Daughters of Demeter

Unlike traditional anti-personnel mines which indiscriminately scattered shrapnel throughout their entire blast radius, smart mines could choose their targets at the moment of detonation. Within certain limitations they were able to guide their swarm of deadly projectiles away from designated friendlies and towards those that were identified as hostile.

And while I'd have preferred for both Nyssa and myself to be further away from the blast, Jenny must have been confident that neither my sister or my girlfriend or myself would be harmed when she activated the weapons.

In addition to the three of us, our AI also designated both the shuttle and the scout ship as 'friendly' so the mines would try and avoid causing damage to either vessel when they went off. That left Leon and his assistant as the only hostiles, and as such they took the brunt of the blast from the six smart weapons.

There was no sound or shockwave when the mines went off, there was only a brief flash as they detonated. One moment Leon was standing a few paces in front of the Beckybot and I pointing a gun at me, while Alina was a couple meters back pointing her weapon at my girlfriend. The next moment the bounty hunter lay crumpled a couple meters away, and his assistant had collapsed where she stood.

Unfortunately both Leon and Alina were wearing armoured e-suits, so neither of them had the mercy of a quick and painless death. Instead they lay twitching and convulsing on the grey dusty ground while blood slowly boiled out of hundreds of small holes that peppered their arms and legs.

Then I heard the woman's tortured scream over my suit comm, and I realized their combat suits sealed off the damaged extremities in order to maintain pressure in their helmets and core sections. That kind of gear was designed to keep its occupants alive as long as possible, some were even capable of automatically administering trauma shots and painkillers.

After the initial scream Alina continued to moan in agony as she lay quivering on the barren ground. The only noise from Leon was an angry growl as he somehow forced himself to sit up. Then despite his grievous wounds he actually started to raise his rifle.

I didn't even realize he'd started firing in full-auto mode until I saw a muzzle flash, then I noticed the stream of spent cartridges sailing silently off to the side. He was firing wildly though, unable to aim his weapon due the damage his body had sustained.

Then I heard an impact sound through the suit comms as a spider-web of cracks appeared on the man's faceplate. A moment later the front of his helmet seemed to explode, and his lifeless body flopped back and lay motionless.

A second later Alina's suffering ended the same way. Her suit mic broadcast the sound of something striking her helmet's faceplate, which shattered a moment later. Then everything in the crater was still and the comms were quiet.

Despite all my medical training and experience, and despite being gradually exposed to more and more violence over the past year, I still found myself in some mild shock after witnessing that. Injuries and wounds were bad enough when you had breathable air at a survivable pressure and temperature, but the void made everything so much worse.

The hard vacuum was even taking a toll on the Beckybot, although she remained on her feet after the detonation. Her helmet and life-support backpack were still intact, as were her sleeves gloves and boots, but the rest of the captain's e-suit was completely shredded. And I could see her exposed artificial skin was already beginning to crack and blister from exposure to the void.

"Amanda! Are you ok?" Cambecca's voice came through the comms a moment later.

My heart was pounding and I felt almost numb as I slowly shook my head, "That was horrible. Nobody deserves to die like that."

My girlfriend responded, "They were bad people Amanda, and they met with a bad end."

I sighed and slowly tore my eyes off the bodies before me, then turned and looked at my girlfriend instead.

She was standing just outside the shuttle hatch with one of those smart rifles raised and aimed, and I suddenly understood what happened to Leon. The catgirl's first shot cracked his faceplate, but the second and any subsequent shots penetrated and finished him off. And Alina would have met the same fate.

"Are you ok?" she repeated herself as she lowered her weapon.

After another little sigh I nodded, "Yeah. I'm ok. You?"

She gave me a thumbs-up, before gesturing towards her helmet then the controls on her suit. I nodded in response, then switched my suit comms back to our private encrypted channel.

Ny girlfriend's voice came through the speakers again, "How's your sister doing? Is she alright?"

Those words snapped me out of my shock. I turned again and crouched next to the cryo pod once more to ensure it wasn't damaged by the mines or any of the shooting. Fortunately the cylinder hadn't been breached, but the low power situation was only getting worse.

"There's less than thirty minutes left on the cryo pod's battery," I stated anxiously. "We need to get this thing hooked up to an external power source ASAP!"

The catgirl moved past me with her weapon ready, "We can do that in the scout ship, remember? It's already set up. But first we have to clear it, we have to ensure it's safe. Sorry Amanda, but I need you to get your weapon and back me up."

I sighed but nodded, "Right. I'll be with you in a moment."

It took only a few seconds for me to hurry from the cryo pod back to the shuttle. Then I grabbed my med-kit along with the other smart rifle. I slung the kit over my left shoulder and carried the weapon at ready as I quickly returned to join my girlfriend next to the base of the Eris' ramp.

"Can I go back to calling you Rebecca now?" I asked as I reached her side.

"Sure," she nodded. "I think the ruse has run its course."

Then she asked over the comms, "Jenny can you please get the Beckybot clear? Assuming she's still operational, maybe you can send her back inside the shuttle for now?"

"Of course captain," the AI responded. "It has suffered some damage but it's still capable of movement."

While Jenny was speaking the android turned and began shuffling away towards the shuttle. Then Rebecca started slowly making her way up the Eris-Nine's ramp. I moved into position a couple paces behind the catgirl, and we both had our weapons raised and ready.

As soon as we passed through the open hatch my girlfriend swept to the left while I covered things to the right, and it only took us a second to confirm there was nobody else lurking in the small hold. Then I moved towards the cryo support equipment and gave it a quick check.

"I need to get Nyssa's capsule back here," I stated as I indicated where the cryo pod was normally stowed.

The set-up was designed to house four of those self-contained units, and the other three were all in place. They were all empty too, although it occured to me that maybe Jamison was planning to fill them with the three of us.

Meanwhile Rebecca took another quick look around the small hold. It was only about four meters across and five meters long, and unlike the Demeter's hold the ceiling was no higher than a regular deck.

Both my girlfriend and I studied the Eris' deck plans back before we left Rolandan-2, so we knew there wasn't any other way out of the hold apart from an iris hatch in the ceiling. It was at the top of a ladderway against the forward bulkhead, and from the status panel next to it we could tell the main deck of the craft was fully pressurized.

"Ok," the boss finally nodded. "You should be able to handle that on your own right? I'll stay here and keep this area covered, just incase."

She added, "As soon as you've got your sister secure we'll need to clear the rest of this ship."

"Understood," I replied.

I set my med-kit down on the deck next to the cryo equipment, then slung my weapon over my shoulder as I hurried back outside. I made sure to avoid looking at the two bodies as I moved directly to Nyssa's cryo tube. Thanks to the grav-assisters I was able to pick it up myself exactly like Alina did when she brought it out of the ship, then I carefully manoeuvred the capsule around and brought it back up the ramp and into the small hold.

It ended up taking me a few extra minutes to disengage the grav-assisters so I could get them out of the way, then I needed my girlfriend's help to pick the pod up and slot it back into the support mechanism.

Once it was fully locked into place all the indicators changed from yellow to green, and I could finally breathe a sigh of relief. My sister wasn't safe yet, but at least she wasn't going to die in the next twenty minutes.

"We're going to need to pressurize the hold before we can get up to the main deck," my girlfriend said as she hit the controls to retract the loading ramp and seal the exterior hatch. "If there's anyone else on this ship they're probably going to be ready and waiting for us."

I frowned as I turned towards her, "According to Jenny it was just Jamison and Fontaine, there shouldn't be anyone else on board."

Rebecca nodded, "I know, but better safe than sorry. Once we know it's safe we can relax and figure out our next step, work out what's the best way to help Nyssa."

"Understood," I sighed. Then I asked, "Jenny are you on frequency? Can you access the Eris-Nine's computer from there?"

Our AI responded, "I'm still here Amanda. Unfortunately I cannot access the scout ship's systems remotely, I can't find a path from her comms to her data bus. We might need to run a physical line between the two ships before I'm able to override her main computer."

The captain smiled as she commented, "We'll keep that in mind for later. Picking up a fully functioning scout ship would be nice compensation for all the trouble these people have caused us."

"But first we need to physically secure the ship," she added as the hold finished its pressurization cycle. "Keep your helmet and gloves on for now, just in case."

I nodded quietly, I figured she was worried about the hull getting breached or someone intentionally depressurizing the ship on us. Or maybe she just wanted to take advantage of the secure comms, so nobody could overhear us talking to each other.

Then she indicated, "I'll go up first, you follow me as soon as I'm clear. We'll start by heading towards the cockpit."

"Understood," I replied.

We knew from the ship's deck plan that the iris hatch would bring us into the Eris' main corridor, a meter and a half wide hallway that ran almost the full length of the ship. We'd be entering it just forward of the ship's small mess and galley.

From there it was only about three meters to the cockpit, with the main deck airlock on the port side and a small storage compartment on the starboard side. The two staterooms were just aft of the galley area, along with what Jenny suspected was a brig. Then finally the engineering compartment was aft of all that.

My temporarily-feline girlfriend climbed up the ladder with her rifle ready, while I waited behind her by the foot of the ladder. Her tail twitched a couple times just before she hit the hatch controls. The iris opened up over her head, and using her enhanced strength and speed she seemed to almost pounce upwards into the corridor.

The moment she was out of the way I scrambled up the ladder and into position behind her, and while she was looking forward I spun around to cover the aft of the ship. The corridor was empty and the mess and galley were both clean and tidy. There were a couple doors leading off the hallway to either side, but they were all sealed.

"It looks clear astern," I reported.

Rebecca responded in a wary tone, "There's movement in the cockpit, I caught a reflection off the windows. Pretty sure there's one person in there, and they're armed."

The cockpit door was open, but from where we were in the corridor we could only see the middle part of the flight deck. I knew there'd be plenty of room for someone to hide, either to the left or right of the doorway.

My catgirl captain activated the external speaker on her suit then stated, "We know you're in there. Come out unarmed with your hands where we can see them and I promise you won't be harmed."

I had my smart-weapon raised aimed and ready. It was on single-shot low-velocity mode, and the selector was for soft-target ammunition. With the front of the cockpit in our line of fire hard-target ammunition or high-velocity fire would go straight through a body then punch a hole in the windows behind them.

After waiting another couple seconds Rebecca glanced at me. She started using hand signals to indicate what she wanted us to do, but just as she began the person in the cockpit leaned partway out into the doorway and opened fire with a submachine-gun on full-auto.

The shooter was a young man, in fact he didn't look much older than me or my girlfriends. Maybe twenty years old at most, he had to be a new hire. There was a look of frightened desperation on his face and he was obviously panicking as he fired wildly into the narrow corridor.

Meanwhile my weapon was already raised and aimed. The shot from my smart-rifle was almost silent compared to the cacophony from his conventional weapon, and at less than three meters away there was no question about my accuracy. A small round hole appeared in the middle of his forehead, and the young man crumpled to the deck.

I let out a little sigh as I turned towards my girlfriend, then it felt like the universe suddenly ground to a halt.

Rebecca was laying on her side on the corridor floor. There was some blood on the front of her suit, and a bit more visible on her lips. What frightened me to my core was her eyes were open but unmoving, and she didn't seem to be breathing.

"No!" I gasped as I dropped to my knees next to her.

My med-kit was still down in the hold next to the cryo equipment, but it turned out I didn't need it. There were two holes in her suit, and both had struck her in the chest. One of them looked to be directly over her heart. No exit wounds meant HDLI ammunition, and that meant her heart was probably shredded when the slug broke up after impact.

I slumped down and ended up sitting on the floor with my back against the corridor wall and stared at her body as it slowly sank in. There was nothing I could do for her, she was beyond even the most advanced medical treatment.

"She's gone," I mumbled to myself.

Then Jenny spoke up through my suit comm, she'd obviously been listening in the whole time. With an urgent tone in her voice the AI demanded, "What happened Amanda, where was she hit?!"

"In the chest," I mumbled. "Heart and right lung. HDLI ammunition from the look of it. Even the best facilities in the galaxy couldn't treat this, she's already gone."

Jenny insisted, "I can save her Amanda, but only if you move right now! You have to get Rebecca into one of those cryo pods before her brain cells start dying from lack of oxygen. Now move! Go!"

It took another second or two for me to fully process the AI's words, then they hit me like a jolt of electricity. I scrambled to my feet and picked up my girlfriend's body then dashed for the iris hatch. Hugging her against myself I practically jumped down to the lower deck, then opened up one of the empty cryo pods.

It took a few dozen frustrating seconds to get her out of the e-suit, then I quickly but carefully set her body down in the capsule and sealed it up. The next setback came when I tried to activate the cryo process. The system refused, its internal sensors couldn't detect any life signs and apparently it was programmed not to work on corpses.

"Damn it!" I swore as I frantically searched for a way to override the software.

That ended up wasting another precious minute or so before I figured out how to do it, then the system finally engaged. It took another agonizing minute before the process was complete, and the status lights went green. Not all of them though.

The indicators confirmed that the system was functioning correctly and the occupant was successfully frozen, but the lights that should have said she was ok were all dark. Because she wasn't ok, Rebecca was technically dead.

Then with my sister in one cryo tube and my girlfriend's body in another, I slumped down on the deck in the hold of a dead man's ship and had a good long cry.