Page 103 of Seven Oars
They all turned to gape at her.
“I’m serious!” she insisted.“It’s not like we have some pirate immunity. They can kill all of us.”
She looked truly frightened.
“We need to see Phex!” Rosamma’s voice was sharp with urgency.
Alyesha arrived just in time to catch it.
“He’s in the Habitat,” she said.“They’re all in there now, arguing.”
“Arguing? About what?”
“About whether to attack,” Alyesha said.
A loud crash reverberated from the direction of the Habitat.
As one, the women spilled out of the Cargo Hold and ran toward the sound, propelled by a shared need to know.
They stopped short of entering, hovering at the threshold, eyes locked on the scene unfolding inside.
And what they saw surprised no one.
Nud hopped from foot to foot with pent-up aggression.“We’ve got ammo! We can tear into them before they know what hit’em. Grab what we want and go.”
“It’s a large freighter,” Keerym pointed out.
As usual, he stayed in control, and only the twitch of his big, off-putting ears betrayed his tension.
“Too large for us to net. And we can’t dock it. We’ve run out of airlocks.”
Nud hopped higher.“No docking. We take what we can, then bomb them.”
Xorris and Galan were in full support.
”Fight! Fight! Fight!”
They pumped their fists, eager to do just that.
Massar licked the blade of the wicked knife he always carried.
The Striker pushed through the women and tore into Galan without warning. Just tore into him, swiping his clawed hand across Galan’s arm, shredding fabric, skin, sinew.
“The fuck are you doing here? On deck! You’re on duty!”
Galan howled, baring ugly blue teeth fit for a prehistoric carnivore. Reactive animal fury replaced his placid demeanor.
“Tutti’s there, you rancid fuck!”
Blood dripping, he charged the Striker—a bad idea in general, but especially with his arm half-shredded.
The Striker slammed him onto the mesh floor with such force that it dented inward and stayed bent.
“We’re on autopilot?Tutti’s not even working half the time.”
To reinforce his point, he smashed Galan’s face, wiping all expression and replacing it with something like a badly molded Frankenstein mask.
“Ouch,” Anske squeaked.“We were just getting into the first commandment.”
