Kusari Gold

[arvg]

Fraser ducked behind a bulkhead, reloading his sonic disruptor. The Kusari were aboard.

They’d pushed hard, the crew and marines of the T’Zaht being pushed back steadily through the gunboat by the superior numbers of Kusari troops. But finally, taking a stand in one of the cargo bays, the crew were finally holding their own, thanks, in no small part, to Hartley’s wizardry with explosives.

“I’m out of explosives,” Hartley said kneeling down beside the skipper, rooting unsuccessfully through his magic bag of tricks for anything that could go boom.

“I don’t need to hear that now,” Fraser replied, swinging around and blasting a Kusari officer that was stupid enough to be standing out in the open.

The Sonic disruptor was a weapon that killed by agitating molecules at ultra high frequencies, boiling the brain of the targets and even causing bone to shatter if struck correctly.

“Yeah well, you wanted me to vent compartment three, and that took up the last of my C-4 not to mention my last canister of propane.” Hartley shook his head. “Farking Kusari just don’t know when to quit, eh?”

“No one quits when they are winning,” Chuck pointed out, his Enfield assault rifle to his shoulder spraying across the cargo bay.

“Well maybe they should just learn,” Hartley muttered. “I mean, what’s the big deal anyway. Just give us back the Taus, go home and play a game of twister with their empress or something…”

“Kusari have an Emperor…” a Kusari yelled across the cargo bay.

“Yeah?” Hartley yelled back. “I heard he wears a dress and likes to paint his face like a Geisha girl… so I guess that kinda makes him Empress in my book!”

“You go to bad place Gaijin!” the Kusari cursed.

Hartley scrubbed a hand down his face and scowled, “Damned Kusari can’t even come up with a good insult… must be all that breast feeding… what were you, ten before mummy let you off the teet?”

“I do not smell like cheese, white monkey!” the Kusari threw back.

“Cheese?” Hartley frowned. “why don’t you come out from behind that box, and I will show you what this White Monkey can do you…”

“Hartley,” Fraser said resting a hand on his engineer’s shoulder. “We need to figure out how to save the ship…”

“There’s little worth saving,” Hartley replied. “I’d actually recommend we go back home, buy a new ship and try this whole thing over again!”

“Get a new ship?” Chuck inquired glancing over at them. “Junker’s ships’R’us is close by. I am sure they’d sell us a LABC for cheap, seems anyone who is anyone can buy one of those things second hand… I have my credit card handy… think they deliver?”

“There’s only one place to get a new ship,” Fraser said, pointing down the corridor towards the connecting hatch that led to the Kusari destroyer.

“Oh you have to be kidding me,” Hartley moaned. “How in the name of god do you intend to capture a Kusari ship with a handful of men and a broken ship?”

“Simple,” Fraser said. “Most of their crew are aboard our ship right now, and they left the front door open. We just need to get past them, close the door and storm the dessie…”

“And for Skipper’s next trick, he is going to pull a rabbit out of his Ar-.”

“No,” Fraser said, kicking the access grate to the engineering snake pit that ran directly under the cargo bay. A small crawl space that would take them right under the boarding Kusari.

Chuck smiled, “Cap’n Jack, you are a sly old buzzard…”

“Let them take the Tazzy…” Fraser said. “From the crawl space we can sabotage the CO2 scrubbers and leave the Kusari to suffocate.”

“Great plan,” Hartley murmured. “Save one thing, who’s gonna clean up the mess afterwards?”

“You are,” Fraser said with a smile.


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