"Down!" I shouted. As one, the star-ship crew threw themselves to the floor as a Maz-Blazter bolt crackled overhead splashing onto the wall too close to my head to make me happy. Molten plastic dripped down the wall.
Dropping to one knee, I wheeled around and fired back over the crew's prone bodies. A pirate ducked back into a room. "Make for the exit," I told the crew. They were well trained – many of them must have been ex-Navy – and started wriggling forwards on elbows and knees. Under other circumstances, it would have been quite funny watching them do the stomach shuffle.
I snapped off a couple more shots at the doorway – more to keep the pirate from getting any ideas rather than expecting to hit him. Bolts of energy zinged down the corridor exploding harmlessly against the walls. Chunks of Konkreet fell to the floor, leaving craters on the walls.
"Keep going," I called back over my shoulder.
The pirate took advantage of my distraction by sticking his wrist out the door and firing a couple of unaimed shots in our direction. Konkreet rained down on the last crewman, giving her a big incentive to hurry up.
I smiled. What had worked once would work a second time. Usually. "Hurry up you lot, I can't hold 'em for ever!" I shouted.
Once again, the pirate extended his wrist beyond the jamb and squeezed the trigger. The Maz-Blazter is an inaccurate weapon at best so I gripped it two-handed, stilled my breathing – I've got an implant letting me temporarily control my lungs and heartbeat – aimed and fired. The searing red-hot energy bolt shot out straight and true and hit the pirate's wrist, severing it. The pirate's own Maz-Blazter dropped to the floor and the pirate screamed with pain and shock. There was no blood as the bolt's heat cauterised the wound.
The man lurched out of the door and into the corridor waving his stump in the air. This ape had pallid skin and a Mohawk haircut. Immediately, Çrámerr leaped to his feet. I almost felt sorry for the pirate as Çrámerr swung at him. Almost. I heard the crunch as the ape-man's flat nose broke and freshets of blood flowed freely. The pirate clutched his broken nose. Çrámerr's next blow knocked the ape-man to the floor and a kick left him out for the count.
Stooping, Çrámerr picked up the discarded Maz-Blazter, pointed and fired at his head, atomising it.
"Bit of overkill there?" I commented.
"Finalising his options," Çrámerr said with a grin.
I'd forgotten just how aggressive Çrámerr was.
Alert for further pirates, we made our way to the exit. He must have been the only one left to keep an eye on the prisoners while the rest dealt with the meteorite strike. In the store room, the crew donned protective suits and helmets and checked each other's seals. As experienced spacers, they were familiar with the procedure.
"What we need to do first is pick up Julianna, then grab ourselves a shuttle and get off this hell-hole," I said, taking a spare suit for Julianna. I didn't mention Sava's shell at this stage, but I wasn't prepared to abandon it. No way – I have a reputation to consider. Once we were all suited and booted in our protective gear, Çrámerr and a couple of others moved the junk out of the airlock and we stepped inside. We were all tense and on edge as we waited for the airlock to go through the motions as, for all we knew, the pirate inside could have radioed his mates on the outside and we could be walking into a firing squad.
Maz-Blasters held high, Çrámerr and I stepped through first. If we were gonna die, we weren't going alone. Of course, it would be worse for me as Çrámerr had another clone on standby if Economou didn't hear from him.
On the outside, we were immediately caught in the non-stop deluge. The rain seemed even heavier than normal, like this world was trying to compress its ocean filling by a few thousand years. Water streamed off our protective suits and, in the permanent gloom, it was hard to see where we were going. Even the suit's infra-red sensors were useless with eighty-five degree temperature rain. Squinting, I peered through the downfall. Nobody seemed about apart from a couple of scurrying figures in the distance.
Putting our helmets together, I suggested that Captain Nanisha and the crew find a shuttle and get on board and wait for us. Çrámerr and I would rescue Julianna and meet them there.
"But we don't know where the shuttle is," Captain Nanisha said.
There's always a fly in the ointment but I pointed vaguely in the direction of some vast metal sheds that looked like hangars. "Must be in there," I said. "Don't go without us unless you have to."
Nanisha shook her head.
"Get this right and I'll boost you all up the corporate ladder," Çrámerr promised. "Promotions for all."
The crew nodded their thanks and then followed their leader over to the hangars. Without a weapon between them, I hoped they'd be careful. But we had no option except trusting to luck. Crouching low, Çrámerr and I made our way back to our quarters. Hot rain beat on our backs but we got back safely. I punched the air-lock's pad and we entered the building. We'd left a peaceful scene – well, except for the dead pirates, of course – but came back to a scene of chaos. It was easy to see what was going on. Taking advantage of the confusion outside, two pirates were trying to inflict a 'fate worse than death', as romantic novelists have it, on Julianna.
She stood behind the table, her clothes ripped and torn and her hair all mussed. Two ape-men were backing her into a corner. One of them had a hand raised to his cheek trying to staunch blood leaking from several deep scratches. Attagirl, I thought. The shorter ape-man had freakishly long arms covered with matted hair and I guessed he had more than a dash of gibbon in his genetic make-up.
They spun around as they heard the air-lock's hiss.
"Interrupting something, boys?" I asked.
Dropping the spare protective suit I raised my pistol and fired. A red hot bolt of high energy splashed into the ape-man's chest sending him flying over the table and crashing into the wall. He gave out a half scream before his voice was stilled for ever. There was that ozone smell you often get from an energy weapon mixed with the smell of burned flesh. Not nice.
A split second after I fired, Çrámerr took out the other one.
"Headshot," I said. "Nice shooting."
Çrámerr grinned. "Top five per cent gets the cream."
Whatever. Julianna's eyes opened wide and then she burst into tears. Had to be hi-man, I sort of decided. Would a gynoid be worried about another man using her body for the purpose it was designed for? Probably not. Unless she had been equipped with the full range of emotions?
I put those thoughts out of my mind as she ran round the table, still clutching her rags around her. She flung her arms around me and covered my face with kisses. Would any gynoid be programmed like that? Who cares. I enjoyed the experience until Çrámerr coughed, bringing us back to reality.
"Don't like to interrupt but we need to maximise our opportunities by implementing our plan of attack. On the up and up."
He was right. There was a chance that more pirates would burst in at any moment. Helping Julianna into her suit, I filled her in on what had happened. She picked up one of the dropped weapons – a rapid-fire needler – while I helped myself to a spare dagger. Which only made me miss my trusty diamond blade all the more.
Back on the outside, the rain was still pelting down and what little daylight remained was rapidly failing. Night drew on, which worked to our advantage. Touching helmets, I told them that we weren't leaving without Sava's shell. Partly I didn't like the idea of failure – and partly I didn't want Sava thinking I was the pirate raiders' inside man and coming after me. No way did I want to be hunted down by Norin and Sava's thugs. Julianna also wanted to recover her lover's – or owner's – property so Çrámerr was outvoted.
Trouble was, it could be stored almost anywhere. After I'd showed him the crate, Knofahgginarebagz could have easily moved it to a more secure location. No point blundering about checking all the warehouses or sheds as we'd be here until the rains stopped and the sun came out – many millions of years hence.
"We need up to the minute intel," Çrámerr reminded me.
"So let's get some," said Julianna.
I looked at her. Her face was distorted through two visors but I saw she meant it.
"Well, we could find a computer terminal – they must have records of where they've stored their loot," I said. "But we'd need passwords and all that."
"Just grab somebody, stick a knife in his ribs and he'll talk," Julianna said.
What is it with women – or gynoids? Beneath the surface they can be surprisingly vicious. All the same, she spoke sense. It would be far quicker to find somebody who could take us straight there. Only problem was finding a pirate on his own without getting into a big shoot-out.
However, we had the element of surprise as our escape hadn't yet been discovered by the main body of pirates. Using hand signals, I directed the others behind a row of outbuildings which took us out of sight of any observers and we ran towards where the pirates were still dealing with their broken fusion-generator. There were no sparks flying into the atmosphere now and with this rain there was no chance of fire.
Others were hauling stuff out of the smashed shed and placing it onto flat-bed anti-grav trucks. One man climbed up into the cab of a fully laden truck and drove it away – towards us. Meanwhile, the others kept busy with their loading. No doubt they wanted to get the job over and done with as quickly as possible so they could return to their quarters and get out of their hot and stinky protective suits.
Pointing to the approaching truck, I said, "Soon as he turns into a warehouse, we'll get him."
"He's gonna have a bad case of the Monday morning blues," Çrámerr grinned.
At a run, but still keeping out of sight of the main group of pirates, we chased after the truck. It made a right, vanished from view behind a hangar before reappearing in the gap between that and the next. There didn't seem much order to the layout of the pirates' base. Basically, if you wanted a new building, just level a space and put it there. Not like anyone else wanted to live on this hell-hole world.
However, it didn't reappear again.
"Must be that one," Julianna said.
Gripping our weapons, we ran up to the building. It was built of galvanised metal, now dulled and rain streaked. There were no doors or windows our side. Cautiously, we made our way to the end and I peered round the corner. Nothing to break up the unrelieved extent of corrugated metal. I swore. That meant the entrance was on the side facing the pirates. Hoping that they'd be too busy to worry about what was going on behind them, we ran along the building's edge until we reached the front. There was just a standard vehicular entrance so we were in luck as there was no air-lock.
"They must store stuff here that won't be affected by this atmosphere," I said, more to myself than the others.
Looking over at the distant group of pirates, I saw they were still toiling away. And in this rain-swept gloom, they would be less likely to spot us – unless it all got noisy. Trying to look as if we belonged, I walked around the corner and pressed the gate's opening pad.
Nothing happened.
The light stayed red.