Aberrant

Chapter 50

Within the scarred metal walls of the Fire Witch's rear airlock, Jinx checked the settings on the weapon she held: an Ogon Titan-bore shotgun loaded with explosive shells. A Fulmin Hand Hammer pistol sat holstered on her thigh, also carrying serious 'frag you' ammo. Another was hidden in a utility pouch at her lower back, against the spine of her armour, a midnight-blue shell of Zex and composite.

Every nanometre of her was covered in Tras' specialty goods. Grenades hung at her hip and across her chest. Spare ammo crowded the pockets of her battle suit. Plaz blades were concealed in specialised sheaths at the back of one boot and under her arm. Cutting-edge prototype tech, hot off the worktable of some dodgy wep-tech developer, graced her left wrist: yet to be proven, possibly unstable personal shield tech.

The device blended seamlessly with her suit's wrist com, looking harmless enough. But punch it and she'd launch an e-mag shield, along with a few nasty bells and whistles. Charge life: five minutes. Reliability: highly questionable.

Tras had also provided military-class meds and stimulants for her suit's biosystems, including anti-venom for the roaches' paralytic.

It was clear he'd been planning to go to war well before he'd got any message about Soh.

Jinx drew in a breath, gripped her shotgun, and said a prayer for her friend. For everyone. The odds of anyone surviving the coming exchange were next to nil. But backing out was now an impossibility.

Five minutes ago, the Fire Witch had externally docked with a class five Xykeree Hydra.

The massive squid-like ship had been waiting like a spectre behind the ice ball that was Gosos. As a carrier designed to transport short-range attack ships, drone fighters, and an army of ground troops for planetary attacks, the Hydra was overkill for a civilian hostage exchange.

So far, no hostile moves had been made. The ship had been dark on approach, its systems all but shut down. The only sign of activity had been a string of instructions from the ship's docking computer.

The huge, nightmare ship might as well have been deserted.

Jinx's intestines knotted, the sly greeting she, Rolli, and Olsen had got on the Bullhead rising to mind. Dark corridors. Suffocating heat and decomp. A faint electric hum that sharpened as shadows crept in.

She felt the same eerie vibration now, buried in the unnatural quiet of the ship.

The Hydra wasn't dead or sleeping; she was waiting.

A predator crouched in the dark.

Pulse a hard punch, Jinx looked past her mask's HUD to Tras and Dorf. They stood monitoring the hatch camera feed as the two ships finalised docking. As wep-tech traders, it was their business to look antisocial, but loaded up with lethal hardware, Tras in his deep purple battle suit, Dorf in a well-scarred red one, the pair looked like Hell's own motherfuckers.

Eyeing them, Jinx felt only more dread. There could only be one outcome to this.

"Dorf, bring down the lights," Tras ordered.

Suffocating nerves hit. Fighting them, Jinx focused on her tech. The plan was to adjust their human equipment and senses to the Xykeree's dark world. As the airlock dimmed, she lowered her HUD's brightness, then deployed the night-vision mist Tras had supplied. The retina stimulant hit with a faint sting inside her mask, but everything brightened within seconds. She'd been blind on the Bullhead. This time, she wouldn't be helpless in the dark, even if she lost her low-light tech.

She'd be able to see exactly what came at her.

Her heart skipped a beat. Another.

Tras glanced over his shoulder, his mask black, in night mode. "How you doing, Koel?"