Pirate
Sam Rodarch
The freighter had hit the ground like a thrown brick.
Rixa’s shoulder slammed into a bulkhead as the deck buckled under them. Metal screamed. Something exploded aft and the whole compartment filled with dust and the stink of ruptured coolant lines.
It had felt rough, but it the landing had to have been softened by something. Anti-gravs firing on auto or thrusters. Otherwise she wouldn't still be alive. The ship would have buckled. She would have been smeared across the floor.
Outside, through the cracked viewport, the horizon was on fire. The viewport pointed behind the ship where they had set several buildings on fire and torn a deep trench through a road.
Rixa shoved herself upright, ears ringing, and found the other pirate already on her feet.
It was the woman from the rival boarding party. The one who’d been trying to cut her throat three minutes earlier.
Rixa spat blood and pointed the blaster at her anyway.
“You. We done trying to kill each other or do I put a round through you first?”
Somewhere above them klaxons started wailing. Planetary authority ships, already closing in. The freighter’s original crew had jumped clear in the escape pods not long after the pirates breached, then set the autopilot for a suicide run into the densest population centre they could find.
Absolute classic scorched-earth bastardry.
Now the two of them were the only ones left standing in the wreckage, and every local with a badge was about to decide they were responsible.
Rixa kept the gun level but jerked her chin toward the nearest ragged hole in the hull.
"Authorities will be on us in minutes. You good, or are we both about to die stupid?”