This is what I get for trying to steal one more thing.
I just wanted the case of Sylliina brandy—not to sell, but to keep in my room. A little treat for myself and whoever would come by for a visit. Oh, Syllina brandy. Aren’t you the charmer Captain Slake? Yes, yes, I am.
And it might just cost me my head.
I duck as blaster fire comes at me—the ship’s captain must have broken out of his cuffs. That will teach me to buy them used.
I need to get past him while carrying this delicious contraband. I fire back at him and I can smell the battery start to burn in my little pistol, a thick charcoal. I had maybe five blasts left. I have to work on my priorities.
I keep ducking behind the crates of the sizable storage room and my little inconvenience keeps firing and yelling something. I don’t speak Martian, so that’s unfortunate. But it does sound threatening and upset with accents of murder-y. Martian is very guttural and as a language goes, like two starships scrapping in a shipyard.
I put the case under my arm and look around at the crates. Safety equipment for mining? What kind of smuggler has this kind of cargo? No matter. I put four holes in one of the boxes and take off the lid. I dig around and find the little gray spheres with small white tabs on them. I slip a couple in my pocket.
I pull the tab on another and start lobbing them at my mad little king. With a loud thump the gray sphere expands to an enormous size. I lob six or seven at them and as soon as he fires on one, the shot starts ricocheting around the ship, bouncing off each gray sphere. Eventually the blast lands on a control panel and the alarm sounds, a brutal klaxon that’s almost deafening. He stabs the spheres to deflate them. I grab a couple more and crawl over the crates, narrowly getting past him. I manage to get into the airlock and he pounds on it, but he knows the drill. I’ve secured it and started the countdown. I pull my mask on and when the door opens, I can see my ship waiting for me. I hold the brandy under my arm and take out a sphere and open it. The force of it expanding launches me out of the ship and I tumble ass over teakettle and wonder how hard my crew is laughing.
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