Engineered Empress - The story of Bia

Engineered Empress Part 16

Chapter 16

They entered normal space and begun their approach to Keplar III.

"How long until we are there?" asked Zar, looking over Bia's shoulder at her instruments.

"We should enter the station-controlled space in about 11 hours when we reduce our velocity like this. It's easier on the fuel this way. And then I guess about 2 hours until docking." Answered Bia after consoling her flight plan. Damon turned to Zar and signaled him to leave them alone. After the cockpit door closed Damon began ruefully.

"Bia I am sorry. You were right. I judged you yesterday as if you were Zar and that is not fair. I forgot that you are still that girl I met just a few days ago. Though you no longer look like that and from the beginning you never behaved like a teenager. That throws me a curveball I don't know to counter. I was mad not about you, but more or less for you. Please accept my apology."

"I accept." She l stared at the scan screen.

"... and I am sorry, too. You somehow push my buttons and then I react before thinking. Never has anybody challenged me as you do. I really hate that I lose my nerves around you." She stopped speaking looking intensely at a sensor reading.

"Ah, ... Damon, can you take a look at this reading?" she gestured to the screen. Damon took a look. There was an incoming vessel behind the Tharsis and on the exact vector they were on. With their slightly faster velocity they would be in collision range in about an hour.

"Did you get its transponder signal yet?" he asked in an eerie calm tone.

"Not yet, but it should come in soon." Bia answered. For the next 10 minutes they observed as the ship decelerated but didn't change its course. Damon decided to change their course to evade a collision and to check for nefarious intention by the incoming ship.

"Bia change our course. Standard evasion matrix." They waited and watched as after 20 minutes that the incoming ship also changed course and velocity to intercept them. The screen now showed it as a medium class ship. Damon rubbed his neck swearing.

"Shit, they are trying to intercept us." He then used the intercom and growled into it.

"Zar, prepare to be boarded. Incoming medium on intercept. Bia, I'll want you to raid your tool chest and place wrenches wherever you can get easy access to. They probably come in in their ship suits, I want you to lock the cockpit controls out and route the internals over your DOA, send Zar and me a feed of the cameras. Now hurry."

Bia obeyed and ran out of the cockpit. Thinking on her feet went into the engine room to open the oil tubs. This ship needs to get some parts flushed with oil on a regular basis. The dark sludge gets put into another empty drum. Bia prayed aunt Vera didn't empty that one out. Bingo dark viscose oil sludge went into her travel mugs and she heated them up in her oven to throw them at the intruders.

When they arrive at Keplar III, they would need another oven and mugs, these are now waste. Well when they survive. She put wrenches and knives from the kitchen into every room and even hid a small one in the service box of the head. After 15 minutes she arrived with Zar back in the cockpit. Zar and Damon had changed. Both wore armored black bodysuits with the upper-case gamma sign on their left shoulder. Damon wore a blaster, and both had wicked looking knives on them.

"We need to teach you to shoot, Bia, and get better weapons." She replied.

"Later! Damon, I am ready. I put boiling engine sludge into mugs and scattered them all around. Just throw it at them. The mugs will work as long you get it on their faceplates, they will be blinded." Damon smiled, liking her idea. When an incoming transmission ordered them to stand down for boarding.

"Okay, they made contact, it's a raider and they demand to board, from the size it could be up to 10 persons in there. But we thought already that is the case. Bia, where did you hid when we played?" Bia explained.

"Vera put different cables into this ship. There is now a very narrow tunnel from Zar's cabin to the cockpit. That's where I was in. There is also a smuggler's hold in the cargo space big enough for a medium person and a few all over the place. Oh, and the old duct space. But you would be to broad for that one."

"Okay, Bia I want you to stay in the tunnel again. Monitor the situation and if possible, try to split them up. Zar and I take them on when they come in. If you have one in one of the connected rooms, you can take him out. Do you understand?" Bia nodded.

"Yes, stay hidden, monitor and strike like a snake." Then she turned to the service panel, thought better of it and turned back hugged Zar and then Damon and who grumbled at both after giving her his combat knife.

"Stay safe, both of you. That's an order!" Zar hugged her firmly and Damon caressed her cheek, kissed her forehead and nudged her to go.

"You too, stay safe." Worried she closed the panel behind her and went into the tunnel where she couldn't be seen.

She locked up the ships console and routed everything to her DOA and sent the feeds to the men. A few minutes later the airlock showed a connection. And then began opening despite her encryption. Damon was in the cargo hold just out of sight of the airlock and Zar in the galley. Three pirates armed with blaster came through in the first cycle and three in the next. Two went into the cargo hold the rest to the front. As soon as one entered the cockpit, she closed that door and locked it, another she was able to lock into her own cabin.

The one in the cockpit began to use the console and angrily hit on it when there was no reaction. He then opened a service hatch and pulled a module out and she lost control to the internal systems. She still got the feeds and saw how he slipped a device out of his pocket, connected the module and used his DOA for something. Seeing Damon taking one the two in the cargo hold and Zar the other two in the galley she decided to take the one in the cockpit out, when the airlock spit two other pirates out.

Seeing that the man in the cockpit had his back to her, his full concentration on the module, she opened the panel. He heard her and turned around fast. But she was already jumping at him. He lost the module, trying to parry her and his hand went to his blaster in his holster.

"Oh no you won't." Bia snarled at him and slapped it out of his hand.

"Come here you bitch." He tried to grab at her, but she was to agile to get a good grip on. The pirate then began to punch at her and kick. But Bia saw fast he was brawler not fighter and dodged around his attacks just to deliver precise and painful counters.

When he grabbed for the blaster on the floor, she drew her knife and stabbed a fast combination into his thigh, waist and upper torso. With a mix of adrenaline-fueled self-esteem, pride and shock Bia observed his life fleeing his eyes. The blank look into nothingness had her stomach roiling, but she fought the bile down.

Not yet able to work through her emotions she checked the feeds and saw Damon finishing with the second fighter in the cargo hold and Zar still fighting two in the galley. One of the latest intruders tried to hack through the door to her cabin and the other went to the galley. Thinking Zar needed help she went back through the service tunnel, grabbed a mug and went out of Zar's cabin ready to attack the hacker in front of her room.

"Hey, arsehole!" she goaded him and when he turned to her, she threw the boiling sludge in his face. As soon it made contact he screamed and began writhing on the floor; he never saw her kick to his head coming and lost consciousness. His buddy on his way to the galley came running back into the corridor when Damon shouted

"Down" She threw herself onto the floor and saw the incoming pirate getting killed by a blaster. Damon jumped over her on his way to Zar and said.

"Stay here, yell if more are coming." She stood guard over the unconscious body and kept an eye on her cabin door. On the feeds she saw Zar killing a pirate with his knife and Damon shooting the last one, then both returned to her.

"There is still one in there and this one is still alive." She told gesturing to the man on the floor. Damon motioned her to get into his cabin and ordered the last intruder over the ship system.