The Sirens of Seius

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

Captain Artemis Creed wasn't sure who 'they' were, but she knew they were wrong.

Singing was like screaming, right?

Because there was definitely a siren singing outside their space ship and things were looking bad. As the only woman in the crew, she was not under the spell of the song. Unfortunately, she wasn't the one at the helm either.

Alarms wailed and lights flashed around the bridge, signaling danger.

“I noticed!” Artemis shouted as a new alarm sounded to warn that the siren was trying to break the exterior bridge window to get inside the ship. Or get the men out.

She wrestled the controls from the man at the helm, shoving him aside so he fell onto the floor. He lay there, dazed from hitting his head on the way down.

“Sorry, Jonah. It's for your own good. You'll thank me when you see your wife and kids again.”

Artemis glanced out the window at the siren to see what she was up to.

Correction, sirens. Plural.

“Shit shit shit...this was supposed to be an easy cargo run! Why did we have to take a shortcut through the Seius Galaxy?!”

The siren's silver scales glittered like starlight against her midnight black skin in the light from the ship. All black eyes glinted maliciously as she bared her sharp teeth. Beautiful, but deadly. And very very angry.

Apparently, she felt wronged by one of the crew- so she was taking it out on all of them and brought her friends as back up.

First mate, Nate, ran through the bridge doors and slid to a stop beside her as Artemis turned hard to port to pull away from the sirens.

“I locked and barricaded the airlocks to all exterior doors and hatches. The guys shouldn't be able to get outside the ship,” Nate panted as he caught his breath.

“I hope not, they'd die in under a minute even if they had survival suits on!”

She piloted the ship through a group of sirens, one of whom reached out and dragged her razor sharp claws along the hull. Artemis and Nate both flinched at the sound of nails on a chalkboard times a thousand.

“I'm so sorry, Arti! I shouldn't have turned her down at the bar when we were on Eldium.”

“It's not your fault. How were we supposed to know they could shape shift to go on planet?! Who ever heard of a siren with legs?”

“I guess...But at least we know that and that her song doesn't work on gay men, that's a thing that's not in the lore.”

“No one knows because every straight man who met a siren has been lured into space without gear or ripped to shreds and took the rest of their crews with them.”

Artemis eyed the crewman she'd pushed aside earlier. Something had changed in the siren song and he was starting to advance on Artemis.

“Tie him up.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Artemis focused on outrunning the pack of sirens, but knew eventually they would need a plan to fight back. They couldn't outrun them fast enough to get away and normal blasters didn't do more than stun them.

It was a struggle, but Nate managed to subdue Jonah.

“Got him,” he reported back having tied him up and stuffed him in a storage room.

“Good, now let's figure out what we're going to do to fight back.”

Just as it looked like they were able to regroup, it happened.

A new siren's song joined the unholy choir.

A strange feeling washed over Artemis, like her whole body was humming or the artificial gravity of the ship had been turned off. She let go of the controls and looked outside to see the most beautiful siren of the pack.

Come to me, she sang, and you'll never be lonely again...

“Shit, one of them is a lesbian...” she informed Nate, tone alarmed and tense.

“What?! Oh fuck me...ear plugs? Ear muffs? What do you need?”

“The guys tried those...didn't work...even the slightest sound from them is too much” she replied through gritted teeth, her hands covering her ears. Fighting the song was starting to cause physical pain to build up in her head.

As the urge to step outside into into the siren's less than loving arms grew almost impossible to ignore, Artemis made a decision.

“Captains have to make hard decisions sometimes. Nate, you're my ears now.”

“Wha- oh my god!”

Artemis grabbed the stylus from the navigation tablet beside her and plunged it into one ear and then the other. The last thing she heard as she deafened herself was Nate's shout of horror mixed with her own scream of pain and the siren song.

And then merciful, painful silence reigned and she could think clearly again.

Wiping blood from her neck, Artemis nodded to Nate and pointed to the controls. “You fly, I'm going to the armory.”

If Nate protested, she didn't hear it.

She left Nate to keep running from the sirens, making sure to doubly lock every door behind her. She needed all the time she could get before the sirens turned the crew violent.

The armory was well stocked with the typical guns and blasters, but they were next to useless against the raging hoard outside shrieking their evil songs. In the backroom of the armory were the more unique weapons- not many as they were a civilian ship, but some.

She hurriedly let herself into the backroom and started going through the inventory list.

Plasma grenades? No. Brosian steel shackles? No. Gron made blasters? No, still not strong enough. Black hole bomb? Maybe?

They had one, and only one, black hole bomb- a weapon of last resort that left nothing it touched intact. But the blast radius wouldn't be large enough to get all the sirens.

But what if I...?

With shaking hands and a throbbing head, Artemis carefully opened the bomb housing and removed the wires and the core.

So far, so good.

The ship jerked wildly to starboard and Artemis nearly dropped the components. She couldn't hear the hit they'd taken, but she definitely felt it. Did the hit come from a siren trying to get in or a crewman trying to get out? She didn't know but she wasn't going to waste time finding out.

Better get this done before I drop it and we all bite the star dust.

Running as fast as she dared back to the bridge, she moved to the gun platform and started to wire the bomb components into their strongest energy blaster.

Catching a questioning look from Nate, she grinned a bit manically with blood drying on her face and pointed to the jury-rigged blaster. “Black hole canon.”

She got behind the blaster controls. “Time to see if she works!” Or kills us all.

Artemis took a deep steadying breath, aimed, and pulled the trigger.