Looking at a few things on the designs, though, gave Sam thought.  She wanted to add room to the area with the weapons capacitors so she could add more if she wanted to or stronger weapons.  The power core was plenty large enough to supply the ship and anything she wanted to add to it.  The hyperdrive was also plenty strong.  There was plenty of room to move things around so she opened up the docking bay so that she could add a salvage section and harvest materials to build and repair things with minimal interaction with planets.  But she still needed her game room and made plans for that.  She wished she could go back to earth and get the things she wanted for the game room.  The location of Earth was apparently blocked from star banks, though.  At least she could see about hooking up her camera to the ship to display the photos and videos from her trips on a screen of some sorts.  Speaking of, she needed to go back into the other ship to get her stuff from the crate.

As Sam was finishing up the modifications she wanted to make to the ship, they came out of hyperspace.  Almost immediately an alarm went off in the room but at least it wasn’t the grating klaxons for danger she had been hearing so often lately.  The sphere from before floated down from the roof of the room and Sam growled at it, only to get an admonishing message from the AI to leave it alone so it could relay messages between her and the planet that was hailing her.  Sam let the orb float there and waited for something to happen or any cue from the AI.

“Unknown warship, you are entering Ally territories.  What is your allegiance and purpose in our system?”

Sam had no idea what to answer and the AI didn’t have an answer for her either since this Ally thing was new for it, “uh, neutral allegiance, I guess?  I have a damaged ship in my hold that was headed to this planet.  Their airlock was—“

“What do you mean neutral allegiance?  You are either Ally, Drazlith, or Wild.”

“Look, I’ve only known what a space ship looks like for a day.  I haven’t had a chance to pick any sides.  Last I checked everyone wants to kill me anyways.  I just want to drop off the ship and passengers in my ship.”

“Why would they want to kill you?”

“Hell if I know! Look, the ship’s door was blown out by Vey’Ral and I can’t release the ship from my hold without the door being repaired first. They say their dock is here on Cordon 3. Uh the ship name is… Skillz Cargo?  They have passengers plus we have women rescued from Vey’Ral imprisonment.  I don’t want any trouble or a fight. I just want to get this door fixed and drop everyone off so I can leave.”

“Fine. We will have a representative inspect your ship and then we will register it as… neutral.  Stay where you are and a repair ship will be dispatched with the representative.”

Sam sighed.  If this was what it took to get out of here then she would deal with it, “very well then.  I will accompany the inspector for the duration they are on my ship. I imagine it will take a while.  Mind you, there are some unsavory sections that I will be removing in time as I had just acquired it from Vey’Ral control so I do not want to be judged for what they did.”

“Noted.”  The line went dead and Sam was left standing in silence again.  She shook her head and slowly made her way back to the hangar.  Her cub made itself known on her way back and stepped in line with her.

“Well, looks like we’re going to have some company.  I just hope they do not cause too many problems for me.”

The repair ship arrived at the dock shortly after Sam and the first people off were the inspection crew.  Sam was leaning against the wall at the doorway when a group of guards walking alongside the representative came around the corner.  Immediately Sam asked the UI if she could grab anything off the ship to use as a shield and the panel she was leaning on was safe to remove.  Sam ripped it off as the guards raised their weapons but she charged them at full speed.  The representative was smart enough to dive out of the way but the guards held their stance as Sam plowed into them, knocking most of them unconscious from the impact.

Sam eyed the representative but he just held his hands up, “I mean no harm!  I did not expect you here or I would have told them to stay their weapons.”

“Your guards are too jumpy.  I’m going to tie them up so they don’t bother me again so we can get this inspection over with and I can go on my way.”

Sam dragged the guards out, two at a time, into the main area and tied them up with wire against the wall.  Once she was sure they could not move away she motioned for the representative to follow her and headed off into the ship.

“So you know who and what I am?”  Sam eyed him while they walked.

“Yes.  This inspection is more a formality at this point.  Knowing what you are now just solidifies that you are to be left alone.  At least as far as the Ally administrators are concerned.  Our soldiers are another matter because of your appearance but there is nothing we can do about that.  Perhaps with time that will change.  For now, everything is touch and go, I guess.  Thank you for saving my daughter, by the way.  Linley is my life.  After her mother died…  I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost her, too.”

“She was an innocent caught up in your wars.  She did not deserve to be thrown away in a dumpster.  If this is what the Vey’Ral do, they will not get far with me around.”

“I guess that is why you wanted to be neutral?”

“I have the largest warship in existence.  I’m going to make some modifications while cruising around to make this ship more liveable for me but then I’m taking the fight to them.  I’m not going to let them do what they want.”

“Be careful.  The Vey’Ral have the backing of the Drazlith Empire and the Emperor himself.  Angering them is dangerous.”

“Thank you for the warning.  I will heed it.”

They talked more and walked a lot of the ship before arriving back at the docking foyer.  The guards were all awake and not happy in the slightest but the workers were just finishing up with the door repairs.  Sam stood in front of the guards with the administrator next to her, both with their arms crossed.  The guards glared at Sam but the representative’s glare made them wither a bit.

“Now I’m sure you all remember the briefing about the individual that was to be protected that looked like a Vey’Ral but was not a Vey’Ral?  Well you are looking at her and happen to have attacked her.  This is the third time this has happened and I am not liking it.  Now I can’t just fire everybody for incompetence, that would leave us without a military, but I want you to take a long look at her and commit it to memory.  She is not the enemy.  She is actually out to stop the Vey’Ral.  So you can either play nice or she will put you in your place herself.”

Sam went behind the guards and started untying them.  As she freed them they grumbled but just rubbed their wrists until she freed the last one.  He tried to swing around and elbow her in the head.  Sam, though, caught his elbow, twisted it around his back, flipped him upside down and kicked him across the room.  It all happened so fast that the other guards barely had time to register the fact that their comrade took a swing at her before he was flying across the room.

“If you really think you can go toe to toe with me, you’re welcome to try.  I guarantee you cannot though.  I am tired of shit, I am half Drakorna, and I am trained in several forms of unarmed and armed combat.  Oh real mature, you can’t kill me with your gun either.”

He had drawn his gun since Sam hadn’t relieved them of their holstered pistols.  He fired off one shot only, aimed for Sam’s forehead.  It connected expertly and knocked her head back which got a chuckle from the guards but then she swung her head back around.  She pulled the bullet out of the hole in her skin since that was as far as it went and hadn’t pierced any deeper and tossed it aside.

“I told you bullets won’t work!  They just piss me off!”  He pulled the gun up again and instead of letting him fire off the gun again, Sam rushed him, caught the gun and pinned him to the wall behind him with her free hand by the throat, “not listening to your superiors is going to get you killed.  Now do what you are told before I really hurt you.”

“Fuck you!  Vey’Ral scum!”

Sam just looked at the representative that she just realized she never got the name of, “just don’t kill him.”

With a nod Sam flipped the guard over her head and slammed him into the ground, knocking the wind out of him and cracking a few ribs in the process.  She stood over him as he gasped for breath for a second but just shook her head and walked off back into her ship.  A high pitched whine got her to stop and turn around as the idiot guard threw a grenade of some sort at her this time.  It latched onto the skin of her arm but her AI told her what it was and she knew she needed to get rid of it ASAP since it would also hurt the people nearby who had gathered to watch the exchange.  She was next to another doorway into the docking bay and had the AI open the doorway slightly so she could rip off the device and throw it through the gap.  It detonated seconds after going through the gap and sent shrapnel pinging off the walls of the foyer.

Sam looked down at her shoulder and the gashes where the device latched into her skin, “alright.  Last straw.  That grenade could have killed someone.  Now he dies.”

The representative stepped into Sam’s path and tried to hold her back, “whoa whoa!  Hold on now! No one died!”

“If I didn’t have full control of this ship then I wouldn’t have been able to open this door!  Do you know the implications of that?!  That was a shrapnel grenade!  It wouldn’t have killed me but it certainly could have injured or killed several of the people milling about!  But I bet he didn’t think about that, did he!”

“We will have this discussion with him once we get back to the planet.  I think his actions merit a court martial.  He will pay for his indiscretion.  Thank you for your quick thinking.  You know I never did get your name.”

“Sam.  Sam Pedersen.”

“Well Sam, thank you.  The door is fixed now, so we should be off.  I will keep you in mind should we ever need assistance.  Until then... “

“Until then…”

Sam watched as everyone shuffled off her ship, including the women who she rescued from the Vey’Ral.  It was back down to just her and her cub, who was currently sitting at her feet watching as well.  They both watched as the craft the repair crew had boarded on flew away and got out of range of the ship.  Once they were a good distance away, Sam spun her ship around and aimed for some dead space where she could start some demolition and reconstruction in her ship.  A lot was being removed and moved around so it gave her the room to work without needing extra supplies.  She figured she could hunt out some Vey’Ral ships if she needed supplies eventually but for now she was content to work with what she had.  Her star drive wound up and she was off to hide in a remote section of the universe for a while.