Metal crumpled in his fists. He willed her to materialize, already seeding what was left of his energy back into the systems, though he knew that it would do no good. Ballsy had fried all the relays connecting the security cameras to the mainframe.
“A couple of hours ago, more maybe, not long after the gunfire started.”
Gunfire.Hours ago. Before he had left the underbelly. The feel of tearing that pirate’s leg off came to mind, and he itched to feel it again.
Gunner turned slowly and approached the prisoner across the way. The man backed up. “Details!”
“Chesnik came back and freed him. Her. Is Ely really a woman?”
Chesnik. Her dad.The knowledge did little to calm him. “Then why is Kallan’s stench thick in the air?”
It was thicker than Elodie’s.They weren’t here at the same time. She left before he slithered through here.
“He was also here. He got angry when he found Ely wasn’t here. What the fuck? What’s happening?”
Gunner felt his teeth fall out, heard the tinging sound as they scattered at his feet. He tore a metal bar clean off and dragged it behind him as he approached the nearest android. But before his hand touched it, the jolt of another string of shocks brought him to his knees.
All he could see was red.First my ship. Now her.Slowly, bringing his hand up to connect with the android, he replayed what happened through its eyes.
She left with a strange man.Chesnik, he assumed.Good. Now I know which pirate I’m not allowed to kill.He copied the image to his personal storage. Ely and her father’s heights and builds were alike.
He was out the brig door and searching the next moment, forcing his body to press onward.
He went back to the lounge room and found nothing. His snout shifted, extending from his face, his beast taking a little more control. It liked the hunt.
Kallan was everywhere. Fresh, fresher than Elodie.
Where are they? Where is she?
A terrible vibration, a growl rose from the pit of his belly as he sought his target.
Gunner came back across the tampered bodies and this time he checked them over. The guns were gone. There were no footsteps leading from their pooled blood.
It had been avoided. The looting had been unhurried.
He rose up and pried the elevator doors back open with his hands, finding the scents weaker within, polluted with his own.They couldn’t have gone up.He would’ve known.
Then he caught it. A trail that led away and seemed to circle back.
The corridor he faced led to what most would consider a dead end; it led to the bowels of the ship, the machines that kept the crew supplied with breathable air, drinkable water, and all the other minutiae required for human survival. The parts of a spaceship that was all but off-limits except in case of emergency. It was too dangerous to be within when the machines were running. As far as the machines were concerned, the only distinction between recycled waste and a person was that one of the two had a name.
Behind him was the way to the storage containers. Kallan’s reek led that way, interlaced with drugs. Smoke. Kallan had taken full advantage of his new position as a crew member. Gunner lifted his head and his ear twitched. A noise came behind him and he twisted toward the storage units.
It’s where I would go.
But he didn’t take a step toward it.Elodie first? Or Kallan?Another viral blast flooded his core and his sense of smell reset. Kallan’s trail reignited before Elodie’s and he made up his mind.
Gunner moved swiftly and through the passageways opposite Ely’s scent, his soles digging into the dingy, grated floor. The sense of his target grew stronger and with it, his bloodlust. It was an allure he no longer cultivated but accepted. He could push his desires away, cloud his mind, but where was the fun in that?
Kallan’s fascination with Elodie made him Gunner’s number one target. If he was a better man, he’d convince himself that he was killing the opportunistic fuck for Elodie but he knew that wasn’t true. He hunted for his own pleasure.
He came upon a hatch, and like others he’d seen on the ship, it was locked by a personal access code. He smashed his fist into the tech while his mind flooded the systems. Within moments, the storage unit opened and Gunner entered. Large square and rectangular crates lined the dim, open space, each made with a variety of materials.
Stolen goods. His enemies’ acquisitions.A pirate’s treasure trove.He passed them by without a glance. He could hear Kallan now, the fear and stiffness overcoming the man’s body. He could sense the subtle shift in the shadows, his target hoping to hide from whoever approached.
“Kallan,” he taunted darkly, his fingers elongating. The scent of fear bloomed, filling his nose and caressing him like a lover. Gunner purposely walked past the place where his prey hid, allowing Kallan’s unease and restlessness to marinate. He circled back.
“I know you’re in here. I can hear you.” Another zip of Ballsy’s EMP virus shot through him. Gunner faced the corner where he sensed the prisoner-turned-pirate, hiding between two large crates where the dark was thickest in the room. Gunner stood, patient, his breath deepening into wolfish, wheezing pants. If there had been a light overhead, the silhouette he’d cast would be gaunt and hunched, half-poised to attack. But there were few lights strung about and so he remained a sentinel in the gloom.
