Private Dissapointing Twist

[Rixa]

"Feth."

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?”

 

[Sam Rodarch]

Hull one, Sam zero.

On impact, she had crashed into it, her right side clattering against metal. Her right side, which was very much the wrong side, given that it was the side that was bolted onto her. The big piss-off cybernetic arm, mounted just above the elbow, was anchored to the bone and screamed bloody murder on every missed swing and collision with bulkheads. It was screaming now. Old news, new volume.

Her head was a different question, but what was one more rattle of the skull?

Comlink was duff, confirmed when Sam brought her other hand up to the earbud and got nothing but dead silence. Seventy-five credits down the tubes. Not hers, Dobb's; the Ugnaught had been particularly insistent, and nobody said no to the matron of demolitions.

So there she was, one fucked freighter, a fresh gap in a burning city, and a pirate with their blaster pointed square at her.

One problem at a time. The most pressing one was threatening to put a round through her, and Sam, remaining stationary, let her eyes travel to the hand rather than the barrel as if trying to distinguish between a hand that might have gone through with that threat and one itching to do it. The secondary problem was growing louder by the second: klaxons. She'd pocketed them as the familiar ringing that hit her skull more often than not, but it was clear now that it was whatever authority on the planet, probably more than a little pissed they'd torn a path through the streets.

Sam grunted in agreement, eyes still on the hand. She wasn't going back to the Cairn. Breaking out once was a miracle delivered in the form of one scumbag, Archibald Sult. Ties were cut now; she'd be on her own. A cell and a lifetime. Not happening. She'd rather bite the bullet.

"Do what ya want," Sam finally said, moving without warning towards the hole in the hull, without a single care about whether the other woman would shoot her or not. "M'not gonna be here."

The gap was about a hand's width too small, but she forced her way through shoulder first regardless, the wrong shoulder, and down the line the mount protested.

Then she was out.

Klaxons louder now, dust and coolant stink in the air, heat at her back. Sam turned around and saw the wreck in full. Fire and smoke, not just one, but several columns billowing into the air. Four minutes ago, all of that had been a place where people lived. Or worked. Didn't matter now. What mattered was that she was here, on the ground, with no comms, no direction, unable to read a single street sign and with the authorities bearing down. She paused, no clue on which direction to run except away.

"Where's yer people?" Sam called out to the hole behind her, not caring about the pirate or her people, but the way out they offered.

 

[Rixa]

Sam Rodarch

Rixa watched the other woman force herself through the gap. She had barely glanced back at the blaster. That really annoyed Rixa.

She lowered the gun with a short, irritated breath.

"Charming."

She followed, boots crunching over twisted plating. The freighter was a ruin. There were fires already spreading into what had been streets and low buildings.

Klaxons were getting closer. It would not be long now.

Rixa wiped soot from her mouth with the back of her wrist stepped forwards. She checked the charge on the revolver out of habit, then holstered it.

"My people will come for me," she said. Rixa did not sound entirely convinced.

"Boarding went to shit because someone tried to steal our bounty."

Rixa was more slim, but she had to adjust her sword to push through the hole.

 

[Sam Rodarch]

After scanning the skies through the black smoke for the sight of the shuttles attached to the klaxons and not getting hit by flashing lights, Sam turned to the pirate manoeuvring through the hull hole. On instinct, bloodshot eyes flicked to the woman's hands, noting the revolver was out of the picture for the time being.

Always the hands. That's where the intent lived.

"Yer bounty went out wi' the pods," she drawled, flicking her stare upwards to look at the woman. As far as Sam was concerned, the problem of the bounty was out of both of their hands. It was down to their crews now. Out of sight, out of mind. Couldn't do shit here on the ground. Could do even less if they were sporting a pair of brand-new bracelets and a one-way ticket to the slammer.

Then it came through the black. The flash. Red and blue. Shuttles on the approach.

Fuck.

Sam stepped forward, the scrapheap arm reaching out to snatch at the pirate's arm and yank her the remaining way out of the hole. "Where." The woman's uncertainty in her words was out of Sam's scope. She didn't care. She didn't think. She wanted the direction this ship would be in, and this woman had a mouth.

Or could presumably point.

 

[Rixa]

Rixa stumbled the last half-step as the cybernetic hand closed on her arm and hauled her clear of the wreck.

"All right, all right. I’m out." She shook the grip off without making a fight of it and turned toward the approaching lights. Red and blue cutting through the smoke.

"Spaceport’s that way." She pointed past the burning silos, toward a line of low hangars.

"Saw it on the way down. I say we break in and steal a ship," she said. This time she spoke with absolute confidence. The pirate had been served well in her life by introducing chaos. Even if the scars across her exposed middle told a story of many lessons learned.

She started moving, not waiting to see if Sam followed. She set off at a run across the deck. They were too exposed here.

"And if you grab me again without asking, I’m putting you on your fucking arse."