Starship Rogue series Box Set Read online

  Ten towers of components stood twelve feet high in a neat row in the center of the room. We’d made it this far. Horseshoes must be up our asses. We were in the control depot that fed the station its juice and controlled auxiliary functions and artificial grav. Luckily I knew where to look. I’d broken into such places before and had a good success rate. That meant diddly squat though. Every caper had its pitfalls.

  Marty catfooted it past nine towers to the far end of the room and began fiddling with the last tower, particularly the box that contained the control port door stabilizer. I’d coached him how to sabotage it to keep those doors wedged wide open.

  The place buzzed with an electrical hum, high voltage, high-powered fluorescent lights. The smell of dust and staleness permeated the air. A disused feel. Nobody had been in this place for a long time.

  While Marty got the faceplate off the upright rig nine towers down and worked at short-circuiting the outer port, I moved to the first stack. In sync we had to undermine the power grid as quickly as possible. If we could get both components to misfire at the same time, we’d have the perfect diversion to steal our cargo hauler and be on our way. One shipload of that rare, treated beryl could weigh in upwards of 30k yols. Not bad for a day’s haul by a couple of starveling hustlers.

  I unscrewed the faceplate off the first stack, crouching at waist level. Just a couple of wires snipped here and there in the right places and joined to the right leads and the overhead energy holo grid would go down. Half the job would be done, just what we needed. Sharki and his goons wouldn’t know what hit them.

  Marty, however, was slower than dogshit. Too long dicking around with the auxiliary port controller. I hissed into my com, “We’re good to go, Mar. On blackout for T-30.”

  His raspy voice crackled over my ear piece. “This one’s a bust, a prick and a half.”

  “What you mean a bust? I gave you the ‘easy’ job.”

  “You know how it is, Ruskie. The easiest ones’re always the hardest. Some geeks must have parallel-wired the port mechanism, adding triple redundancy or some shit. Have to knock out three of them if we want our door to stay open.”

  I groaned. “Well, hurry up, or this operation’s lizard shit. We could get made. Those doors are under auxiliary power. Could cancel out my blackout magic.”

  “We can always bail—Damn these snips!” He swore as he made sucking sounds, likely cut his thumb.

  “There’s no bailing. We invested a lot in this job, Marty. Let’s make the best of it. Wait, on second thought, let me handle it.”

  I heard him swearing like a sailor as I envisaged him fumbling about with a bloody finger trying to stitch two leads together. Something else crackled over the com, Gras’s choked voice.

  “Fuck… Gras’s made,” Marty rasped.

  I ducked over to the wall to sneak a peek through the glass, saw two security apes hauling what looked like Gras out of Algernon’s port doors. Fuck! Now what? The two thuggish security men with brawny tattooed arms were dragging his sorry hide none too gently. I leaned back and sighed. Completely screwed. I told him to fly off or at least lay waste to this pig run if things went sour. Must have tried something heroic and got himself messed up.

  “Abort,” I hissed.

  Marty was at my side, clacking his ugly teeth. “This is bad. What about the doors?”

  “Forget the fucking doors. We’re screwed! Backup plan.” Which wasn’t much of a plan if you call a free-for-all shoot out at the OK Corral some kind of fallback. I ran back to the stack knowing we were done for, so hard-wired the main circuit to a full out short. The lights flared, then took a plunge. There was a massive electrical surge and sizzle and cries and bedlam in the loading deck. Security men were hopping about, R3’s hiked and Marty and I were on the move.

  The emergency lights flickered on. In the dim periphery sat the hauler, a tempting, easy getaway vehicle. I was itching to get my hide in there. First thing though, we had to try to save Gras’s ass. Somebody was going to die. Maybe all of us. Marty and I moved like lynxes toward the security men, Marty, grim face set, was thinking the same as me.

  Before their guns lifted, we took them out, thumping them like sledges on anvils. The first man’s face exploded in a tiny ruin as my gunstock slammed down hard. I caught Gras as he slumped, pulled him the hell away from them. Gras choked, getting hold of his senses. His face was white. “I tried to warn you guys…but they snuck in back.” His breath wheezed. “Must have had access codes we didn’t know about.” He was beaten up pretty bad. Two black eyes and an arm hanging limp.

  “What about our two stooges?”

  “Hid them in the forward bin. Before they stormed the ship.”

  I nodded. Bad on me for losing faith in Gras. “It’s okay. You did okay, Gras. Everything’s changed. New plans. Keep your head down and we’ll head to Goliath—” I stared as shells rang out.

  Gras’s body shuddered to the pump of rapid fire. His head bobbed like an apple as gunfire spat out from the side. His body arched, convulsing around like a dancing manikin.

  I jerked back in horror. Gras slid out my grasp. I ducked, returning fire, spraying anything that moved.

  Gras died, and died badly. We couldn’t do anything for him yet we pulled him to safety behind the curve of the cargo hauler’s rear vanes. He was gone, eyes staring in glassy death. Seconds were ticking.

  Marty gave me that wooden, I-told-you-so, empty look. “Got any prayers, Rusco? Better say ’em now.”

  The moment I realized we were done for, I leaped for Goliath’s cargo door, Marty hard on my heels.

  Some dark shape draped in tight leathers came lurching out of the hold, rifle raised.

  I surprised her and knocked the R3 out of her hands as she lifted it to my face. Holy fuck! But she did some cartwheel thing and landed next to me, smashing me a solid whack across the shoulders. The force knocked me off balance, sending me floating backward like a cloud on ice. In a split of a second I saw that angel-blond hair whip back, tied in a loose pony tail, the length of sleek thigh, hard muscle all round. This was no soft, languid female. Lucky for me I didn’t progress to phase 2—Jet Rusco lying in a slimy heap bleeding out on the hyper-tilized deck. I whipped up my gun and held it to her vitals. She settled down quick.

  I kicked her rifle out of the way. “Don’t try anything stupid. Move!” I massaged my neck.

  Marty crouched, tagging bodies, covering me from gunfire. Shells raked all around us as we hunched inside the cargo door.

  The silver-garbed man came running our way, bellowing orders.

  “Into the ship,” I rasped. “You too, you stupid creepo.” I elbowed her forward.

  Silver-face roared, “WTF, Deidra, you traitor!” His gun came arching up.

  The woman turned around, slack-jawed. “What do you mean, Sharki? I didn’t do any—”

  “Liar, you’re running with scum thieves. You’re no different than your rat-bastard father!”

  Shots from all angles rang around us, riddling the hull. We ducked, curses in our throats.

  “Move, you bitch,” cried Marty, knocking her sprawling forward. “This ain’t social hour.”

  The silver-garbed man cried out to his henchmen: “Kill that traitorous harlot and those good-for-nothing thieves.” Sharki’s fish cold eyes were black and bottomless like a shark’s, cold as ice. I could see where he got his name.

  She gave a venomous hiss.

  I looked her in the eye. She crouched dazed, fists bunched, trying to get air back in her lungs from Marty’s last love tap. She was no traitor. Just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  “Inside, if you want to live!” With a curse, I shuttled her ahead. “Close that bloody hatch.” Marty’s fingers fumbled for a close button. He pulled his fingers back, his left arm grazed by gunfire. Hydraulics whined overhead and metal sheets came sliding down.

  Things were happening too fast. The mind compensates by blurring the edges and giving the brain less information, allowing in
tuition, intellect and reflexes time to catch up. There was a hollow ringing in my ears. The rat-a-tat of gunfire rained down on us like hail, a dull clown’s firecracker ricochet off walls at a kid’s birthday party. Everything felt in slow-mo from the get-go, some dream within a dream with death lurking around the edges.

  The cargo doors slammed shut, sealing us off from Sharki’s men. Only the dull echo of gunfire against the armored hull as the blue light set to autolock. Precious moments of a reprieve.

  Happy, Rusco? Fabulous handiwork.

  We raced down the hall to the bridge, Marty herding Goldilocks and her cursing hide along. Nobody aboard. Marty’s door jam hadn’t worked back there—our pilot Gras, was lying in a pool of his own blood, so Marty and I’d have to blast our way out, manage the ship alone.

  The bridge was a gloomy affair but roomy and designed for comfort. Stacks of tower components to the left. Sensors dead center with console grid and holo displays. To the right weaponry manifold and target equipment. Through the port glass I saw figures scrambling like ants below. I punched at the touch panel. System was locked.

  “You captain of this ship?” I growled at her.

  She kept a sullen silence, her lip curled and out flung in an insolent sneer.

  “Answer him, you dumb bitch.” Marty came snarling forward, fist upraised, but I herded him off and shook her shoulders. “Unlock these damn controls, or we’re all dead.”

  With a muttered curse she moved to the console like a dazed deer, ran grudging fingers over a touchtab. “All yours, fuckers.” The fleshy mouth was full of challenge, full cheeks rose-red, brazen tilt to the hips, pretty enough, but a handful for anyone.

  “He’ll kill us all so why even try?”

  “I don’t have a death wish. Out of the way.” I shoved her aside.

  Marty got the ship moving while I shuttered the glass. Armored plates rolled down over the viewing port. I fiddled with the weapons grid. I could hear shells smacking against our hull. Hundreds of them. The V-Zons’d be on our tail. The things’d be getting ramped up and pretty nasty real soon.

  Marty amped our shields up to max. Goliath surged along the landing pad toward the outer port, our electro-shields catching stray bullets. I trained the ship’s cannon at the wall of grey steel approaching in the holoview as Marty guided us on impulse power.

  Shells flared out and the portal erupted in shards and fragments. I kept hammering at the plated metal with guns full on, while our rear shields lit up at the rifle fire from behind. “Hot damn!” Amidst the smoke, a gaping hole loomed. Loose material on the landing dock went spinning helter-skelter out in space. I grinned, thinking about Sharki and his gang on deck in a subzero vacuum. The sods’d have a miserable time getting to safety before being asphyxiated.

  We were in a ship, we’d gotten this far. Out of the jagged ruin of the port hole Goliath burst, her rear impulse jets flaring behind us. We’d have to forge the rest of the way on brute strength…and a lot of luck.

  Chapter 2

  Goliath burst out of the station, wreckage falling off her sides in fiery shards. “Yeehaw!” Marty crowed. We headed into deep space on impulse thrust. Marty was pleased.

  “Save your yeehaws,” I barked. “Get Goliath the fuck away from here so we can break out in warp.”

  “Too close, Rusco, too close to Thetis. We’re at the 10k mark. Grav field still too strong. Seven minutes minimum.”

  Was it enough time? Activity flared from the station, three hot dark shapes shot out of the burning, ragged hole after us. Didn’t take them long to regroup and sic birddogs on our ass.

  I turned to Deidra. “Your flyboy boss is a little peeved, I think. Surprised he recovered so fast. Can’t believe he’s not more worried about his precious station.”

  She gave a grim laugh. “There’ve been breaches on Thetis 3 before. The crew always fixes them. Sharki’s more worried about the cargo we’re carrying.” She jerked a finger at the holo display showing three bogies coming straight at us. “Those red blips are stealth V-Zons out to blast you.”

  “Not if we get to warp first.”

  “You’ll never make it to warp before they peg you off. Goliath’s a sloth on impulse thrust. I know it, she’s my ship, remember? Too close to Thetis, as your boy just reminded you.”

  “You’re just a fountain of cheer, aren’t you?”

  “You’ve made me complicit in whatever scheme you’re running by dragging me aboard. Thanks a bunch for signing my death warrant.”

  “Well, hooking up with scum like Sharki is a surefire death warrant. You can trade a starship’s ride out of hell here for a hide full of lead. You should be kissing my ass for saving your butt back there.”

  Her mouth sagged an inch as she was about to punch back with a retort. Instead, she looked over at the holo-view with hopeless eyes.

  “Why you so fixated on us getting nuked anyway? Don’t you have any ounce of preservation in you?”

  “I think I’d rather get blasted to hell than have Sharki on my tail. He’ll slap me in a slave shop as he’s threatened all along.”

  I frowned at that, scratched the cut on my face. “Makes no sense. You deviated before?”

  “No, he owned my father.”

  “You really have no allegiance to him? Aw, screw it. I’ve no time for mysteries.” Fire flare hammered our shields. I set the weapons grid to lock on the upcoming bogies. They were coming in fast. “Marty, you ready for a tar-and-feather showtime?”

  Marty looked casual as ever, as if smoking a peace pipe out on the front deck. Must have been the Myscol he just popped in his mouth. “Ready as ever.”

  She hesitated at my last question. Her whole frame tightened in a knot with the approach of the lightfighters. “Once you’ve worked for Sharki, there’s no going back. He owns you for life.”

  Marty guffawed. “That’s a pile of shit, woman. Clean up your brain. He’s just terrorized you into blind obedience.”

  Her fingers clenched as if ready to claw Marty’s face. She sprang for the spare guns on the rack at the side and I headed her off. “No, not so fast, tigress.” She looked ready to claw my eyes out too, or drub me with her bunched fists. “You’re all wound up. We’re not going to harm you. Nothing you’ve said changes anything, so get with the program. As I said, from where I’m standing, you should be grateful to be alive.”

  She let out a rasp. The young woman was not thinking straight. Seeing Sharki’s ruthlessness firsthand, I could understand. Her ship had just been hijacked. Her bane, Sharki, had turned on her and promised her a cruel fate.

  The first repellor beams came lashing out at our port stern and knocked our shields way down.

  “Mother fucker,” I breathed.

  Flare bombs flashed around us and rocked our hull. Marty’s evasion tactics were not working. Jesus, what else could go wrong?

  “Can’t you fly this thing?” I yelled at her, “or are you just window dressing?”

  “I can fly it,” she spat.

  “Then do it!”

  With a sneer, she stamped forward, bumped Marty out of the pilot’s chair. Her slender fingers danced over the console, set the ship on a narrow dive, just bypassing one of the V-Zon’s repellor beams by a hair.

  Our Deidra was coming round, a little late, but I was grateful she was on board.

  The V-Zons took another swipe at us, one of their lurid rays catching us hard in the nose, rocking the ship and raising hell on our shields. The other spitfires converged on us like hornets, stingray cannons trained at our fuselage. Whatever could be said of him, Sharki hired good pilots.

  I swore. “Shields down to 41%. Fancy moves aren’t going to win us the day.” I searched the defense systems for any reserve power we could divert into shields. I looked to Marty. “I’m open to ideas here. Only so much I can do with three against one.” I punched at the weapon controls, aiming for the place I expected the closest enemy to dodge to. It was a lucky guess. The torpedo caught the top of the hull full on its nose. Three
strikes too many. The hostile’s ship flared and went dead, a floating derelict in space. The other V-Zons spiraled in with fury.

  Deidra cried, “Monitor frequency K-alpha-2. I put snoopers in place so I could track Sharki’s movements. I didn’t trust him farther than I could spit.”

  I adjusted the dial to the requisite frequency. Sharki’s decoded voice crackled over the com in poor quality audio. “Get that ship back. Bring them back alive or dead, I don’t care, just preserve that shipment. Out.”

  “Roger, Big S. Spiders 2 and 3 are going in.”

  She flung out a hand. “Quick. Use the cloud mines! Sharki had them installed on all our carrier ships. We were losing too many of them to Skug raiders.”

  “Show me.”

  She leaned in. “Left controls—at two o’clock.” Marty took over for her while she tapped fingers to initiate the launch sequence and targeted a particularly irritating mark, V-Zon #2. I remembered the sequence, then grinned as a cloud of green flame engulfed her front section and she dropped back blind.

  “What’re cloud mines?”

  “Flash bombs release an ionizing flare which interferes with com and network access. Plays havoc with weapons consoles too. Lasts for up to 15 minutes.”

  “Good. Enough time for us to get away, leave them in a brain fog.”

  “Look, they’re trying to plug a mine on us now.” She steered Goliath wide and sent us lumbering out of its direct path. The tail end caught our stern and disrupted one of our rear vanes.

  Marty manned the conventional umbrella bombs. His last missile knocked one of the V-Zons off its trajectory and the dazed craft went corkscrewing off to oblivion.

  “Nailed that bastard,” he bawled, his face brimming with pride.

  “Bravo, what you want, a silver star? Get the next one,” I cried.