Chapter 2

"Zortania. Three times in a row. Without using a booster. You know the chances of that happening in a single round?" said a voice belonging to what could be easily mistaken for a mere man with an evident penchant for crude augmetics and non-existent mouth hygiene. Around those parts of the ship, he was known as 'Alloy' and he had a rather nasty habit of spacing certain kinds of people. Namely, those who were unlucky or stupid enough to cross him.

Sam smiled as innocently as possible. "One in four point seven billion? Give or take a few million, I think. Guess the universe isn't so uncaring to some, right?" he said while reaching out to grab the holochip in the middle of the zort table. A ring of quite unhappy-looking faces directed their collective gaze towards Sam as if instantly magnetised.

The zealous augmetics user had substituted his jawline with a nanoengineered-alloy prosthetic. It looked like it weighed half a ton and gave the impression someone could chew through a ship's hull with it. When it moved again, the man with the bulky augmetics said through a wisp of cheap Altreidian cigar smoke, the kind that clogged air filters with frightening ease:

"You're cheating. I don't know how, but you are. I can't allow that. You'll forfeit."

Sam's hand froze an inch before it touched the holochip filled with enough credits to buy himself a small Tremaran fast enough to outrun Navy pickets. He seemed to have reluctantly realised there were some standing issues with the 'Alloy' when he asked with the slightest hint of annoyance and just the right touch of brusqueness:

"What, you mean forfeit the game?"

The answer was quickly followed by the unmistakably harrying sound of a rapidly charging plasma carbine:

"I mean forfeit life."

Sam had time enough to utter a few words for his ears alone, "Told you it was too obvious," before he suddenly jerked sideways at an inhuman speed, letting the plasma burst make a roughly head-sized hole at the bulkhead behind him.

He could now clearly see that the people around that table had begun to realise what was going on, but they were firghtfully slow to do anything about it. 'Alloy' was still grinning with all the excitement from the rush of a sure and easy kill, even as Sam's hand reached for his sternum. As the burly man's biomechanical heart was ripped away from its sheath, blood and bioservo fluid spurted freely, making an almost complete mess of those standing next to him.

The mess would be made complete by Sam's hands, moving at speeds that imparted more than enough energy to break someone's neck. He did so, twice, before his heightened senses had given him ample warning of a Double-Z pistol being raised by someone with fast reflexes but a mind too slow to realise he was the one outgunned.

Sam delivered a back kick that made the man's wrist break in four places while the pistol fired out of control in full auto in an backward spiral; another three men were shot through with pin-prick sized holes, wishing they had chosen an easy night at the sex domes in bay 7 instead of a really unlucky game of Zort.

When Sam's heightened senses reported that there remained just a terrified junior deckhand looking positively frozen from shock, he reverted to his more usual self. He wiped his slightly perspiring forehead with a dirty rag lying in front of one of the dead B-deck technicians and sat down in his seat once more, casually picking up and cleaning the by now blood-ridden holochip.

"Thank God these things are waterproof. Yeah, I know. No, it doesn't matter," Sam said as he picked up the plasma carbine and placed a shot clean through the junior deckhand's head. With a casual grin he walked towards the main shaft that lead to bay 6.

"No, no, we are a mean son of a bitch. You made sure of that, didn't you? You sly little devil," he said, answering the voice in his head while counting with his fingers and grinning under the faint blue-and-white light of the service corridor.

The captain of the "Incredibly Credible" was having a hard time lighting up his pipe. He looked deeply troubled. A rare silence occupied the bridge; it meant that something unusually serious was happening. The furrowed faces of the executive officer and the navigator were a match; the junior officers exchanged terrified looks but noone dared yet to voice the unthinkable.

It was the captain who did so, with a low-keyed voice that sounded like it belonged to a dead man:

"All hands. Abandon ship."

The ship's XO looked at him as if he had just been stabbed in the heart; he couldn't help but sound moronic:

"Sir? What?"

The captain gave the XO a sullen, weary look and simply said:

"Ephraim, abandon ship. Sound the horn. Let me talk to them." The XO nodded, his face torn between his sense of duty and his sense of reality. He waved his hands across a series of holodisplays, before a beam of light flashed across the captain's face, indicating he was now addressing the crew of the "Incredibly Credible":

"This is Incredibly Credible Actual. All hands, abandon ship. All Master-at-arms, secure the escape pod bays. This is a special emergency, but there is ample time to evacuate. Proceed in an orderly fashion, and godspeed. Actual out."

The light flickered off; the captain sank back in the relative comfort of his battle manoeuver couch and the darkness of the command pulpit. His XO was evidently nervous, perspiration glistening across his forhead in the ambient red light that bathed the bridge. He was accompanied by the astronavigation officer when he approached the puplit and managed to speak his mind:

"Sir, with all due respect, I don't think this is the correct approach, sir. We could try and contain this person - this thing - whatever it's supposed to be. Abandoning a frigate without due cause, sir ... That would be the end of our careers, sir. Surely a single man can't pose such a threat to a ship of this size."

The XO tried to put a smile on that last sentence, but his face muscles weren't up to the task. It was painfully obvious he was trying to bend reality to a level he could cope with, a level that tried to match his own sense of reality.

The captain picked up his pipe once more and lit it up; he took a deep puff before exhaling forcefully, the wisps of smoke curling and dancing around him. He simply pointed to the three men standing in one corner of the bridge, seemingly stargazing idly through the port viewport. His words came out dryly:

"See those robed figures over there? These are Monitors. They ... monitor these abnormalities ... these aberrations ... The-". One of the robed figures interrupted the captain from afar:

"The Exchange. Captain Voronin, there will be no more delays. Allowing your crew to abandon ship is a rarely extended courtesy. You should be grateful."