Ship.

It was a lonely transport vessel they trailed, flying without escorts and certainly, not heavily armed. “Mushishi” and “Terran Minarchy” their Ops specialist read on her hull and everyone on the bridge laughed. These days Fringe space was apparently rife with all sorts of naive fools. The Hinams, or whatever these sentients called themselves, were to be their new target.

The corsairs considered themselves vicious, nearly on top of the “food chain” in this part of space. Clanners were, of course, the real rulers here and everyone who wanted to run an operation had to pay them a cut of their profits. No matter if they were slaving, boarding or raiding, the corsairs always gave ten percent from their loot. To not obey was suicidal and the greedy fools who attempted to hoard their treasure one day found themselves incapable of waking up.

Normally, boarding small cargo haulers or passenger transports was a simple affair.

Their corsair craft was far quicker, nimbler, and heavily armed, therefore most civilian vessels quickly surrendered. Then their captains would bargain for their lives and, being pragmatic the corsairs obliged. Everything of value that could be looted was immediately transferred to their cargo hold. Sometimes these cowards sold members of their own crews into slavery just to save their hides.

This time, however, the otherwise lightly armed starship did not give up. Her Hinam crew fought back and their small cannons inflicted a considerable amount of harm. What they assumed primitive slug throwers, ripped gaping holes into their hull, damaged weapons, destroyed important systems, and killed a number of their crew.

After a much longer battle than usual, the corsairs eventually disabled this alien vessel, and deployed their boarding parties atop her hull.

Despite the damage their starship had sustained, most of her stubborn Hinam crew and passengers were still alive. Plenty of decats to be made on the slave markets, a sizable sum at the very least, a small fortune at best. In fact, so many were the passengers that the corsair captain calculated their profit would be so great he could buy one brand new spaceship!

His jubilant crew praised their good luck, yet in hindsight, they should’ve rued the day their vessel picked IMS Mushishi on her scanners.

Eager boarding teams flew through the hull breaches, engines glowing and vibroblades swinging, only to be met with an absolute hail of gunfire. In but counted few star-minutes the first group of corsairs perished, their suits blasted apart by railguns or lasers. Startled by such a response the rest reorganized, planned another attack and flew into the breaches once more.

The corsair vessel was bigger and her crew complement much larger. Instead of relenting however, their would be victims resisted. With the bullheaded tenacity of wounded, cornered beasts, the Terrans fought back with everything they had.

To the corsairs’ amazement, everything on that Hinam ship was thrown against them. Some used the automatic fire-retardant system to distract, while others charged in suicidal melee, armed only with vibro daggers. These attackers defended themselves with improvised shields jerry-rigged from damaged bulkheads.

This insane tactic worked for a while, and, cornered by literal pieces of the starship they were trying to conquer, many more corsairs died inglorious deaths.

Fuming, their captain sent any willing crewmates of his to join the boarding teams and flank the Terrans. Every single non-lethal armament they had was issued, and another wave of seething with rage corsairs swarmed the Terran ship. Despite the casualties, they were still inspired and ready to fight since their cut from the loot became bigger.

Stun pistols, batons crackling with electricity, and even the more expensive stun grenades, everything was used against that stubborn Terran crew. It should’ve worked yet, if that was even possible, these mad people fought back harder!

Power cables were used as a weapon, arcs of plasma frying many a corsair and Hinam alive. Those who could, dragged their stunned comrades away from the boarders. Others, who were about to be captured, used their last shot to end themselves, lest they be taken alive. Those without power packs either sliced their necks with vibroblades or simply opened their spacesuits, letting the vacuum end them.

At the center of this terrible, mind boggling and logic-defying resistance stood a tiny Terran. Armed with a diminutive compared to his masters weapon, nevertheless that sidearm killed many corsairs. The critter was small, yet with fearlessness never before witnessed by any of them, charged their boarding teams pistol firing.

More and more of the Terran crew and passengers died after each assault, but the little one, seemingly no one could end. By now, more than half of the corsair crew was dead, and the rest were absolutely livid. Their captain ordered that if they could not best the crazed Hinams with their last assault, he’d fire all point defense cannons and kill them.

They'd either enslave the survivors or slaughter them all.

Everyone without exceptions, even the captain, charged the Terran vessel from all possible breaching points. Wounded and dying, their would be booty still found strength to oppose them. Those who couldn’t walk crawled, grenade or pistol in hand. These soon to depart people made sure to drag as many corsairs to the underworld with them as they possibly could.

There were barricades on every intersection, portholes cut in every door. Everywhere the boarders went they were met with blistering fire. What was left of the Terrans armed themselves with beam weapons taken from dead corsairs. They scavenged every power pack, every weapon, and some even welded corsair corpses into their barricades.

Then there was the little one...

Most of his comrades were dead and in nearly all cases, he fought surrounded from all sides. Yet, no matter how many times the corsairs assailed him, he kept breaking through! His backpack was overflowing with spare power packs and that tiny pistol of his, it never stopped shooting. Covered with tiny blast holes from head to toe, this was how most of the boarders who faced him died.

The unrelenting critter chased them and, having faced such brutal, death delivering madness, even the most experienced corsairs wavered. It didn’t help that he was picking up their power packs and grenades as he vigorously chuckled on open comms, shooting them in their backs. A sizable bundle of bloodied equipment dangled on the critter’s back secured with space duct tape and wire, as he mercilessly assailed them.

Hit by a stray shot, the monstrous little pistol which this tiny-legged, genetically forged warbeast used to slaughter them with, it was finally destroyed. Tt would seem that the terror which chased them to death had retreated. Yet some of the Hinams were still alive, holed up in their improvised strong points and continued their doomed resistance, steadfast behind hastily built barricades, captured weapons in hand.

This was intolerable!

Shaking with rage, the corsair captain ordered a full barrage. Aimed by their scanners, the point defense turrets shredded every Terran they could hit. A fusillade of particle-beams blasted even bigger holes in the transport ship’s hull. Then, and only then what was left of the corsair crew dared board their quarry again.

However, now their scanners were flooded with radiation since a stray beam hit the Terran reactor. The prize ship could no longer be labeled such, and even if the corsairs wanted to make money out of it, they couldn’t.

There were literally no crew or passengers left among the living... or so they thought.

Suffering multiple wounds after being shot at, stabbed, slashed, and even blown up. The monstrous critter even survived direct particle-beam cannon fire! What was left of the boarders retreated after they witnessed how their wounded, weaponless nemesis picked something up. For some strange reason, the creature’s faceplate became transparent and nearby corsairs saw its bloodied but grinning snout.

It was about to perish, everyone on this ship was doomed from the get go; they all must have known that!

Instead they resisted, stubbornly and to the last, killing nearly all corsairs. Their captain, after counting how many of his crewmates remained among the living, shuddered. It didn’t take much brainpower to make a decision most prudent and he gave the retreat order, mere star-seconds after seeing what that engineered for murder, biological war machine did.

Oblivious of its many wounds, the fearless little monster kept smiling and, with an evil glint in his eyes, viciously ogled the corsair starship. In his cute tiny hands he held another weapon and no, it wasn’t even a normal pistol, but a full sized beam rifle...

***

This is episode one of the Starshatter Clips, a new series inspired by reader feedback. I will write and post these on my Patreon page. You can read many short stories there, all set in the Starshatter scifi universe of my books.

First scene - Dying Starlight

Third scene - Tomorrow is another day

Those of you who like space opera and science fiction, follow the adventurous crew of IMS Starshatter!

Art by @lillyput , you can visit her page here.

Tiny eyes of doom