We were aboard the Clear Horizon when the alarms sounded. Raiders were incoming, moving faster than our ships could track and target them. Boarding was imminent and we had to get back to the New Dawn to Mistress Vhane.
Nietsch was moving towards the Truehawk before I had even registered that the sirens were sounding. He was exceedingly protective of the Mistress. I would not have wanted his job. Still, if the enemy got on board and Nietsch wasn't there to protect her I'm not sure I would want mine either.
We followed at the quick step and were all aboard the shuttle as the doors were closing. They had not sealed fully when we made it into the void and we all felt a little pull as some air escaped.
Then we were rocketing towards the New Dawn as quickly as possible. It wasn't a minute before we heard a clang that reverberated through the ship.
"Stations, we are boarded!" yelled out Nietsch as we moved into positions. I followed him down the right hand corridor as we moved away from the bridge. The enemy were cutting through near the hold and if they were coming to take the bridge they would have to pass in front of us.
Prond moved the other way. For some reason Aximillion had taken a shine to the silent death cultist. They took the other flank. The plan, in general, was to draw off some of the boarders attack towards us and then have Prond move up behind them with the rest of the crew gunning them down from the bridge.
It would have gone perfectly if the bastards had not been so fast.
The first couple had made it onto the bridge before Nietsch got a shot off, and then there were a whole group moving towards us. Nietsch and Ramirez fired a volley down the corridor at them as they came but the vast moving pirates were tough to draw a bead on.
I heard little else between the gunfire in the close quarters and the sound of Gezzard's rotor cannon spitting death down the length of the bridge.
Two whip-like blades wrapped around Ramirez, one around his arm the other around his throat. They came loose along with his head and hand and there was one less voidsman between me and these ruthless and sadistic killers.
Nietsch put up more of a fight. He clocked one with the butt of his shotgun before the next one managed to stick a blade through his rib cage.
The firing had died down now as I assumed that the bridge had been overrun. I could hear the sound of the air escaping Nietsch's lung through his back as the alien knife emerged.
Before I ran I stabbed Nietsch with a stim and pushed the contents into him. I aimed for the area near where the blade protruded. No sense in injuring anything that wasn't already destroyed.
He immediately struggled against them with renewed vigour. This would give me time to make my way back to the bridge and if it only kept me alive for seconds longer, it may give me enough time to hide.
What I saw when I got to the bridge was not what I was expecting.
The raiders were falling back. I could see Prond behind them as they fired with their pistols to keep Van Der Grauss and the bridge crew pinned down. Their superhuman dexterity is the only thing that saved them from the executioner as she and Aximillion moved into the only path they had to get back to their craft.
Only one of them fell in flight.
We had arrived at the New Dawn as they did and Van Der Grauss used his esoteric abilities to close down the hold as the boarding ship slipped loose, leaving a tear in our hull.
Later one of the gunners on the New Dawn reported that he had destroyed a raider boat that was moving away from the dock as the rest of the raider fleet was driven off. I like to think it was the bastards who boarded us.
