Chapter 649: The Spoked Offensive (2/2)
Kandi'kayn nodded.
**what is the lemur doing now** the Vessel Commander asked the Defense Officer.
**I do not understand its actions nor can I describe them but observe** the Defense Officer stated, waving at the hologram.
Natraya watched the lemur walk on its hands, turned upside down, lurching around the room.
”Damn, I feel really good. I'm feeling better and better every minute,” the lemur said, smiling. ”Just something about this body. I mean, don't get me wrong, I miss my nanites and my wetware and cyberware and my harness, but this body is pretty nifty.”
Natraya just nodded, using a chunk of robot armor to scrape along the edge of the bladearm and sharpen it. She spit on the chunk of armor and went back to scraping the serrated edge.
”Feels really good to fight, too,” the lemur said. It shoved off with its arms and somersaulted in midair to land on its feet, crouched down. It passed its hands in front of it, fingers outstretched. ”The body has nanites, but no control array, which sucks.”
”My condolences,” On'trak said softly.
The lemur stood up. ”They'll take a while to come at us again.”
On'trak nodded. The lemur had said that before. ”Explain, again, please.”
”OK, their B-Team, their second best, came in with that fancy armor and those weapons,” the lemur said.
”How do you know they were not the, what do you call it, A-Team Number Uno Surprise?” On'trak asked.
”They didn't know how to use that stuff effectively and had no sense of close quarters tactics,” the lemur said. ”Now, unfortunately for them, that let me get a quick look at their stuff, which is why when the A-Team showed up, I had an idea of their capabilities and how they'd move, which is why we killed them too.”
On'trak nodded.
”Because we're still in jumpspace, we haven't docked with another ship, which means that by now they have to be thinking about what percentage of their crew we've killed and what they have left. We don't know the crew or ship size but we know that the rest of the crew knows how fast and brutally we've killed those who were sent against us,” the lemur said. It somersaulted and landed on one hand, held the position and then gracefully put one foot down and did a slow cartwheel onto both feet and began moving his hands around. ”What crew they have is all they have. Shipboard security will make up a maximum of ten percent of the crew, unless this is a troop ship, which I doubt, since none of these guys could really fight. That means they either are out of security or the remainder of the security forces are really really wanting to stay hiding under their bunks.”
On'trak thought about it. It made sense. He would rather hide beneath his bunk than face the lemur in combat.
”Which means they only have a few choices. Kill us, abandon ship and leave it all to us, blow the ship up, or go somewhere where they can get help to kill us,” the lemur said. ”Since we're still in jumpspace, I believe they either think they can kill us or are running for somewhere they think will help them with the problem.”
The lemur frowned. ”The only problem is, I keep getting this sense of something reaching for me just beyond my reach,” the lemur slowly turned around, still waving its hands. ”I don't know what it is, but part of me knows I want it, like a dingo staring at a baby.”
”I don't understand that reference,” On'trak said.
”It's OK,” the lemur said. It walked around the room. ”I thought this was warsteel, maybe Mark-Zero or perhaps even biologically extruded like the Mantid and few other do in limited amounts, but I think its something different. There's too much crystalline doping in the metal to be warsteel,” the lemur ran one hand, surrounded by a bluish nimbus, across the glittering walls, leaving behind a slight blue glow on the glittering black metal.
”It's reactive to psychic abilities, to phasic energy, which means its some kind of psychically active alloy,” the lemur mused. ”Which makes sense, because these squid-faced guys seem to really depend on both bioconstructs and phasic power.”
Natraya nodded. ”Yes. How does this help us?”
The lemur lifted itself up on its toes then dropped down, then started repeating the action, bobbing up and down quickly. ”I don't know.”
”So what happens now?” On'trak asked.
The lemur grinned. ”We wait till the next group, I let one live long enough to realize it can't beat me, then we see if it runs, curls into a ball, goes into a frenzy, or can't realize it can't beat me.”
”What will that tell you?” Natraya asked. She'd slowly become fascinated with watching the lemur's brain work.
”If their morale is broken,” the lemur said.
**when it is just down to you you will run following the open doorways** Shandaar ordered the Young One.
The Young One nodded, looking extremely nervous.
**go all the way through the cargo bay to the far side** Shandaar ordered. **at the far side there will be a phasic nullifier field run through it and out the door which will close behind you do you understand**
**I understand** the Young One said. It looked at its rifle. **and if I kill the lemur**
**then we will erect a phasonium statue to you** Shandaar said.
**I believe I will be running** the Young One stated.
Shandaar looked at the navigator.
**how long until we exit jumpspace**
Tightening her grip on her makeshift sword, Natraya stood up as stomach wrenching feeling of leaving jumpspace touched her. On'trak gave a slight groaning noise as the jumpspace drop reached him too.
The lemur looked around.
**we've dropped out of jumpspace** the navigator said. **Inheritor ships detected heading for us**
Shandaar reached out to the Young One through the communal mind, feeling how nervous the other Atrekna was.
**now**