Dual Abduction Read Online Free Page B

whistled as flames lit up their narrow space and the stench of smoke immediately invaded. Pushing on the grate, they tumbled it aside and emerged into a blazing nightmare. Fires dotted the spacecraft docking area, and while beings rushed around with chemical hoses to spray the area, they couldn’t keep up with the burning.
    But amidst all the smoke and blazes, their ship stood unblemished, and it took them only a moment to dispatch the four guards left to stand over it, an insult really, given their reputation.
    Once on board, they didn’t delay, firing up their thrusters, neglecting their usual preflight check in favor of a rapid departure. They didn’t leave completely unnoticed. Their view screen lit up with the face of the governor, his usual red mien now a peeved yellow.
    “You do not have permission to depart,” he yelled. “Shut those engines off and turn yourselves in to face justice.”
    “Sorry, but we aren’t standing trial for something we didn’t do,” Brax replied, not even pausing in his key strokes to get them free of the atmosphere.
    “Let us know when you catch the culprit though,” Xarn added. “We’d love to come back for a visit someday.”
    Apparently, the governor didn’t feel the same way because a shudder went through the ship as something impacted their shields.
    Before they could retaliate, the biggest explosion yet went off, the force of it rocking their craft.
    “Certifiably insane,” Brax muttered, again referring to their employer.
    “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Xarn asked.
    “Ditch the ugly witch?”
    “You took the words out of my mouth, sword brother.” However, it seemed their desire to abort their mission with the green female wasn’t about to happen. They broke free from the atmosphere and sped away from the planet, locked on a set of coordinates they didn’t recognize, and nothing they did changed it. It seemed, whether they liked it or not, they were about to kill a captain and his crew, and all because of a female scorned at cards. It was actually kind of embarrassing. Then again, it couldn’t be any worse than the time he killed a whole trio of beings for pronouncing his name wrong. And besides, this time there was treasure.
    It took several galactic revolutions before they caught up to their target, time during which they read with scorn the various inaccurate reports of their supposed crime and spectacular escape. Despite the falseness of the accusation, they did benefit with orders coming in for more jobs, a good thing too given their credit account was frozen pending the investigation.
    The vessel they tracked proved easy to find coming as it was out of the forbidden quadrant. Knowing their targets were pirates eased any remaining doubt he had about the job. He’d grown up on stories of his fathers—because his mother just couldn’t settle down with one—chasing down the dishonorable thieves and blowing them to pieces—after they acquired the treasure first, of course.
    A simple EMP—an electromagnetic pulse that frukxed with electronic controls— directed at the other craft, whose pilots foolishly didn’t have their shields at full strength, made coming alongside and docking easy. They setup an external space tube that linked the vessels, did a little bit of laser work to create a hole, and they were on board their victim’s vessel doing what they did best; causing havoc.
    The green goblin crew, who were half their size, and the single tentacled fellow they had manning the engines, didn’t stand a chance, not against two warriors of their caliber. So to make it sporting, Brax and Xarn, holstered their knives and took the pirate crew on with their fists.
    By the galaxies, both known and not, how he enjoyed the thrill he got from smacking someone around. It would have been nicer to face someone more his size, but he placated himself with the knowledge that his smaller attackers made up for it by diving on him in groups of three and