by

Yanick Champoux (38%)

Lee Watts (18%)

Josip Nað (17%)

Michel Lacombe (16%)

Dorian (4%)

goldkngt55 (3%)

Andrew Avila (2%)

Marten (1%)

Oliver (1%)

Part 43

Josip Nað (5/5/2002)

"Cease fire you fool, I am a Decados!" shouted Sergei Visarionovich Godunov, crouching behind the couch where he had taken refuge from the Marauder's unexpected attack. While telling a soldier who was attacking you that you are a member of the house who puts bread on his table would have usually been an almost certain way to make him stop shooting, in this case it was a grave mistake. It didn't take long for Sergei to find that out, since the short, staccatto sounds of controled three-round bursts were immediately replaced by a continous roar of an assault rifle firing at full auto, the soldier obviously willing to waste every single bullet if it meant that he could get away with killing one of the boyards.

"Ah, of course. How silly of me..." Sergei chastised himself while he listened to the thumping of bullets (special, low velocity models for shipboard fighting, good for ripping apart human beings but hardly capable of anything else) and waited for the soldier to run out of ammo. Glancing quickly around for any sign that the soldier might suddenly become smart and try to trow a grenade or something similar, Sergei drew his blaster pistol from its holster and flicked its power switch from standby to on.

CLUNK! The telltale sound of an empty bolt slamming into its stops echoed in the compartment. A small smile emerging on his face, Sergei stood up from behind the battered sofa and pointed his blaster nonchallantly at the marauder.

Unable to tear his eyes away from the gaping maw of the blaster's barrel, the soldier stopped fumbling for a fresh magazine. His faceshield was up and as he looked at the Decados, his face twisted into a sheepish smile. "Uh,....khm... I didn't recognize that you're a boyard My Lord." Seeing Sergei's eyebrows rise questioningly, the soldier hurried on. "Ahhh...I swear that your presence wasn't mentioned in the briefing we were given, we were only told..." the soldier trailed off, unsure whether to continue or not "Yees?" prompted Sergei, his blaster rising to point at the marauder's face. His doubts evaporated by another look at the blaster, the soldier started again. "I swear M' Lord! We were only briefed to capture a boy, the briefings said nuthin' about any other House boyards! If I knew I wouldn't have attacked you! I'm sorry!"

As the soldier's tone came closer and closer to whining, Sergei's smile started getting brighter and brighter. He wasn't really listening to the marauder anymore, his mind awash with new possibilities. "So," he thought "I wasn't mentioned in any of the briefings. How very...convenient." Tired of the soldier's whining, Sergei raised his palm in a "stop" gesture. Once the soldier spluttered to a halt, Sergei's smile grew positively dazzling. "I forgive you." he said soothingly. And pulled the trigger.

"And stay down!" Skull snarled, floating over the dead marauder. This one was tough, it had taken Skull more than a minute to take him out. "I'm getting too old for this shit." he thought to himself. There was a time when he could have slaughtered 16 marauders without breaking a sweat. Now, he was beginning to feel some small strain, and that didn't bode well for his attempt to find his nephew. Fortunately, he was getting near his objective, the First Class dining room where his nephew was supposed to be and...

"NOOOOOO!" screamed Toast and the sound of his voice coming from the dining room was like a knife through Skull's heart. He thrust himself forward as fast as he could, powering through the dining room door like a torpedo.

The dining room was a chaos of floating tables and chairs, spilled food and spinning bodies. In the middle of the room, two of the marauders were manhandling his nephew, trying to tear him away from that drunkard charioteer who was floating besides him, trying feebly to ward off the marauders. Slowly, almost casually, one of the marauders headbutted the charioteer who floated away, limp like a puppet with its strings cut, unconscious or worse.

His eyes red with anger, Skull kicked forward with a roar of rage. The marauders whirled towards him, anchored themselves and opened fire but Skull was already there and one of the marauders died a messy death when the ceramsteel nails of Skull's right hand punched through his armor, smashed his chest bone and tore his heart to shreads. The other marauder tried desperately to turn towards his lightning-fast assailant but Skull's hand was already out and he grunted in satisfaction as he brought both of them down on the marauder's thigs like two sledgehammers. The snap of bones was like a gunshot and the marauder's high-pitched scream could probably be heard in the deepest pits of Gehenna. "Serves you right." growled Skull, tossing the crippled marauder aside like a broken toy. Already, the marauder's face was twisted in a rictus of agony and the first signs of shock were becoming evident. Within a couple of minutes he would be dead from internal bleeding and shock.

Just as Skull was turning toward his nepher he was interrupted by the sound of doors crashing open. Whirling around, he saw a woman float in. He was about to dismiss her as unimportant when she caught sight of his nephew behind him. "

Leave Toast alone!" she shouted and Skull realised with a start that he had seen her before, that she was the mysterious woman who had defended his nephew from the drunkard charioteer. She was getting ready to launch herself at him, that much was abvious, but Skull wasn't ready to kill a potential ally without negotiating first. Quickly, he held up his hand. "Wait! I'm here to protect the boy!"

The woman untensed herself a bit, regarding Skull warily. Just as she was getting ready to say something, another voice echoed from the corridor.

"NOOOOO!!!! Pleaseeee!" the voice screamed and a second later a marauder burst through the door. His rifle was missing, he was flapping around in blind panic and behind his faceshield his face was a mask of terror. Before Skull could even imagine what could have scared the marauder so, a blaster shot echoed from the corridor. As if by magic, a charred, fist-sized hole appeared in the marauder's chest. He looked down at it and then his body went limp.

Just a few moments later, the source of the shot, a still-glowing barrel of a blaster pistol appeared at the door. It was quickly followed by the rest of the pistol and the person who was holding it, a Decados noble. In spite of his dishevelled looks, his torn clothes and a bloodied sword in his left hand complementing the blaster in his right, the noble still managed to extrude the air of cool superiority. While Skull and the woman were regarding him warily, the noble stopped and took in the entire room in one long, calculating look. As his eyes passed over the broken bodies of the dead marauders, an uncomfortably cheerful smile appeared on his lips.

"Well," he finally spoke " I guess I could introduce myself first. I am Sergei Visarionovich Godunov, at your service. Am I wrong or have I finally found someone who is as annoyed by these bothersome marauders as I am?"