Chương 168: Nova Wars - Chapter 138

Don't. Just... don't. You won't like what happens. - Treana'ad Political Envoy, Wemterran Diplomatic Team The metal looked just fine. The variable hardness coating was intact, the whole floor the weird glossy-matte black, making it so there wasn't even a whisper from the uniformed men standing in a semi-circle around a single man restrained and sitting in a chair.

"You hear what we asked?" one of the men asked. All six were large, made bulky by muscle and heavy bone. The strap on impact plate armor they normally wore over their uniforms was stacked properly in the arms room. The hard-shell armor of the slight man in the chair was tossed in one corner, cut away. The slender, effeminate looking man leaned forward slightly and spit blood on the floor. The floor had soaked up enough rads that the blood sizzled and popped.

"I heard you," the effeminate man said, looking up with a smile that was missing several teeth with the remainder smeared with thick red blood. One eye was swollen shut and the other had a pupil and sclera that were filled with blood. The nose was obviously broken, leaking blood steadily. The effeminate man looked down and spit blood on the floor again, then looked back up.

"Gonna give me a chance to reply before you knock the answer back out of my mouth?" The one standing back and to the right spoke up.

"Where's the creation engine yard? We know they're out there. Where are they?" he asked. The effeminate man smiled with swollen and split lips.

"We hid them somewhere that had the space for that many Class XXX creation engines but could be used to help move them."

"The railyard? One of the spaceports? WHERE?" the last part was yelled.

"In your mom's big ass. Her flaccid asshole's been blown out enough we could fit that Class XXX in without touching 2 sides at..." The middle drove his fist into the effeminate man's face even as two people held back the questioner. Once, twice, three times before the effeminate man went limp.

"Did you kill him?" one of the observers asked.

"No. He's just out," the middle one said. He reached forward and slapped the unconscious man until the man's eyes opened slowly.

"Where are the creation engines?" the questioner, at the back, asked again.

"In your ass," the effeminate man said. The back one pushed to the front, lifting up a pistol, and pressed the barrel against the restrained man's forehead.

"Squeeze it," the restrained man said.

"Go on. Squeeze it, bitch."

"Don't think I won't," the questioner snarled.

"You're a bitch. You'd have squeezed it instead of just talking. You're bitchmade just like your mom is a fucking whore sucking..." The retort was loud. The expanding gasses ruptured the skin in a starlike pattern. The 10mm bullet blew through the skull and out the back of the head, ripping free a palm-sized chunk of skull. Blood and brains smacked into the wall.

"Nicely done," someone said.

"SHUT UP!" the shooter turned around.

"Shut the fuck up or I'll shoot you!" There was silence for a long moment.

"Do you have..." the whisper was low and bubbly. Everyone went silent.

"any idea..." Everyone looked around.

"How much..." the whisper continued.

"Whose saying that?" the questioner asked.

"That fucking stings?" There was the sound of a throat clearing. The tied-up man spit a wad of blood and oatmeal on the floor.

"Hydrostatic shock pushes brain tissue into the ruptured sinus cavity and from there into your throat," the feminine man said. The wad of blood and cerebral tissue sizzled.

"But the headwound. The headwound is what stings," the man looked up. The skull was intact, but the star shaped wound was full of silver.

"Over and over again until you tell us what we want to know," the man with the pistol said. The effeminate man gave a grimacing smile that drooped slightly on one side.

"I wanted to know what your mom's ass felt like," he spit again as the one with the pistol turned red and stepped forward again.

"Felt worse than it tasted." The retort was loud. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. The man's head flopped back. One of the ones in the back shook their head.

"How many times do we have to kill him?"

"UNTIL HE BREAKS!" the shooter shouted, turning around to reveal the small oval on the back of their necks. There were three round ended horizontal lines in the middle of the black warsteel. All three were red. The shooter waved their hand.

"This asshole killed twelve of us," the shooter yelled.

"Not put them down, not tossed them into the recycle bin. KILLED them."

"The weak don't deserve life," the effeminate man said. He spit on the floor again.

"The weak should fear the strong." The shooter turned around, grabbing the effeminate man's close-cropped hair. Or trying to. His fingers kept slipping, unable to grab a 1/4" of greasy hair.

"FUCK!" the shooter screamed. He grabbed the back of the effeminate man's head and slammed the pistol into their mouth, splitting both lips and shattering the teeth. He looked down and saw the effeminate man smiling around the pistol.

"FUCK!" he screamed, pulling the trigger. The bullet went through the effeminate man's head, exiting just above the brainstem. And through the pistol holder's hand. He whipped his hand back, three of his fingers blown off in a spray of gore.

"FUCK!" he dropped the pistol on the floor, grabbing his wrist. He pushed through the others.

"Dammit, grab the medkit." There was low chuckling. The effeminate man lifted his head slowly and spit out a wad of blood that sizzled on the warsteel floor.

"Oops," he said.

"Shut him up!" the one with the missing fingers yelled.

"Try try as hard as you can," the effeminate man whispered.

"Can't kill me... I'm the Gingerbread Man." One of the men stepped forward and slapped the prisoner.

"Who are you?"

"Tick tock," the prisoner said. He grinned. His lips and teeth were in perfect condition.

"What?" the questioner asked.

"Time's up," the prisoner said.

"Talk a lot of shit for someone who is tied to a chair," another one of the men said, sneering.

"Yeah, about that..." the prisoner said.

"What?" the one having his hand bandaged asked.

"What?" The effeminate man came up in one smooth movement, driving fingers curled at the middle knuckle into the throat of the one in front of him even as he grabbed a belt. Sharp blades, glittering silver and slightly grainy, had pushed through flesh and cloth to cut the restraints but were already receding.

"What?" one asked as the effeminate man threw the dying man back, lifting him a good foot off the floor. The dying man crashed into the others. The effeminate man put his hands behind his back and leaned forward slightly, walking around. Pistols came up and out.

"Those can't really hurt me," the effeminate man said. He looked over.

"Fucking civilians. Give you a gun and you think you're Kalki or Kubuta."

"What... what are you?" one of them asked. The effeminate man smiled.

"Captain Breastasteel," the effeminate man smiled. He then listed his unit, an innocuous military police unit. The others just stared.

"And you are Clownface military intelligence," Breastasteel smiled.

"Well, were." One man lunged forward with a knife. Breastasteel laughed. A twist of the wrist and a fast movement left the man on the floor holding his wrist and screaming and the effeminate man looking at the knife.

"Serviceable. Standard Space Force survival knife," Breastasteel said. He let the light dance along the edge.

"Didja kill the pilot to get it or just take it off his body?" Two shots rang out, both hitting Breastasteel in the chest. Breastasteel looked down.

"See, this is why I always roll male in the field," he said, reaching up to touch the leaking holes in the shirt.

"Breasts have a lot of ancillary tissue and complex glands," he looked back up.

"Pecs, on the other hand. Bring pecs to the wrecks."

"What... what..." someone started.

"Too late. It's all too late," Breastasteel said.

"Talking part is over." He smiled.

"Now's the screaming part." 0-0-0-0-0 The icon flashed and his armor beeped, letting Vak-tel know that the cross-load from Cipdek was complete. It was the Nooky's implant, a high ranking damage control officer, which opened any door even if it was one of the blast doors. Clenching his jaw in frustration, Vak-tel followed the large female Terran, keeping his rifle ready. Several times the Admiral leveled her submachine gun to her left or right and fired a burst at a downward angle and fired off a long burst.

"Ambushes," the Admiral said, her voice remote and disinterested.

"Amateurs." At the Gunny's wave, Vak-tel pushed open one of the doors and looked inside. There were four of the low slung six-legged Nooky's collapsed on the floor, leaking fluids, holding their own weapons, obviously prepared to open the door and fire through it. Only the Admiral had shot them, through the wall, at a downward and forward angle, that had raked across their sides, blowing off legs and chunks of their bodies.

"Elevator shaft coming up, ma'am. I'd recommend sending some Marines to assault it and establish a safe perimeter for the rest of us," the CO said.

"I'm not standing here while your Marines do all the fun stuff," the Admiral said. Her blank faceplate suddenly had a smiley face made up of large square pixels. The 'eyes' were red, the 'nose' a triangle, and the 'mouth' was pink as the smile flashed. The elevator shaft appeared and Captain Kemtrelap waved ahead four Telkan Marines.

Vak-tel pushed his hands in between the doors and helped the three others pull open the blast doors that had secured the elevator shaft, keeping any explosion from entering the shaft and blowing the guts out of the ship. He looked up and saw that there was a blast door only ten meters above. The Ornislarp at least followed standard design protections.

"We'll have to cut our way up," Vak-tel said. The Admiral snorted, squatted slightly, and launched herself upward. Through the deck plating above her.

"Uhh..." Gunny Heltok said. Senior Sergeant Impton let out a barking laugh and jumped up through the hole the Admiral had left. After a second, he looked down.

"Coming or staying?" Captain Kemtrelap cursed, the curse breaking off when the Captain closed the commo channel.

"Up," the Gunny snapped, then stating who was to go when. Vak-tel wasn't surprised that he was second, Senior Sergeant Impton going first with his axes in his hands, jumping through the holes the Admiral was leaving in the ceiling. Vak-tel got up fast enough that once he saw the Admiral take four steps to the side before throwing herself up and through the decking, ripping through a hallway to 'take a shortcut', or ripping up the floor to drop down.

--admirals engineer 2222 says admiral mapped pipes and conduits-- his greenie said.

"So, she's just going to jump through the floor every time till we get to the bridge?" Vak-tel asked. --bridge in middle not far probably--"Great," Vak-tel complained. Vak-tel didn't envy Sergeant Impton. Sure, the Old Man seemed able to just scramble right after that psychotic flag officer, but Vak-tel was willing to bet it wasn't easy to keep up. At one point Cipdek knelt down, turning his face plate clear and giving a 'can you believe this shit' look to Vak-tel, who just nodded.

Finally, the 'short-cut' of ripping open the wall ended by a heavy blast door.

"They're on the other side," the Admiral said. Captain Kemtrelap nodded.

"Whole command bridge is like an armored egg," the Admiral said.

"Captain in the center if it's like it was when the Slappers pushed on Terra's colonies back in the bad old days. There will be a handful of guards since 'the wisest' never trust those who are not as wise as them to not assassinate or eat them."

"Greeeeat," the Captain said. The Admiral gave a grin.

"It's not all bad."

"Didn't say it was, ma'am," Captain Kemtrelap said.

"I want the Captain and, if possible, his XO alive. Don't risk anyone's life past normal combat to do it. If it's a choice between the life of one of our guys and the Slapper CO, just waste the slapper. I'll find another one to question," the Admiral said.

"Slappers don't like to keep everything in the computer. High security mission details will be CO and XO eyes and brains only."

"And you're sure they'll tell you?" the Captain said. The Admiral turned her faceshield clear, replacing the skull made of up of large pixels.

"They'll talk," she said.

"How do you know?" the Captain asked. Her smile got wider.

"They always talk."