“A ship’s anchor?” Galatea asked after Handy’s latest improvised weapon had shredded through a couple zombies and damaged the deck floor. She was more bemused than frightened by this point, after seeing the odd collection of junk and odds and ends that Handy used the take out the undead intruders. The bowling ball had been the strangest one, until the anchor. “Why do you have a ship’s anchor?”
“That would be the Boss’s idea, miss,” Handy called back through the ducts. “She insists on keeping it around in case we need to stop the ship suddenly and the brakes are out.”
“Brakes? This is an interstellar vessel! It doesn’t have any brakes!”
“You would be correct, miss, and when I pointed that out to the Boss, she said that’s why we need the anchor. I couldn’t argue with that.”
“You couldn’t argue with that?” Galatea echoed incredulously.
“Yes, miss, on account of the Boss ordered me not to,” Handy explained. “Please excuse me, miss, there seems to be something else coming.”
“What do you mean, something else?” Galatea asked. “More zombies?”
“I don’t believe so, miss,” Handy said. “I don’t hear… excuse me, miss, but I’m experiencing a rather peculiar feeling. A sort of biting numbness from the inside out.”
“That sounds like cold,” Galatea said. “You’re feeling cold?”
“I beg your pardon, miss, but I’m not permitted to experience distracting sensations such as temperature variations,” Handy said. “So, while you are almost certainly correct and I am not, I feel I must…”
Silence from the vents.
“You must what?” Galatea asked. No answer came. “Handy? Er… Handjob?” Galatea felt the first icy tendril of terror encircling her heart. “HC000311417B? Are you there?” Her perfectly modulated but somehow irritating voice trembled a little. “I insist that you answer me! Really, this is very irresponsible… you’re supposed to be protecting me, you bargain bin bio-mod, not… not… goofing off or playing silly games to f-frighten me!”
As debilitating as it was, the fear which had gripped Galatea up to this point had been strictly mundane, a natural response to the circumstance she found herself in.
Now she felt the deep-down chill which Handy had been unable to identify, and truly supernatural terror gripped her soul. She felt the air in the alchemy bay go thin even as she seemed to drown in it.
A pale figure appeared in the doorway.
Galatea felt a scream welling up within her, but could not remember how to let it out.
It was the same sensation which Galatea now felt which saved Regan from her battle-madness. The chill aura of death, intended to paralyze the victims’ minds, calmed hers and cooled her blood… and then abruptly vanished before she could be impaired in any other fashion.
She ceased thrashing blindly and began to grope for her other weapons. She had just got one hand on her antique-looking sidearm and the other on a concealed knife when the individual zombies pinning her down began to explode from the neck up.
That’s shown them, then, Regan thought, muscling up through the pile of suddenly extra-lifeless corpses with her pistol drawn.
She brought the gun up when she saw the hulking form of Cicada looming above her, her prized GSMR launcher pointed squarely at the pile of zombies.
“Aw, crap,” Cicada said when she saw who it was that she’d saved. She didn’t lower her weapon, and neither did Regan.
“We pull the triggers and ya’ll die quicker,” Regan said.
“You’ll die slower,” Cicada said. “I can send one of my little darlings on a guided tour of your vital organs, if I want to.”
“None o’ me organs are all that vital,” Regan said. “I can’t think o’ one I haven’t given up as security for a bar loan or the like. Held me breath for a week one time when both me lungs was…”
“Shove a cork in it, you arse-licking little leprechaun,” Cicada said. She raised her pistol. “You’re not worth the cost of pulling the trigger. I’m going to have to invoice the crew for all the ammo I’m using on the baddies as it is.”
“I always said ya have a heart the size o’ a bleedin’ planet, like,” Regan said, holstering her firearm. “Pity no one’s quite sure where it wound up.”
“Don’t make me go all pro bono on your arse,” Cicada said, leveling her weapon again. “I’d hate to ruin my perfect record. I’m on my way down to the engines. You?”
“Travelin’ in the other direction, as it were,” Regan said.
“Good,” Cicada said. “I hope you know that ridiculous little zap-gun’s not going to do anything to what’s on board.”
“I expect it’ll play merry hell with the shamblin’ feckers’ electronics, like,” Regan said.
“Those were just the first round,” Cicada said. “Round two’s beginning.” She jerked her head over her shoulder, and Regan saw a pair of chalk-white corpses with the tops of their torsos blown open.
“Ghouls,” Regan said in an awed whisper. She drew her sword. “That’s a bit more like it, isn’t it?”
“See you on the other side of it,” Cicada said. “Don’t you dare let anything kill you before I have a chance.”
“By no other hand than yours, darlin’,” Regan said.
“I think I just threw up in my mouth a little,” Cicada said.
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