Dashay awoke to a hard pounding in his skull and the vague sense that he was suffocating--there was something squishy and heavy over his face that was making it difficult to breath. The young pirate tried to displace whatever it was and found rather quickly that it wasn't simply his head being covered. It felt like somebody had dropped a lead drape over his entire body. He moved his arms slowly, painfully, up to his face. The exertion caused him to suck harder at air that wasn't there, setting fire to his lungs. He wrestled with whatever it was atop of him for an agonizing minute before finally being able to free himself by rolling it to one side. He sat up quickly, gasping for air, and took a quick look at his surroundings. It made him wish he'd settled for suffocation instead.
That "lead drape" had not been a drape at all. Rather it was the massive corpse of Daedric, his crew's weapons specialist. All around the lone, surviving, pirate were the mangled corpses of men he'd bonded, befriended, and come to respect. "No." Dashay said. His voice sounded hoarse in his throat. It came out choked, barely over a whisper. The action of moving his mouth to create the sound made him realize that his face felt odd. Absentmindedly, Dashay reached up to scratch at his cheek while his wide eyes took in the awful scene. His hand came down orange and sticky, coated in drying Incarth blood.
Blood. Dashay thought. Suddenly a bright recollection of every pillage and plundering ran through the young man's mind. He'd always felt that one day there might be a reckoning for all that his crew had done. He knew that a lot of what they had done was wrong. But this, Dashay thought as he looked at the blood on his palm. This seemed to be a bit much. Their pirate troop had only killed when others would absolutely refuse to part with their Federation goods. The Federation was the reason they had all been forced into piratry in the first place. When they had come into the Incarthid's section of the galaxy, they had promised his people peace, prosperity. They had shown them marvelous technologies and given them promises of help in advancing their own--for a price of but a little labor. But it was their "help" that had made his people reliant on them. Sure everything went smoothly at first but soon his people's economy and currency were tied in with the federation's. Then said galactic government began to ask for more labor in exchange for fewer intellectual gains. When his people began to realize what was happening, they quit their deal with this new and advanced government. Then the taxes began. They became almost unbearable. To work an honest living one would have to struggle endlessly to barely feed a small family. When his people refused to pay taxes, the Federation would remove their "protection" and "bandits" would attack their planets and outposts, laying waste to millions.
The Incarthid people became trapped; and when people are trapped they do what they need to to survive. They only ever hit Federation supply posts. It was to take back what had been glutted from the efforts of his people. Sure they were "advanced" now, but at what cost? Dashay was sure that if the ancient Incarthid had known the cost from the start they never would have accepted the Federation's "help". At least that was what Goob believed.
Goob. The captain. Oh no. The young pirate rolled another corpse off of his legs--Delvin--he recognized, before standing up. Or at least Dashay tried to stand up. Pain shot through the front of his lower left leg and he fell on his rear. Something had torn through the front of his pants and bruised his leg, leaving large, swollen, circular welts on his skin. Dashay knew the bone was badly bruised if not broken underneath. Nevertheless the boy steeled himself and stood up, keeping his weight on his good leg. It didn't help much because being upright forced the blood down into his injured leg either way. He could feel his pulse thumping in it and suddenly his head didn't hurt so much in comparison. The moments where he had to apply his weight ever so briefly to his injured leg were abominable to say the least, but Dashay was worried that the captain might be even worse off, and it was with that thought that he steeled himself against the pain.
Once the crippled pirate slipped on something firm and slick that he imagined had once been a part of one of his brothers, but he got back up and kept to an odd circle of cleanliness in the center of the room. Dashay searched for minutes but couldn't find his captain. It was then that he deduced what the circle devoid of corpses must be. Good. At least some of them made it out. He hoped. But where is this ship's crew? Dashay wondered. Surely an entire Incarthid raiding party didn't go down without a fight, yet all the corpses that he saw were only his people. Unless it was an ambush and they thought I was dead. That would explain why Goob had left him behind as well when he'd escaped. He never would've left his second in command if he thought there was a chance that he was still alive, would he? No. Dashay thought firmly with a shake of his head. The captain was better than that. But if both sides had really believed that he was dead... This was either going to be very foolish or very brave.
Dashay made his way back to Daedric's corpse and muttered an apology as he rolled him over. The young pirate pulled out his knife and cut off the pouch that Daedric always had tied against his lower back when raiding. Finding a wall to put his back to, Dashay slumped down against it and dumped the contents of the pouch between his legs. He opened a small metallic packet and pulled out the bandages inside. After shaking them briefly to activate the elastic cooling agents he gingerly wrapped it around his injured leg and waited a minute for them to slowly compress and cool around the wound. It was agonizing as they tightened but after they had he felt much better when he moved his leg. Next he searched the pile of various medicinal packets until he found one with a hard jar inside. After opening the jar he dipped his fingers in the salve inside. Having picked up a generous glob, he rubbed it onto the skin of his chest, right over his heart. And then sucked the rest off of his fingers.
Berserker cream. It was the first time Dashay had ever tried it. He'd always stayed away from it because he'd heard of how addictive it was. Now as his horrendous pain not only faded, but got replaced by a feeling of energizing euphoria that spread from his chest outward he understood why--he could get used to feeling like this. The pirate bolted upright, feeling light as a feather. He experimentally stamped his bad leg a couple of times and jogged around. Satisfied that his leg would hold him, Dashay let the anger flood his bones and set out for revenge.
The door exiting the storage room was obscenely quiet, which the young pirate counted as a blessing. It was hard enough to move quietly in his heavy boots as was, he didn't need the loud, metallic, snap of a door to announce his presence to the entire enemy crew. To his right, the hallway ended shortly behind an alcove with a ladder in it leading down somewhere. As he was about to descend, he heard the faint sounds of conversation to his left, coming from where the hallway went for a time before opening up into what appeared to be a common area. Dashay pulled his hardlight sidearm from its thigh golter and stalked the length of the corridor. Making it out into the exceptionally well furnished commons, he kept behind furniture wherever possible as he crept towards the voices at the end of the vessel. Growing closer, he began to hear what they were saying.
"Assassin, how many left?" The first voice said. Dashay recognized it instantly to be Dale Sourgout, the militia man. He was looking at a monitor on his cockpit screen and Dashay could see the rear-left side of his head move slightly when he spoke. After Dale finished, a male voice sounded but Dashay couldn't figure out where the other person was. From what he could tell, Dale was alone in the cockpit.
"Seventy-three and counting, fifty-six, oh--"
"What is it?" Dale asked.
"Eighteen pirates just got warped back onto one of the accessory ships, its engines are heating up. Should I?" The voice Dale assumed was this aforementioned Assassin said.
"Do it." Dale replied.
Dashay watched in horror on Dale's display as a bolt of blue lightning arced from Dale's ship to Lieutenant Taric's main fighter, blowing it to pieces instantly. Two words and an entire crew was dead. Dale hadn't even lifted a finger. Whatever that weapon was it hadn't even stopped for a moment at Teric's shielding. It just lanced right through. Dashay squatted back behind the couch he was using for cover and tried to get his breathing under control. It really had been a set-up. He'd had his suspicions with the slaughter back in the storage room but this confirmed it. No militia man would have access to this kind of firepower. Dashay had never even seen anything like that. This tiny ship had all the firepower of a federation world cruiser. Maybe more. He'd heard fairy tales of a ships like this as a kid. Ships that belonged to the federation's reapers. The intergalactic government's strong right arm for assassinating its greatest threats before they became threats. But they weren't real, were they? And if they were why would they be hunting an Incarthid pirate band? Had the captain's exploits really gained that kind of notoriety? Dashay's train of thought was interrupted by the voice of the Assassin again.
"Thirty-five. There's only one left in the main chamber. He's hiding behind a computer doing something. I suggest you take care of it quickly. There may be some other way to pilot the ship that we've overseen."
Oh no. Dashay thought as he realized what the Assassin was counting down. Someone or something was on one of their ships killing their men. Flashes of the recent carnage in the storage room smashed against the young pirate's skull. Suddenly a wellspring of courage born of anger blossomed in Dashay as he stood from his cover and did the only thing he could think of to save his men. He shot Dale Sourgout in the head.
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