“Open shipwide channel,” Lilliana said, in the authoritative and slightly exaggerated tone needed for voice activation. “Attention all hands… please take up assigned stations and prepare for person-to-person combat. For those of you who missed the bulletin, that’s a necroship out there which means surrender is not an option and the only way you can defect is over your own dead body.” She paused. “Close channel. Well, at least there’s one advantage to fighting a zombiemonger.”
“Bugger me, but I can never remember which code we follow, like,” Regan said. “Is it ‘no man gets left behind’ or ‘them that falls behind, stays behind’?”
“We’re realists, Bard,” Lilliana said. “Save who you can without getting your own ass killed. Now, we’ll have crew massed with needlers at the hatches. You two will have some time to get our secret weapon together… the boarding party will have to establish their own seal before they blow them, or else they’ll risk killing us.”
“Doesn’t that seem like it might be an acceptable risk, from their viewpoint?” Galatea asked.
Lilliana shook her head.
“If that ship’s controller wasn’t out to take us alive, he’d simply blast our ship into teeny tiny bits,” Lilliana said. “He probably won’t be too concerned about some of us going down fighting, but he wants survivors.”
“I say, that’s going through an awful lot of trouble considering his ship’s fully powered,” Galatea said. “Can we be absolutely certain he’s not looking for carnal slaves with immaculate genetic codes?”
Before Lilliana could formulate the response this question deserved, the entire ship–no, the world seemed to shift sideways. All the colors went fuzzy and blue-tinged, and the whole compartment seemed to shrink to a single point and expand to an infinite size at the same time.
Lililana fought back the urge to vomit as the world returned to normal.
“What in space?” Galatea asked.
“Ten cent monkey!” Regan said.
“What?” Galatea asked.
“Lilliana, we have a dime ape,” Dick reported over the comm network.
“I noticed, thanks,” Lilliana said. “Shipwide channel open… change of plans, people. The boarding party or parties are already here. If you’re near a defensible position, defend it. If you’re not, buddy up and try to make it to one. I don’t want anybody trying to be a hero here.”
“What in the name of space is a dime ape?” Galatea demanded.
“Ya need to learn some more swear words, like,” Regan said.
“Dimensional aperture,” Lilliana said. “Our friend in black apparently doesn’t mind throwing some serious mystical energy away.”
“I’d just like to go on record as pointing out that if the dominant technological paradigm were still rooted in what we think of as ‘physics’, we’d probably have shields of some kind in order to prevent this sort of intrusion,” Galatea said.
“Aye, an if wishes were horses, ya’d never go to bed lonely, would ya?” Regan said.
“The sick bastard’s probably enjoying this,” Lilliana said. “He’s got one shipload of fresh victims he can drain at his leisure, with the promise of another to replace them.”
“Shouldn’t we be doing something to renege on that promise?” Galatea asked.
“Right,” Lilliana said. “You two, get up to Puff’s lab and see about making us a big boom. Leo?”
“Already headed back to the hold,” Dick reported.
“Great,” Lilliana said. “I’m counting on you to hold the command deck, Dick. I’ve got some tricks of my own to go put together.”
“Speakin’ sort o’ hypothetical-like,” Regan said, “if I had an idea for how to get the engines runnin’ again that involved a little side trip in the vicinity of the lab…”
“If you can do it fast, and if it actually exists in more than a hypothetical sense,” Lilliana said. “But take Galatea with you and keep an… uh… your eye on her.”
“Wait, shouldn’t we be getting to a defensible position like you said?” Galatea said.
“You’ve got a job to do, Adams,” Lilliana said. “It won’t matter how many waves of zombies or ghouls we fight back as long as the mastermind behind them is still sitting safely in his dark fortress. We need a way to strike back at the source before he gets bored… don’t forget he’s sitting on all those KEGs, too.”
“But I thought you said you didn’t want anybody trying to be a hero,” Galatea protested.
“She meant anybody else,” Regan said.
“Bugger,” Galatea said.
“Now she’s gettin’ it!” Regan said.
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