Ahoy!

I was dressed once more, I did a little reading myself, then wandered around the ship, which didn't take very long, it was only a small vessel, and then back into the communal area. I was experiencing something I'd not really experienced before – boredom. Apart from playing with Nuba, which I couldn't really do right now, there was not much aboard to really keep me occupied. Okay, I mean, I could study, read and play some games, but none of those things appealed at that point.

I was just wondering about getting something else to eat, when there was a loud warbling sound, and purple lights started to flash.

"What's going on?" I looked up as Adail ran into the room.

"Go to the armoury, and arm yourself, tell Nuba to do it as well, then both of you lock yourself in a room," was all she said.

"What's going on?" Nuba ran in, repeating my query. "What's that alarm?"

Before Adail could respond, a message crackled over the ships comm system.

"Ship. Prepare to be boarded. Resist, and die."

"Well," I said. "That's not ominous at all."

"Ship, protocol seven," said Adail. "You two, somehow, someone has intercepted us, which is highly unlikely. Go arm yourselves and find a defensive position. I've sent out a distress call, and the ship's in elude and defend mode, but we're no match for an armed marauder, and we're too far away for help to get here. So, do what I say. Now."

The last word was shouted, and jerked us both into life.

Nuba grabbed my hand and we both ran, heading towards the ship's small armoury.

"There's not much here," Nuba panted, when we arrived and opened the door.

She took a hand held machine gun and a belt, and started stuffing ammunition into it. Meanwhile I picked up a slim rapier and two compact pistols with its own ammunition belt and slipped it over my shoulder. I couldn't find a belt for the sword, so I had to carry it.

"What's this?" I asked, picking up a small, dark tube, about the size of a finger.

"Oh, that's a one shot," she said. "It's a powerful beam weapon, but there's only one charge in it." She came over and showed me how to activate it, and I stuffed it into my jumpsuit pocket.

"Here's a throwing knife," I said, handing it to her. I nearly ended up stabbing her with it, as the ship suddenly lurched to one side.

The purple lights turned a dull red.

"Intruder alert," said the ship.

Noises echoed down the corridor. Short, sharp retorts. Gunfire.

Then it went silent.

"That can't be good," I whispered.

We pressed ourselves up against the sides of the wall and waited.

After about five minutes I could hear footsteps coming slowly, cautiously, down the passageway towards our position. Using the training I'd learned at The School, I ducked down and peered quickly out and then back again. Two figures, large human ones from what I could see, were slowly creeping towards us.

I took a deep breath, stepped out and shot twice with my pistol, then ducked back in.

There were two thumps.

Nuba, eyes wide, emulated my quick-peek.

"Holy shit! You shot them! Both! Right in the head! Fuck!" she hissed.

"I don't miss," I said. Instinctively, I knew I'd just killed someone. Two someones, but something had hardened inside of me. It was like things were happening to another person.

"Stay here," I ordered Nuba, who was still looking at me like she didn't know who I was. Maybe she didn't. Maybe I didn't.

Still, this was what I had excelled at in The School.

I kicked my shoes off and slipped out of the room, sliding up the hallway towards the two bodies that were now blocking the passage. Deep red blood was slowly pooling around their heads.

Just as I reached them I heard someone else, from just around the corner ahead of me.

"Jed, Arm? You there?"

They were there, I thought, readying my gun again.

A face, peered around. I only had time to glimpse of a dark visage, mostly covered in beard, before I shot it between the eyes.

Blood splattered the wall behind him as he joined his brothers in death. I felt a certain grim satisfaction. I didn't know who these pirates were, but I was not going to be taken so easily!

Looking down, I took a closer look at the first two. Both were dressed in dark, well worn, spacesuits of some kind. One's was brown in colour, and heavily stitched. The other looked to be newer, and was black. Both were men, and this gave me pause for a second. I hadn't seen a man in more than eight years. The last male I'd seen in the flesh was my father, as I was climbing into my shuttle to go to The School.

Like the one I'd glimpsed further up, both sported rough beards. One a was bald, and the other had long dreadlocks. I wondered how he managed to fit those into a spacesuit helmet. Next to the bodies were two large guns of a design I didn't recognise.

Stepping over the dead, avoiding the blood, I made my way along towards the third dead man, only to stop short as shouts echoed along the corridor.

"He's here, he's down!"

Footsteps, maybe four or five of them, were racing towards me.

Snarling, almost beast-like, I skipped backwards over the bodies and dropped onto the floor, lying on my front with the pistol ahead of me.

Two men, both in spacesuits similar to the first, raced around the corner, and a second later, both were dead, shot between the eyes.

"Fuck! Shit! Back! Back!" The shouts from their friends took a different tone.

"Get off my ship!" I shouted.

"What the fuck? Did you hear that?" Someone hissed.

"I said, get off my ship, or I'll kill you all!" I repeated.

"Shit! It's just a girl!"

"A girl who's killed five of you. So far."

There was a pause.

"Get Red," the voice hissed.

A single set of boots clumped away, back to get this Red person no doubt.

"Listen girly, if you know what's good for you, you'll give yourself up. You can't win."

I could see the tip of his toe, just jutting out from behind the wall. I smiled to myself, an evil smile, and shot it.

"Fuucckk!" The man fell to the side. Just enough to become visible to me. I fired twice more, and more blood splattered on the wall.

Taking my chance, I leaped back up, jumped over the bodies in front of me, ran up to where he was squirming on the floor, and shot him dead.

"Don't call me girly!" I snarled at his corpse, changing the clip on my pistol without even looking.

Skipping over him, I ran down the passageway. There couldn't be many more left onboard if they sent a boarding party over. Adail must have dealt with at least a few of them.

I was half way along the passageway, with nowhere for cover, when two more figures stepped into my view. I shot back, hitting one in the head, but the second, a figure in a sparkling red spacesuit, dived to the right and returned fire.

Something hit me in the side. I fired back instinctively, and thought I saw the shots hit him in the chest, but now the floor was coming up to meet me.

And then everything went black.