I shook my mane, forcing the distraction from my mind as I led my team into the breach, rifle at the ready. Whatever that smell was, it would have to wait. Right now, I had a job to do—a cargo hold full of lives to save from the clutches of that vila filth.
The passageway opened onto a scene of utter devastation, like the heart of a battle-torn warzone. Smoke choked the air, burning my eyes and throat as I swept the chaos with my rifle muzzle. Everywhere I looked, bodies and wreckage littered the deck in mangled, scorched heaps.
But there was no sign of the slaver or his crew, not yet. Just row upon row of cages lining the outer bulkheads, each filled with a wide variety of creatures. Some sentient, others were not.
That strange, sweet scent washed over me again, stronger this time. Unmistakable even through the dense pall of smoke and discharged ordnance. It was coming from that last cage.
My hackles rose as I stalked closer, motioning for my team to fan out and secure the perimeter. As I neared the cell, the smoke parted just enough for me to make out a hunched, slight figure pressed against the bars. Pale and hairless, it flinched back as I approached, eyes wide with a terror so primal it made my throat constrict.
What in the great spiral was this creature? I’d never encountered anything like it in all my years, not in a thousand different worlds. Its scent was alien, almost sickly sweet and yet underpinned with rich, earthy notes that made my mouth water despite myself.
I shook my head, pushing the bizarre reaction aside as I studied the strange being. Cowering against the rear of its cage, it watched me with those huge, glistening eyes—eyes that shone with a keen, haunting intelligence unlike anything I’d seen in even the most sapient prey species.
It... she was no dumb beast, that much was clear. This wasn’t some mindless, brutish creature to be processed and sold to the nearest slaughterhouse like so much meat on the hoof.
No, this was a thinking, feeling being, trapped and terrified and utterly alone on a ship that reeked of death and destruction.
My grip tightened on my rifle as my pulse quickened. A million questions burned in my brain, but there was no time for answers now. Not until I neutralized the real threat aboard this craft and secured my objective.
Locking eyes with the strange creature, I offered it a slight dip of my head—a subtle reassurance. At least I hoped that’s how it would be taken. Then I turned on my heel and followed the smoke-choked corridor deeper into the bowels of the slaver ship.
My team fanned out around me, weapons raised and swiveling in eerie synchronicity. We moved with the silence ofseasoned hunters, checking every nook and cranny for any sign of danger.
But the further we pressed into the ship, the more apparent it became that we were alone—alone except for the drifting miasma of smoke and the distant, tortured groans of over-stressed bulkheads straining to hold the ship intact.
“Clear,” one of my lieutenants rumbled at last, lowering his rifle. “No sign of hostiles.”
I grunted in acknowledgment, scanning the shattered corridor around us. A dozen bodies lay strewn about in various states of dismemberment and scorch—all of them Arudian, the hideous slavers themselves.
By the looks of it, they’d attempted to make a stand here, to mount a final, desperate defense of their foul operation. But against a withering assault like the one we’d unleashed, they’d never stood a chance.
A low growl built in my throat as I circled the body. This one wore the tattered, scorched remnants of a command tunic, the insignia identifying him as the ship’s master. The ringleader, the one who’d profited most from the nightmarish trade in stolen lives.
And now he lay dead at my feet. The Coalition’s uncompromising justice wiped another blight on the galaxy clean.
I pivoted to address my team, already preparing to issue new orders to begin the search and recovery effort, when a flicker of movement over my shoulder made me pause.
There, creeping out of the smoke-shrouded wreckage of a buckled bulkhead, was the unmistakable silhouette of a lone survivor. An Arudian male, half-dragging himself along the deck with one arm clutched around his midsection.
My rifle snapped up, tracking his sluggish progress as a snarl ripped from my throat.
“You there! Stand down and identify yourself!”
The Arudian froze, then slowly lifted his remaining hand in a gesture of surrender so feeble it was almost pitiful. Thick, ropey strands of his own viscera trailed behind him, glistening and slick on the deck plates.
He tried to speak, but only a wet, gurgling rasp escaped his ruined throat. I could see the light fading in his beady black eyes, the last flickers of life trickling away with each rasping intake of smoke-fouled air.
Lowering my rifle, I strode towards him with cold, purposeful strides, looming over his broken form. Up close, the extent of his wounds was even more horrific - shrapnel scoring, plasma burns, the works. The slaver was dying, literally coming apart at the seams.
But he was still clinging to life. Still conscious, if only just. Which meant he could still answer for his crimes before the great cosmic wheel turned once more.
I crouched beside him, ignoring the puddle of gore soaking into my combat leathers. Up close, his scent was rancid, tinged with the charnel reek of death itself.
“You and your crew brought this on yourselves,” I rumbled, holding his gaze with a look of pure disgust. “Where is your leader? Where is Kruznek?”
The Arudian gurgled again, a thick gobbet of viscous fluid spilling over his mangled lips. But there was no mistaking the flicker of defiance in his sunken eyes, the barest hint of a smirk pulling at the corners of his maw.
“Gone,” he rasped at last, each word a labored rasp that sprayed more gore across my muzzle. “You’re... too late.”
