Page 55 of Hooded

I will fight. I will win. And I will make my nest.

The spaceport is on the far side of the town, an area sheltered from the rest of the populace by a ridge of granite. Fenes’ exports are mostly agricultural in nature, and whilst they generate wealth for the planet, they’re not exactly setting the galaxy alight, or something any Varangy might have an interest in.

Which means these ones are not expecting a fight.

I swoop over the town, rising up over the bluff and hanging in the updraft for a short while whilst I look down on the spaceport.

A Varangy ship squats near the main terminal, steam escaping from various ports. It will be my first call, before I enter to deal with the occupants. Folding up my wings, I drop, pumping hard to keep up my speed as I race towards the ground. I pull up at the last minute and use the velocity to carry me on to the port where I land next to the stinking ship.

The gladius might appear somewhat well used, but the blade is hardened tritanium, and it slides easily into the metal of the Varangy vessel.

My work completed, I circle the terminal building, a low-level metal monstrosity which I recall from our initial landing. Most of it is given over to cargo, with only a small area used for any species which wishes to enter or exit the planet. As I approach, I can hear the sounds of destruction and carousing.

I can smell them. The Varangy are here.

And they are mine to destroy.

KLYNN

The stench of the Varangy invades my senses as I stalk the corridors of the spaceport. Occasionally, I pass a small huddle of Fenere, and I wonder how this planet has gotten by all this time without a fighting force.

Something they will need to remedy.

The walls are scorched with pulsar fire, but as yet there are no bodies and no scent of blood. Whatever the Varangy want with this planet, it is not death.

However, they have found it, regardless of whether they want it or not.

The first one sticks his ugly head out of a side room, mouth open as he sees me, the overly complicated pulsar raising as he takes in a breath. The gladius finds its home in his gizzard, and he falls backwards with a dull thump.

Did the Fenere say they wanted dead or alive Varangy? Perhaps they should have specified. I specialize in dead and nothing is going to change me.

The large atrium of the port was, as far as I recall, bustling with life and filled with planting. The air is heavy with the ozone scent of pulsar fire and the floor littered with debris and vegetation.

I watch the cohort of Varangy, approximately ten of them, some sprawling, some drinking out of containers clearly purloined from other cargo, some casually releasing pulsar bolts at the remaining glass of the upper atrium.

They seem at a loose end. Perhaps it’s time they worked for their pleasure.

With a roar, I’m in the air, swinging the gladius to deflect the pulsar fire which comes my way far too late. I dispose of three in quick succession, remove limbs from another three, and then face down the remaining four who have taken shelter behind a large slab of metal which used to form part of the entry port.

Pulsars fire wildly over the top, missing me by a wide margin. I shake my head and curl up my claws, gripping the gladius in one hand and contemplating whether these ones should live or not.

I don’t think the Fenere wanted all of them to die. And these ones can let any others with designs on Fenes know it is not to be messed with.

“Leave,” I growl. “Leave now or lose your heads.”

“Gak you, Gryn!” One of them shouts.

“Your choice.” I respond. “I gave you a chance.”

I’m in the air, wings beating down as I descend on them, dodging their wild pulsar bolts, landing easily among them, disarming the first with a single swing of the gladius. The second I take out with a head butt which sends him reeling back into the metal slab, sliding down and staying down. The third manages to get a bolt into my side before he too is sent flying by the shoulder of my left wing.

The fourth drops to his knees, puts down his weapon, and puts up his hands.

“What the vrex are you doing here? This planet has nothing a Varangy would ever want,” I fire at him.

“We came for you, Gryn,” says a fifth Varangy, his uniform considerably cleaner than his colleagues’, a couple of medals glittering on his chest. “Our master requires your presence, having only just missed you on Trefa.”

“Get vrexed.” I spin the gladius in my hand. “I don’t belong to anyone, not anymore.”

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