Buama ama, p.1
Buama Ama, page 1
Buama Ama
The Saoirse War
M.E. Purfield
Published by trash books, 2024.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
BUAMA AMA
First edition. June 21, 2024.
Copyright © 2024 M.E. Purfield.
Written by M.E. Purfield.
Also by M.E. Purfield
Auts Series
Auts
Books About Everyone
The Satellite
The Ableism of Salvation
What Sorrow Flies Off Roofs
The King of Dodgeball Goes with the Flow
When the Lights Go Out
Blunt Force Kharma
Bound Kharma
Kharma's Pursuit
Kharma's Glitch
Kharma's Gatto
Desolate Kharma
Blunt Force Kharma
Cities That Eat Islands
Cities That Eat Islands (Book 1)
Cities That Eat Islands (Book 2)
Cities That Eat Islands (Book 3)
Fish Hunt
Cities That Hide Bodies
Complete Cities That Eat Islands
Miki Radicci
A Black Deeper Than Death
In a Blackened Sky Where Dreams Collide
Blood Like Cherry Ice
Surly Girly
Bawling Sugar Soul
A Girl Close to Death
Heart on the Devil's Sleeve
Sinking Stones in the Sky
The Ghost and the Stream
Expressway Thru the Skull
Hacker's Moon
Miki Radicci Shorts
The Ultimate Miki Radicci Omnibus Vol 1
The Ultimate Miki Radicci Omnibus Vol 2
Miranda Crowe
Bagged
Munki Moo Moo
Munki Moo Moo
Radicci Sisters Mystery
Psychic Sisters
My Dead Body
Saints
Squeezed
Broken Psychic Hearts
The Emptiness Above
The Sludge Below
Doe
Auties
The Killer
The Deceiver
Favors
Bumper
Rats In The Cage
Short Story
Natural Born Killer
Limits of Stupidity
MiLK
Orange Flecks
Through Tangled Nerves
The Creative
Defective Brain Club
Line
The Van Outside
Doorway Down
Just
Short of a Long Holiday
Lifetime Hallmark Scheme
Malignant Little Bastards
Pain Killer
Sibling Rivalry
Hole In The Head Freak
Neurodivergence on FH-358
Stories
A Sandwich Can't Stop A Bullet
The Morrows
How To Make Friends with Teenage Anarchists
Tenebrous Chronicles
Party Girl Crashes the Rapture
Angel Spits
Six Feet
Tweens with Pop Guns
Lightning From The Fire
The Subject
Tenebrous Two
Darby & Cain
The Saoirse War
Ealu
Thainig An
Buama Ama
Fealltoir
Spas Reoite
Standalone
Breaking Fellini
Delicate Cutters
Jesus Freakz + Buddha Punx
Buddha Punx + Ghetto Girlz
Klepto Pyro Mojo
The Pick-Up
(R)Evolution
Angst
Watch for more at M.E. Purfield’s site.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By M.E. Purfield
Dedication
Buama Ama (The Saoirse War)
Sign up for M.E. Purfield's Mailing List
Further Reading: (R)Evolution
About the Author
Deepest thanks to my Patreon supporters who make this story possible. Mike Mallory, Christy Lynn Margaret, Ann Purfield, and Allen Richards; you are the best!
Again, they stared at me as if I fell out of their butts. Especially Behan a few tables away. The Bocht never had a kind expression for me since I got on the ship. Their black eyes were always angry, hateful. Like they had never seen a Saibhir before. Well, yeah. Okay. They never saw one on their ship. Or one that wasn’t aiming a laser at them. But I had no intention of doing that to them.
I was brought up here by Carroll, Pinter, and Beckett. They rescued from moon RG372 where I worked as a mechanic on Saibhir fighters. Before that, I was a grunt on a pleasure ship. One of the generals I had as a client discovered my aptitude for mechanics. So they tried me out fixing the fighters and I bounced around until I ended up on RG372 where they started stripping the planet of its natural resources for Saibhir products.
The supervisors, no matter where I was stationed, still treated me like a pleasure grunt. They assumed I would pleasure them even though I didn’t have to anymore. Not that I wanted to. Not that I had any choice. When a female was born, they were born into that life until they found a spouse. Most girls did by the time they were eighteen years old. A few stayed on past their age. They became supervisors on the pleasure ship. Oddly, these were business-smart women who made a lot of money for the bosses but none of the men thought they were wife material. Maybe they thought the woman would boss them around.
Anyway, Carroll, the pilot of the team, brought me over to the commanding officers and informed them how I helped the team escape. They also bragged about how good I was with machines. How useful I could be against the enemy.
Commander Genet studied me and asked me why I would want to betray my species. I told them that I didn’t consider it a betrayal. I considered it working for my freedom. They accepted my answer and placed me on probation period which I had to earn their trust.
At first, they didn’t teach me about their technology. Maybe they wanted to keep their secrets until I had proven myself. Which stunk. Bocht were an interesting species. Their planet was a living bio organism. The Bocht believed it had a soul. The planet grew everything the Bocht needed like shelter and food and the Bocht gave back and cared for the planet. What the planet couldn’t give, the Bocht made themselves. Mechanical enhancements. Like their fighters. A triangular hunk of flesh with cysters and launchers. Each one needed three Bocht to operate it. Each Bocht took control of the navigation, the cysters, and the piloting. I so couldn’t wait to get inside one of them.
When I finally did after my probation period, I was in intellectual heaven. Biotechnology was fascinating. The knowledge they shared also related to their physiology. One of my trainers told me that a lot of mechanics move on to be medics. Considering my talent for the fighters, I could probably do the transfer, too. But would many Bocht trust a Saibhir with their health?
For now, I maintained and repaired damaged fighters from firefights with the Saibhir. And that was it. No Bocht expected pleasure from my body. I enjoy it. I liked my life. My freedom. I had my bedroom and rock collection that Carroll helped me build. By the time I turned sixteen, I could be a crew leader.
Now if I could only find Saibhir food to eat. The protein fluid and vegetation were okay but not three times a day. It was a mix of chalky sweet and sour. Thankfully, I didn’t have to eat a lot of it to feel nourished.
The claxon sounded.
We couldn’t have been under attack. Our location was too far from any Saibhir battleships. Or so any of us thought. Like the others in the cafeteria, I left my garbage on the table and reported to the landing bay to prep the crew with their fighter. Normally, I worked with Carroll, Pinter, and Beckett but they were on a classified mission.
Crew Leader Karina and Commander Genet greeted me on the frantic dock.
“Steff,” Karina called out and waved me over. Commander Genet gravely looked down at me as if they were going to tell me I had to be terminated.
“We need your expertise, Steff,” they said. “Carroll and their grew are returning in a Saibhir fighter.”
“Figures,” I said. “They always gotta shake things up, don’t they? So why is the claxon still on?”
“Pinter reported a countdown in Beckett’s console.”
“A countdown?” I asked. “For what?”
“That’s what we would like to know.”
“It has to be a bomb,” Karina said. “Why else would they have a countdown?”
“That makes no sense,” I said. “Unless the fighter is used for suicide runs but it would be cheaper for them to crash the fighter into the target.”
“So you never heard of this before?” Commander Genet asked.
“Sorry, sir,” I said. “This is new to me. Wait a second, you’re bringing the fighter in?”
“The timer started at 120 minutes when they broke orbit from their mission,” the Commander said. “Last we spoke to them it was down to 100. By the time they dock, it should be at 90 minutes.”
“So what can I do...Oh, man. You want me to defuse it?”
The floor tilted. My stomach swirled and chilled. I hugged myself. This couldn’t be happening. I knew nothing about bomb technology and I told them.
“But you know about Saibhir fighter technology,” Karina said. “You could still be useful. You could still save their lives.”
I would do anything for those three coming in the bombed fighter. They gave me freedom. A new life. They gave me self-respect. I would die in that fighter for them.
I may have to prove it.
As expected, the Saibhir fighter eased into the loading dock 10 minutes later. I recognized the model. An FZH-498. It was mass-produced for the war with the Bocht. Sleeker and thinner for speed. The cockpits were also narrower, giving no room for the runt soldiers inside. But that was okay since the AI computer performed most of the work. One was only needed to monitor the computers or perform overrides.
The loading dock was cleared with only essential personnel which included Karina, Commander Genet, and the top weapons designer on the battleship, Behan. If it weren’t for Behan, I would have felt more comfortable in the situation. As soon as they joined us, the Bocht weapons expert threw me a dirty expression and shook their head. Commander Genet caught it and cleared their throat, signaling Behan to behave.
Karina handed me a headset. I adjusted the mic close to my mouth. We pushed a stepladder to the side of the sleek metal fighter. Unlike a standard Bocht fighter that had three cockpits at each angle of the triangle form, the Saibhir cockpit was single and center. The pilot seat was filled by Carroll and the two rear with Beckett and Pinter. Though together, they were also divided with a metal shield so they could not see what the other was doing, and also, if there was threatening damage to one seat, it could protect the others. All three warriors were also too big for the pit designed for children.
Karina and I stood at the top of the ladder, careful not to touch the fighter in case the bomb, if it was a bomb, was sensitive. Though they made it this far and landed in the bay, I suspected the bomb was not fragile.
I waved to the crew and smiled.
“Hey there,” I said. “How you guys doing?”
Beckett rolled their eyes, Pinter gaped, and Carroll guffawed. I appreciated their good spirits.
“Oh, we’re just fine,” Carroll said into their mic and my ears.
“I assume you had a kerfuffle during your mission,” I said.
“Kerfuffle?” Pinter asked.
“Um, a problem.”
“The mission was a success,” Carroll said.
“So you decided to bring me back a gift?” I asked.
“We are your sponsors on this ship,” Carroll said.
“Hmm, we’ll see after the timer goes off.” I checked my watch. It was set the same as the bomb. “Looks like you got 85 minutes.”
Beckett glanced at their lap and shook their head.
“Can you get us out of here?” Carroll asked. “It’s starting to warm up.”
“The bomb?” I asked.
“No, the cockpit.”
Beckett knocked on the glass.
“That’s weird,” Karina said. “The fighter should be cooling?”
I nodded.
Beckett pounded the glass. Their face filled with annoyance and anger. They had that expression a lot since they couldn’t speak.
“What? What is it, Beckett?” Carroll asked, looking over their shoulder at them.
Beckett typed something into his console. Pinter read it and deflated.
“Becket says the timer is now at 60 minutes,” Pinter said.
“What?” Carroll, Karina, and I said.
“It jumped.”
“Did anyone touch anything?” I asked.
All three of the crew shook their heads.
“Oh, this is not good at all,” I sighed.
Karina and I removed the hull on the same side Beckett and the timer was on. When the innards of the ship were laid bare, Behan squeezed between Karina and me, shoving me with force to the side. I almost tipped over. Almost. Straightening and reclaiming my view, I gave him a shove back and tried not to crack his skull with the ratchet I used to remove the hull.
“What do you think, Steff?” Karina asked.
I surveyed the exposed mechanics. It appeared standard with the cockpit computers and weapons system.
“I don’t see anything,” Behan said.
“I’m going deeper,” I said.
I removed more casings until I reached the outer shell of the cockpit. Towards the front and nestled with the weapons system was something foreign.
“There it is,” Behan said.
I rolled my eyes. Did they have to speak for me every time?
“I see it,” I said.
A small rectangular metal box with red and white wires threading towards the rear of the fighter. It had to be the LED countdown.
Karina checked their timer and asked Becket if they also had 49 minutes. The Bocht nodded and gave a thumbs up. Amazingly calm for someone with that many minutes left to live. But Beckett was always the calm one of the three. I wished to be more like them. I couldn’t stop sweating.
“Can you remove the hull in the back without blowing them up?” Behan asked.
“Yes,” I sighed, not liking his condescending tone.
“I need to trace the wires to the explosive,” Behan stressed, again as if I were stupid.
Ignoring him I got to work on removing the hull to the side rear until the storage compartment and thrusters were exposed. Unlike the countdown device, the explosive was easily visible behind the thrusting system.
“That is insane,” Karina, over my shoulder, said.
“It’s nuclear,” Behan said, nodding grimly.
“Why would the Saibhir be so stupid to load their fighter with a timed nuclear bomb?” Karina asked.
“Because all Saibhir are idiots,” Behan said, peering, inspecting the area around the explosive.
“Maybe they were expecting us to take it,” I said.
“Us?” Behan asked, raising his brown in question.
“Yes, us,” I said. “Maybe they were hoping that we would bring it back to the ship. Any battleship. Think about it. Normally, Bocht doesn’t know much about Saibhir technology, right? So any chance you get to research one, you would take it. Hope to find a weakness. So, you bring it back here, and, with any luck, you don’t discover the bomb in time.”
Karina nodded.
“It would certainly take down the whole battleship and anything within the blast radius.”
“I seriously doubt any Bocht would do such a thing?” Behan said.
“Really? Because that’s exactly what happened. Except they stole it to escape since their craft was too damaged to fly.”
“We have so many minutes left to live and you have to stress your prejudice against us to the last moment?” Behan asked, trying to make me sound like a primitive child.
“What the hell were you just doing?” I said. “And no, I was not expressing my prejudice, only the way Saibhir think. That’s why the Commander allowed me to stay. To offer my perspective.”
“Hey, hey,” Karina said. “Can we focus on the matter at hand?”
Behan and I shut our mouths and returned our attention to the explosive.
“Can you disarm it?” Karina asked.
“I think so,” Behan said. “But I’m going to need time. This design is different than the intelligence I studied.”
“Time? You don’t have time, Behan.”
The Bocht threw their hands down, revealing their frustration.
“I know!”
“Okay, okay,” Karina said. “Sorry. Do your thing. Steff, can you get them out of there before the bomb goes off? Maybe if we have enough time we can eject it before it blows.”
“I think so. As long as the timer isn’t wired to the doors,” I said. “And I don’t see why they would do that since there is a timer. But I’ll make sure.”
As Behan studied the nooks and crannies of the explosive, I investigated the door latches which were a lot more work than I anticipated. I had to remove all of the hull leading to the other side and trace every wire. It took time. But not as long as Behan’s job. The weapons expert sat in front of the explosive, shifted their eyes, and quietly talked to themselves.
