And what are you gonna do about it bitch?" the heavily muscular man with no shirt and the crew's captain asks as he withdraws his two sheathed swords.
"This," Celaeno Alcyone says slamming her sword into the deck and pulling out a pistol. She points it at the man's head that she has on his knees and before he has a chance to object Celaeno pulls the trigger. He falls back to the deck. The crew stops what they are doing and begins reaching for their own weapons. Celaeno grabs her second pistol and fires rapidly into the captain and first two crew members she sees holding their own pistols. She slides the guns away, back into their respective holsters and then pulls her sword free. "Let any man that wishes to face me do so now!" Celaeno yells. "Your captain is dead and I aim to take over this ship. You can join him if you like or you can serve me and live."
Most of the crew looks to each other not really sure how serious she is or if she would be able to take them all on. A group of five men step forward ending the debate. The remaining four of the crew lower their weapons and form a semi-circle around those men and Celaeno. The ship isn't too large being a Hydin Shipyards Stingray Corvette named Old Blue, but there is definitely enough room to do battle. The ship with its maneuverability, speed, weaponry and cargo space, which is currently nearly empty, is favored by sky pirates for a reason after all.
She knows that if these men lose the rest of the crew, what few there are, are hers and if they win—well she isn't about to let that happen. "Very well," she says. "I'll send you to your deaths then."
The five men spread around her thinking an all around attack would end the battle quickly. The first comes in at her back with a thrust. Celaeno spins around with the tip of her sword pointed toward the ground effectively blocking the attack. Using the momentum of the turn, she continues and blocks the next attack to her now exposed back and blocks the attack in the same manner. She lets the men stay on the offensive blocking each of their attacks in turn. She is putting on a show for the crew to demonstrate her prowess and allowing the men attacking to believe that they have the upper hand.
After some time Celaeno turns from defense to offense. Playtime is now over. The next sword to come at her, she locks blades with giving the pirate a false sense of attack. She takes a step in toward the man and produced a pistol and shoots him through the chest. Without missing a beat Celaeno turns and fires at the approaching man to her immediate right. He faces a fate similar to the first. He drops his sword and stumbles back falling into the arms of waiting crewmen and dead before his body is lowered to the deck.
The remaining three men stop their approach and step back slightly. They already know that using a pistol could increase the chance of blowing a hole through the hull and sending the ship down toward the ground. As much as each man wants to use their own pistols, they realize the danger and grip their swords even tighter. Once again they split apart and one of them faces her while the other two approaches from opposite sides.
"You stupid bitch," the one facing Celaeno says. "You think you're so smart? We'll see how smart you are when we send you out the airlock to the city below."
"Then what are you waiting for?" Celaeno mocks sliding her pistol away and gesturing from them to attack her.
The man looks to the other two and gives them a wink and then attacks. Celaeno waits until the last possible moment then steps back as the two men at her sides thrust in. She drops her sword and grabs both men's wrists and pulls them together; their swords stabbing through each other. Now with his prey unarmed, the man feels certain she would fall quickly enough. But before he can take two steps, Celaeno whips out an object from behind her back, which quickly unfolds into a compound bow. A split second later she is releasing a metal tipped arrow that slams with such force into the man's head that it slings it backward along with the rest of his body to the deck.
Celaeno bends over to reclaim her sword and looks around at the crew. "Is there anyone else that wishes to challenge me?"
As an answer, the crew drops their weapons to the deck in surrender. They are smart enough to know when to attack and when not to. "Good," she says smiling. "Get rid of these bodies and set a course for New Paris."
Once the bodies are dumped from the airlock and the corvette set on course, Celaeno returns to the cargo bay to inspect the few crates sitting in the near empty cargo bay. There isn't much as far as goods go that can be used to gain some fast cash. New Paris is only a stepping stone for her real destination and though she has assets there, getting them could prove to be hard about now.
The Divortium has tightened the noose around her and here lately it has made things rather difficult for Celaeno. Now is one of those times and she barely made it out of Ireland. If not for this sky pirate ship leaving port when it did, she'd probably be in an interrogation cell right now. As it stands, she is safe or at least as safe as she can get.
"What are you doing there love?"
Celaeno recognizes the voice right away as the ship's first mate. He was one of the four scared shitless crew that stayed back and watched their comrades get slaughtered.
With a slight smile, completely hidden from the filthy man, Celaeno says, "It is not the crew's position to as their captain of her actions nor is it any of their business."
The man stops for a brief moment and all the she can hear is his heavy breathing. Even though Celaeno only has the two pistols at her side with her hands just within reach of them and her back turned to him, she knows he is clearly running different scenarios through his head.
To help him along and get it over with Celaeno crosses her arms across her chest and says, "If you plan to use that knife, I suggest you do it. Otherwise you can take your lowlife piece of shit ass back to the command deck and take worry about something else than my business."
The gruffly looking sky pirate, who is easily twice her size, grunts as he leaps forward and strikes out. Celaeno spins to allow the knife blade to harmlessly slide past her. She brings up her right hand, grabbing the man by the wrist then her left elbow to strike at his, effectively snapping his arm. The knife is instantly released by the sky pirate and clatters to the deck. With near lighting speed, Celaeno whips out her sword and spins to cut through his leg at the knee, dropping him to the ground. She continues with the momentum turning it into a spin, lashing out for the man's head, but instead misses by mere inches as he ducks down.
As his arm hangs limp at his side, the sky pirate pulls his word free with his off hand and swings upward attack that Celaeno has to jump backward to avoid. Her back slams against the wall. Celaeno's rebound sends her back toward him and their blades clash tightly together, putting them in a standstill. "I am stronger than you, even with my off hand," the sky pirate saying with a rancid breath.
"You only wish asshole," Celaeno replies driving her knee up into his groin. The impact almost doubles him over leaving him vulnerable and she doesn't waste any time.
But the sky pirate isn't as slow as Celaeno hopes. As she reaches down to withdraw a pistol he pivots using his strength to force her blade to the side and ram his blade into her left shoulder, pinning her to the wall. She winces from the pain as he smiles. Then as quickly, Celaeno returns the smile before firing three shots into the man's chest, sending him backward and onto the deck.
"Well, at least I only have to worry about three now," she says to herself as she pulls the sword free from her shoulder.
As she slides toward the deck, she uses her sword to brace herself from doing so. The last thing she needs right now is the remaining crew rushing down to see what transpired and believe they could attack while weakened. Quickly, she slides away her pistol and takes the first step toward the cargo bay entrance, aiming to cut off any of the other's entrances.
Celaeno pulls the knife across the throat of the final crewmen, spilling his blood over the deck just as the landing deck situated just five hundred yards east of and half a mile above the Eiffel Tower is coming into view. She releases her grip of the man, dropping his body onto the deck. She looks out of the viewport and the landing deck looks like any other, but something nags at her in the back of her mind. Celaeno shrugs off the feeling and settles into the navigator's chair.
The winds over New Paris aren't troublesome and without much effort she settles the craft on the platform with a smooth thump. If she is lucky, she can sell the ship in a matter of hours and pick up something else. The only trouble is finding a way to dispose of the bodies.
It wasn't too hard of a choice, whether to keep the remaining crew alive or not. Considering at some point they may realize just who she was, if they didn't already, would make things harder for her. Besides, if she let them live then she wouldn't have a means to get funds unless she withdrew from whatever assets she has in New Paris. But then of course that would send up red flags and she would be right back at square one.
Once the ship settles, Celaeno flips switches and pushes buttons, powering down the corvette. She takes a deep breath before lifting herself from the chair. She still has a ways to go to get to Egypt and meet with her contact. After that, a whole new leg of her journey was going to begin. Fighting against the Divortium is not the easiest task in the world, especially when they control it all and that is in the literal sense.
She takes one more look through the viewport at New Paris. The last time she was here was a couple years after the city was bombed. Much of what she had as far as assets were concerned were lost and what she did have left she had to relocate. Luckily the banks still had records of money, so she hadn't lost any. Of course she never used her real name for such transactions and all her accounts all over the world are still open, but there never is any telling just which of those names the Divortium know of and if they are monitoring them. Normally something so trivial would be just that, but in the heat of things recently, she can't take any chances.
Her eyes catch the Eiffel tower, a gleaming monument that has miraculously survived all this time and somehow through the bombing of the city all those years ago. All those years ago seem like a lifetime for Celaeno. It was a different time and she was a different person then.
"What changed?" she says aloud in the silence of the cockpit.
It could have been the war or it could have been a change in the Divortium. It very well could have been something else, any number of things. Nonetheless, her life changed and unless she fulfills her job, nothing is going to change. Celaeno lets a small smile spread across her face as she turns to exit the cockpit. When this is all over, things will be different. It won't be the same as before but it won't be the same either.
