Dragon Star Battleship

Chapter 9

Morrigan tapped her foot against the floor. She wiped the man's blood from the side of her hand, disappointed at more ruined clothes. She was also concerned she was going to be stuck in these clothes for awhile, without a change available for the foreseeable future. She would just look like a regular citizen, and who would respect that? Hard to rebuild a crew this way.

"Just tell me which port they're taking my ship to and this ends," Morrigan repeated. She pulled the officer's face up close to hers again, hoisting him by the collar of his uniform. His left eye had swollen shut, blood dripping from his nose. His hair was getting slick with blood, as it seemed he had a cut somewhere along his skull.

"Yo-you're a crimin..."

"Sure, sure, whatever." Morrigan shook the man by his neck slightly before drawing him up again. "I'm the worst, I'm a pirate, get over that part. I'd just really like to know where my ship went while there's still one of you alive." Morrigan pointed to the side. The other two Intersol officers that had been left behind had been left to Akasha. She had taken Morrigan's words a little too literally, tearing the spine from one of them, and putting a hole through the skull of another. Blood was smeared across the walls around them, and it coated Akasha's hands and feet. The woman had a subdued smile, standing over the corpses. Her eyes shifted towards this last man.

Morrigan could see the life drain out from his eyes. She imagined he could still hear the screams. She knew she could, wouldn't be able to shake them from her head for the next few days. Not that she regretted what happened, it was a bit of a necessity. She would've probably done it more mercifully, but this at least gave her another part of Akasha's personality: she had no regard for life.

"Going to tell me anything then or do I toss you over?"

"It's..." The man sputtered and coughed. Blood dripping down from his forehead shot out from his mouth with each cough. It splattered onto Morrigan's pants. Amazing. Her only change of clothes getting even worse. She had been trying to preserve them as best as possible to this point, but it seemed this was just an inevitable cost. She had been having the worst luck since...

"It's going to Leolt," the man finally finished. His whole body shuddered. Morrigan felt his weight dropping down onto her hand as he completely gave up and she dropped him. Didn't need to carry extra weight.

"Not a great answer," Morrigan replied, crouching over the fallen officer. "Intersol is just the biggest pain in my ass, dragging ships off to fucking Leolt. Do you know how far that is when you don't have a flagship? You think any piece of shit can just go all the way to Leolt?" Morrigan resisted smashing her fist into the back of the man's head.

"You...you'll go after it?" He looked up at her, turning his head slowly to reduce the strain on his eyes. Morrigan felt a flash of pity, for a brief moment. A person, just an employee, just doing their job and not thinking about it. Do what you're told, go where you're told, fight the good fight. No cog in a machine knew that the machine was evil. All they did was spin.

But then it was gone. She had been there, broken out. That was what made them all uniquely sentient. They had the ability to not just do the things. This was the penalty for not paying attention.

"Well if my ship is in fucking Leolt, I'll go to fucking Leolt." Morrigan stood back up, feeling her knees pop slightly. She cracked a few of her fingers in boredom. "I'm beginning to think you don't understand pirates at all." Morrigan reached into her back pocket, pulling out the handful of cards Akasha had previously confiscated as spoils. She flipped through them before fanning them out in front of her and leaning over. "I think some of these ones will end it pretty quick. Some of them might do kind of...weird things. We'll see. Take a pick."