Page 10 of Dax: Gratefully Bonded

The unassuming little packages were eggs, laid into living hosts by some grotesque, spider-like creature. After about half an hour, they hatched, then the larvae began eating the host from the inside out. According to my best estimates, these had been implanted into Gasrin’s leg about that long ago.

I extracted the second one the same way, and then the third, each of them pulverised against the floor of the cabin. Had there been a fourth? I felt along the side of the wound, determined to get them all. Gasrin was wailing now, and I could scarcely imagine the pain I must be causing him, deliberately aggravating a wound like I was. But if I left even a single egg behind, he would die a much more painful death as the larva fed on his flesh.

I couldn’t find the fourth one, but I was fairly certain I’d seen four lumps the first time around, not three… And yes, there it was! I jammed the pliers back in, grabbing onto the lump and pulling it out… just in time to see a worm-like head with serrated teeth start poking out the end of it.

With a curse, I hurled it to the floor and smashed it under my boot. I had another cursory feel of his leg, but I was pretty sure I’d got them all now.

“Don’t move. I’ll bandage your leg,” I said to Gasrin… right at the same time as a proximity alarm began to blare from the front console.

“Jesus Christ, what now?” I staggered back to the console, leaving Ru to deal with a bleeding and whimpering Gasrin. I punched the warning alert, squinting as data began scrolling across the screen. It was a cargo vessel, not the sort of thing that would normally cause a problem, but the readout confirmed that it was equipped with laser cannons, and more to the point, it was on an intercept trajectory with our ship. I switched to visuals and let out a string of curses as I recognised the insignia emblazoned on the side of the ship.

“Eumadians,” I barked at Ru. “Just what we fucking need.” As a general rule, the Eumadians weren’t murderers. They were just thieves. Their favourite tactic was to disable a ship’s engines, bust open their cargo hold with their lasers, collect the stray cargo in a big net, and then carry on their merry way while the victim scrambled to repair their ship, or at the very least, launch a distress beacon.

With Matchi slowly bleeding out on the floor, and myself, as the only qualified pilot, very likely to pass out in the near future from an unknown venom, that was a situation we absolutely could not afford to get caught up in.

“Firing on the Eumadian vessel,” I announced, activating our own cannons. Only two of the four were still working, and if it came down to a proper fire fight, we would certainly lose. But I wasn’t going to give the Eumadians the chance. In any other circumstances, I might have fired a warning shot at them. The Alliance built good ships, and at full strength, we would have been more than a match for a cargo ship.

But not today. I lined up the shot, making absolutely no move to change our course or to give away the slightest hint of our intentions. And then I fired directly at the engine casing. The laser cut through the plasma tank, and then the oxygen tank beside it. The two fluids burst out of their containers, vaporised in the vacuum of space, and then a second shot from the laser canon ignited the mixture, causing the entire port side of the ship to explode. It split open in a long line, almost in slow motion, it seemed, and I watched as bodies, bits of metal, and cargo crates spilled out of the gap.

In strictly legal terms, I had just committed an act of terrorism against the Eumadians. But given their reputation for sabotage and theft, I told myself they deserved it. Just this once, they could get a taste of their own medicine.

A low grunt beside me got my attention, and I turned to see Ru standing there, peering down at the screen. “Reckon they had any medical supplies on board?” she asked, her face so pale that her purple skin was almost blue.

“I’ll send out the net,” I told her, with no particular enthusiasm. God only knew what the Eumadians had been transporting, but it would only take us about ten minutes to deploy the net and drag in whatever it could catch. And if there were medical supplies, that could significantly increase our chances of surviving long enough to get to Delaville. I paused the autopilot and deployed the net, watching via the rear screen as the wide mesh magnetically captured anything it touched.

“What about Gasrin?” I asked, checking over my shoulder. I’d thought Ru was going to bandage his leg for him.

She had done, in a sense. Gasrin’s shirt was now wrapped around his leg and secured with his belt. “We’re out of bandages,” she said simply, gesturing to where Matchi was lying on the floor, a wide swath of the things wrapped around his middle, and another one around his head. He was a Denzogal, and his eight-foot frame had suffered far more damage than the rest of us. He looked like a ragged mess, with clumps of his thick fur having been ripped away in places.

I glanced back at Gasrin’s makeshift bandage and shrugged. I didn’t have the energy to be either surprised or worried about the lack of appropriate medical supplies. Though I was just about lucid enough to realise that my own lack of concern was problematic.

By the time I activated the reels to haul the net back in again, it had caught six small crates, and one much larger one. Once the cargo bay doors had closed, I reactivated the autopilot. “You okay here for a minute?” I asked Gasrin. “Ru and I are going to go see what we’ve landed.”

“I’m fine,” he said, pale but determined. “Anything’s better than being eaten alive by worms.”

I nodded, then limped out the door and down the hall. My right leg was nearly numb now, and I was starting to feel lightheaded.

Inside the cargo bay, the magnets on the net had deactivated themselves, dumping the cargo haphazardly on the floor. One of the crates had the galactic symbol for ‘medical aid’ stamped on the side, so I wasted no time in deactivating the pressure seals and opening it. “Oh, hallelujah,” I muttered, as I pulled out vials of local anaesthetic, antiseptic ointment, bandages and a variety of other wound dressings. I shoved an armful of the supplies at Ru, who caught them awkwardly, wincing as her stump of an arm caught the brunt of one particular package.

“Sorry,” I apologised, more because I remembered that that was what I was supposed to do, than because I actually felt bad about hurting her. And that wasn’t right, was it? I was fairly sure my brain wasn’t working properly, but damned if I knew what it was supposed to be doing right now.

“Take that up to Gasrin,” I told her. “He’ll need some pain relief. And you, too. I’ll see if there’s anything else useful here, then come back up.”

Ru nodded. If she noticed anything odd about my behaviour, she didn’t say so. Instead, she headed for the door, while I poked around at the other crates. One was food. Two were farm equipment of some sort. I didn’t bother opening them, once my comm had read the shipping manifest printed on the side. Another one was more medical equipment, though the crate was lying on its side, and I didn’t have the strength to stand it up. Instead, I just popped the lid where it was, and a small avalanche of packets spilled out onto the floor. More local anaesthetic. Adrenaline. Antibiotics. Enough to keep us alive until we got to Delaville.

I was all set to return to the pilot’s cabin, but the larger crate caught my attention. It was huge, about two metres long on all sides, lying on its side. There was a control panel on the front, but it looked like the explosion on the ship had cracked the screen. Tapping it repeatedly had no effect. But if the pressure seals had held, then whatever was inside was likely still intact. I tried the release handle, but it held firm. Hmm. I tapped the screen again, then, when nothing happened, I took out my knife and slammed the handle into the screen. I figured that breaking it more wouldn’t do any real harm. It must have triggered something, though, because there was a pop and a hiss, signalling the release of the seals.

In a crate this size, it was likely to be some kind of machinery. A ship engine? A mechanical drill for terraforming? Not likely anything that would be useful to us now, but curiosity was getting the better of me, while at the same time, I had a lingering awareness that I really should be getting back to the cabin. I grasped the handle, feeling it start to turn, but the exertion pulled at the wound in my side. I let out a cry and dropped to my knees, aware that something new was hurting, but not able to focus enough to work out what it was.

And now the handle was out of my reach. Brilliant. “Oh, just fucking open, would you?” I muttered, trying to summon the energy to stand up again. My vision was going blurry at the edges, and I had the ludicrous thought that I would be so disappointed if I died before finding out what was inside the crate.

In the next moment, I decided that I had, in fact, lost my mind, because as I stared at the handle halfway up the crate, it started to turn by itself. I slid backwards, not sure whether I should be scared or pleased. Maybe I was just hallucinating. Or maybe one of thosethingsfrom Ixralia was inside, about to slither out and kill us. Or maybe…

The lower half of the wall of the crate fell open with a loud clang, and a… Fuck me sideways, a blue man crawled out of the crate, looking around warily. His gaze landed on me, and an expression a lot like joy lit his face. He spoke a word, and the translator embedded behind my right ear whirred for a moment as it sorted through the myriad of languages available to it, before it finally beeped softly and spat out the word, “Master.”

The word meant nothing to me. All I could think was that I was glad he wasn’t one of those hellspawn from Ixralia.

But then the man’s happiness vanished, as he stood up straight and got a better look at the state of me. “You’re injured,” he said, taking a tentative step forward. “I can help you-”