Deep Space
Uhlek Badlands
ISS Belfast Windfall

“Just a few more seconds,” Biggs muttered under his breath. The glowing wreckage of ISS Negelle was casting shadows among the darting starships on the view screen. Windfall was too late to save her, but there might be a few lifeboats drifting. The only catch was that saving survivors meant beating off the G’Nunk.

And those damned Uhlek.

Judging by the transmissions between Jussru and the late Negelle, the G’Nunk were using an uhl to control the Leghk floaters. Biggs had no idea how.

Whatever the method, the Uhlek drifters weren’t drifting anymore and he had to kill them, and that meant working with the Thrynn. The stink of it was—

“That’s them alright,” said Arella from the scanner tracker. “Engine frequency and exhaust composition are within tolerances. That’s the same ship that was lobbing missiles at us. Lovely bedfellows, wouldn’t you say?”

“Wonderful,” said Biggs. He keyed a command into his console. “Jussru, Windfall—we have enough shielding to handle one missile from that G’Nunk dreadnaught.” He didn’t mention the plasma flurries the Uhlek were generating. “That translates into one pass—I don’t think that’s gonna do it.”

Thrynn Frigate Jussru

Colonel Venn’Bk grated at the insult of fighting alongside the same wretched Humans who were harboring the venomous Senator HvHuss. It was maddening to have his quarry so close. Rssa and the Humans were trying to find an angle of attack that might bring down the G’Nunk ship, but with her chorus of Uhlek slave ships, she was nearly invulnerable. Venn’Bk’s eyes narrowed. The G’Nunk warship itself wasn’t the problem. The problem was the Uhl aboard the G’Nunk ship, the Uhl that was whipping the Leghk into a white rage like a swarm of deranged puppets.

The colonel called up Jussru’s status display. There was a single remaining breacher plugged into the modular bay that made up the frigate’s bow. And he still had a squad of Royal Marines.

“Captain Rssssa,” purred Venn’Bk. “Perhaps the Humans needn’t fire a single shot at the G’Nunk vessel. If they can screen our approach, we can get close enough to loose a breacher. We can’t crush the G’Nunk, but we might collapse them…”

ISS Belfast Windfall

Doctor Biss stumbled down the corridor, stumbling alternately to port and starboard, momentarily gripping the overhead braces as the ship gyrated through an evasion pattern. The bridge crew was channeling the bulk of the starship’s energy into weapons, shields and the engines, leaving the inertial dampeners starved for power. Biss managed to navigate her way to the temporary quarters where the Volusze and the rest of the Guardians were billeted. The lights flickered and the doctor paused for balance before keying the doors to slide open.

What she saw took her breath away. The Leghk she had seen just minutes earlier floated serenely above the deck, a green glow gently emanating from their flush, rotund bodies—the soothing hum of their life processes had filled the cabin. Now Biss recoiled in horror, her reptilian body instinctively tense.

What had minutes before been buoyant glowing wonders of sentient biology were now ghostly shadows of a nauseous gray pall, deflated—shriveled, almost—and slicked with an oily film.

Biss swore under her breath, then reached for the intercom. It crackled. “Biggs, Biss. Something’s wrong—“ She was cut off as the ship rocked under attack. Reaching for her diagnosis scanner she caught a glimpse of Volusze’s eyes. They were sunken into his cranial orb, now dark and lifeless.

As Belfast Windfall stabilized, Biss keyed on the aimlessly floating zombie. All physical lifesigns had slowed to coma levels, at least that’s what it looked like to Biss, whose total knowledge of Leghk anatomy came from the few scans she’d managed to take and a few articles in her med journals. The real news, though, was that all neurological activity had ceased, except for a sliver-thin band normally associated with inter-psyche contact. Biss frowned, crouching next to the listing creature. Normally associated—with normal life-forms…

The intercom bleeped: “Biss, Biggs, we’re in a jam up here—what do you need?,” came the static-soaked transmission from the bridge.

“It’s like they’ve gone nearly brain-dead—the Leghk. I don’t know what’s happening, but it doesn’t seem good—“

“Brain dead? Like as if an Uhl had ‘em by the brain stem?”

G’Nunk Warship Regepple

Dozelord Gannuzo was ecstatic. He was no longer on the bridge, but was instead reveling with his underlings in the hazy, drunken madness swirling through the baptism deck. The battle was displayed in three dimensions just above the heads of the mangy G’Nunk, who shrieked and swooned as the Arthenean and Thrynn ships danced in ever tighter pirouettes with destruction. The two fleeing vessels suddenly banked hard to port then barreled around to face their pursuers.

“Sweet G’Noon, see mercy’s light!” howled Gannuzo, “come meet the redeeming jaws of She/It who watches!”
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Next: “For Broke”

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