BY NICK COLE AND JASON ANSPACH
A long, long time from now, at the edge of the galaxy…
Prisma Maydoon has come to the frontier star port at Ackabar with her faithful servant, KRS-88, seeking to employ a bounty hunter and obtain justice for her murdered family.
Meanwhile, Republican Legionnaires have arrived to destroy a secret hideout of the Gomarii Slavers and establish the iron fist of Republic Law over the frontier star port.
Arriving by freighter, Prisma finds a full-scale evacuation in progress…
CHAPTER ONE
The Viridian Cyclops settled toward the dry, grit-blasted concrete of the landing bay. Maneuvering thrusters flared from her ungainly bulk. Captain Hogus pivoted the ship so the cargo-loading ports would face the big blast doors that opened out onto the central loading ramp. The only other ship in the massive bay was a forlorn light hauler that looked parted out. Its markings identified it as the Obsidian Crow. Perhaps it would provide the Cyclops with a few spare parts for the next run out to the edge.
The Cyclops was an old Tellarian heavy freighter that should have been out of commission twenty years ago. Its main jump engine took up the entire lower deck, a half saucer rife with spot welds and jerry-rigged bypass cables, leaving scant room for paying cargo. Its bulbous upper deck had been converted to make up for that deficiency; the twin passenger blisters had been refitted for bulk cargo. Crew quarters remained, however, and a cockpit cupola protruded from the left blister. The ship still bore the yellow eagle-and-sword markings of the old Tellarian Spinward Trading Company from the early days of the Republic. That company was long gone from the trade lanes that spanned the galaxy, no doubt absorbed into some Republican mega-contract.
The massive, squat tower of Ackabar Port was a massive, squat tower with docking bays on nearly every level. A central core contained the heavy cargo and passenger lifts leading down into the city proper. It was the frenetic activity coming from the direction of these passenger lifts that drew the one-eyed captain’s attention. Civilians and cargo personnel were streaming past, racing in panic toward other ships in other bays.
“Ackabar Ground,” called Hogus into the ether, ignoring the chattering of his wobanki first mate. The jungle-brained catman was efficient, but he was always bothering his captain with status reports, announced by the hundreds of red lights and sensor warnings flashing in constant distress across the cockpit. Hogus had learned to ignore most of the flashing lights. He already knew the ship was falling apart; it had been falling apart when he’d stolen it six years ago.
He patted the hyperspace computer. As long as the beauty held, he was good. He always patted it twice when he needed to reassure himself that it had held together before, and would hold together for at least one more run.
He flicked on the masters for the landing lights, then brought down the gears using the backup levers on the overhead control panels.
Wocks and ka-chucks reverberated throughout the battered freighter.
“Freighter landing in Bay Sixteen.” It was Ackabar Approach Control. “Please identify via voice. We are currently experiencing problems with our transponder identification system.”
“This is Captain Hogus.”
The Cyclops settled to the floor of the bay with a sudden drop, her three massive landing gears absorbing her weight, her hydraulics sensors crying out overstress and low-power warnings. Typical. Hogus stood to crane his neck back toward the rear of the freighter, visually inspecting the craft from the rear window spread in the pilot’s cupola.
“No fires,” he muttered with a smile. “This time.”
The Wobanki babbled on about a malfunction in the engine vent housings. Hogus slapped at the cat, who growled back menacingly.
“Ignore it!” roared Hogus. “She always does that!”
Then to Ground Control, “Ackabar Ground, what in Tarkedes is going on here? It’s like the Festival of Callus without all the drinking. I’m half expecting to see a Dolomian bull goring people to death with one of its heads!”
A bullitar chasing civilians was the only explanation he could come up with for why everyone was running. As though this were all just some ancient festival of revelry known only to the arcane histories of this particular backwater. As though every port to an old smuggler like him was in a state of perpetual festival.
But the words that came from Approach Control froze Captain Hogus’s blood.
“Republic problems.”
The abrupt message conveyed everything.
Hogus knew, at that very minute, that everyone was doing exactly what he was considering doing right now. Dumping everything and getting the hell off port and into a takeoff climb, with the nav computer crunching jump solutions for anywhere but here. Sure, Ackabar was technically a Republic protectorate, but it was deep into the outer rim. Practically the galaxy’s edge. The Republic couldn’t do much out here. Hadn’t since the Yranian Revolt. Before that, even.
The Wobanki chattered. Clearly he was all in favor of putting the gears back up and preparing for an emergency takeoff. They hadn’t seen any Republican corvettes in orbit, but the Legion usually showed up first in drop ships to take control. Then the big corvettes jumped in and set up the blockade. No traffic in or out until all tariffs were paid in full. And warrants executed. Of course.
Hogus had at least sixteen warrants that he knew of.
“Wait just a minute,” he mumbled, rubbing his jowly, unshaven chin. “Just wait a minute.” He was thinking. Then he was unbuckling his considerable girth and climbing out of the captain’s seat in the tight cockpit. He set the auxiliary power inducers to standby. “Might need those,” he muttered. He cycled the masters and set them to standby as well.
Down the main corridor of the Cyclops he thundered, his blaster banging his beefy leg. The Wobanki was still babbling neurotically from the cockpit.
“Well then, get out on another ship! There’s money to be made here!” Hogus shouted over his shoulder.
“Captain!”
It was a small voice. A high-pitched soprano. And it brought him to a dead stop. He halted for a second. The girl had that effect on him. Commanding him. He mindlessly obeyed because… He didn’t know why. He just knew that he was helpless and that he hated it. He didn’t work for her. She was just some patrician brat from a family that wasn’t so patrician anymore.
Then he remembered his transport contract was paid, which mean he was done with her. She was no longer his problem. Ignoring her, he took off running toward the back of the ship, though he knew she and her damned bot were following him.
“Captain!”
Demanding.
Authoritative.
Used to being in charge.
His only paying passenger on this run back from that eyesore at the edge of the Republic known as Hallus.
He ran for the cargo door. It was the only one that worked.
“Captain—”
“No time, girl!”
“Captain, what is going on out there?”
“The Republicans are here. They’re takin’ the capital and the fun’s over. I won’t charge you to take you out of here. Strike that—I’ll charge you half. But there’re others that’ll want to be getting out of here pretty quickly, never mind the accommodations. And I’ve got the room at the right price, for anyone wanting to avoid Republic problems, to try and run the blockade that’s no doubt strangling this planet as we speak.”
“Captain, I do not want to go with you.”
Hogus stopped, his bulk coming to a sudden and disbelieving halt. His worn leather jacket flapped open like two massive wings, his blaster bouncing dangerously at his hip. He never kept the safety on because… business.
Who in the—Why would anyone want to stick around and watch the Republic take control? That was…
Was…
The dumbest thing he could imagine anyone ever wanting to do.
“All right then!” He continued on to the hatch controls, slammed his hand on the green square that refused to light up, slammed it again, and waited as the external cargo door began to slowly retreat into the hull above. “Suit yourself. Ride’s over. Get off here. Thanks for flying. Buh-bye.”
Outside, people were still running toward the massive portage bays where big ships were already lifting away into the swirling purple of the Ackabarian sky. But no one was heading for this particular bay. It was the kind of place where derelict starships and smugglers came to avoid notice and pay lower “fees”—in the form of bribes to the local administrators.
The high-pitched screech of distant blaster fire.
The tiny girl looked up at him, her face worried. She had dark hair. Pigtails. She wore a long dress—torn but clean. Her boots were big and clompy, the kind a Dalovian belt miner might wear in the forests of Iskatoon. Maroon, like the blood of an ox. Her face was pale. And the hint of peach in her cheeks he’d seen when he’d first entertained the idea of transporting her off Hallus three days ago was now gone.
“You told me I could find a bounty hunter here, Captain.”
The cargo door was still only half open—it was moving dreadfully slowly. The Wobanki had gone on about that as they’d made their approach through the purple, mist-shrouded twilight of ancient Ackabar. He’d tuned his first mate out then. The massive violet eruptions of the cloudstorms, breathtaking and dangerous, had absorbed all his attention. He knew that with one electrical strike, the Cyclops would short out and drop like an anchor. Hogus loved his ship, but it was a flying deathtrap.
“Uh… yeah. I did. Well, here’s as good a place as any to find one of ’em. Bounty hunters, that is.”
She favored him with a withering look of contempt, as she’d done the entire trip, even when he’d offered to upgrade her to “first class”—which meant giver her his first mate’s suite. For more credits, of course.
It was clear she’d been born better than him. “I assumed, Captain, you might show me where…”
Hogus waited. If she wanted help finding a hired killer in one of the hundred cantinas and taverns where such scum lurked, he was going to make her come out and say it.
“Show me…” She hesitated, as though uncomfortable voicing her request.
The cargo door finally stopped—in a mostly open position—and Hogus ducked beneath it and descended the ramp. Several of the lights along its length were out, in keeping with the overall condition of the vessel.
The stammering girl trailed behind him, her bot scuttling after her. “I assumed you would show me where I might find one,” she finally managed.
“One what?” cried Hogus, ducking beneath the ship and opening an access hatch. He struggled, grunting and swearing, to deploy the power cable and get the Cyclops connected to the city supply grid.
“A bounty hunter!” she cried. “Where do I find one?”
Hogus was up and racing for the broken venting controls. If he didn’t vent the ship’s engines within the next three minutes, he’d rupture the hyperdrive container and warp the main destabilizer all to hell. He deployed the keypad from the external access port.
All of the command language was in Jabbari, which he’d had to learn just to fly the damned ship. How a Tellarian ship had ended up with Jabbari programing, he’d never know. The galaxy was a place of mystery and wonder—Hogus’s favorite explanation for everything. “Mystery and wonder,” he’d crowed from one arm of the Spinward March to the other.
He was thinking about that when the legionnaires stormed the bay. Shooting at everything, of course.
Blaster fire caught Hogus right in the chest, and he went down. Republican legionnaires were excellent marksmen.
***
“M’lady!” erupted the deep-voiced bot, KRS-88. “I advise we leave this bay immediately. The authorities have arrived and they seem… murderous.”
A squad of Republican legionnaires were now shooting at the Cyclops from positions of cover near the primary blast doors. Mainly they were shooting at the cockpit, where the Wobanki must still be. Their reflective armor caught the twilight purple of the sky and the arc lights that ringed the bay, and they seemed like bots themselves behind their stark, emotionless battle helmets.
Prisma Maydoon ducked behind a power converter bot as blue blaster fire tore across the bay. Shots nailed critical spots in the freighter, denying it the ability to escape. Burning hot flares erupted from exposed components and blown-out hatches.
KRS-88 scuttled forward on his spindly bot legs, his hulking triangular upper torso sheathed in servitor black. “Miss Prisma, I do suggest we depart now. Emphatically.”
“Secure the bay and hunt down any refugees!” intoned the radio-distorted voice of the legionnaire sergeant. “We’re moving on to the objective.”
A number of legionnaires hustled out of the bay.
A massive Starlifter rose up a few bays over. It angled away from the station, its hammerhead front conning tower rising up like the jutting jaw of some enormous eel. Next came the long spine of the heavy transport’s cargo pods, and finally the wide flare of her engines, all eight white-hot and spooling up for full orbital burn to achieve jump.
A missile arched up from within the city. As Prisma looked on, it punched right through the port engine compartment of the Starlifter. Debris—and people—rained down into the port. The ship crashed somewhere beyond the docking bays in the city below. The sound of rending metal was quickly followed by a terrific explosion. Even the legionnaires were shaken off their feet.
That was Prisma’s moment. She dashed for the far access doors to the dark machine shops that lined the docking bay. KRS-88 shuffled after her, constantly urging caution. Beyond the machine shops, where hulking drive engines hung suspended from rusting chains waiting to be parted out, they found a cargo elevator. Prisma began tapping in the commands to get the elevator working. A simple locking feature had been engaged by the local net, but emergency protocols allowed override access.
KRS-88 spoke in his menacing basso profundo of sobriety and caution, the very reason her parents had chosen this model to oversee her daily life.
Back when they’d been able to choose.
“I do advise we seek the local authorities and alert them to our need for you to be protected from what I can only guess will be rampant hooliganism. These are dangerous times, young miss, and—”
“Crash!” Prisma shouted.
“Yes, young miss?” The bot had been ordered, by Prisma, to respond to the nickname she’d chosen for it.
In front of them the doors of the massive lift opened. It was easily as big as the one she’d seen on the Republican carrier Freedom. They boarded, and it clanked and groaned as it descended toward the main sprawl of the city.
“Crash…” Prisma looked about, desperate, seeking something she knew should be there. And knowing it never would be again. Ever. “Tap into the city net and find out where I can find a—”
“Yes, a bounty hunter, young miss, I know.” KRS-88 sighed and scuttled forward to interface with the local net. “Your bloodthirsty desire for revenge, young miss, is incomprehensible. This is quite a biologic concept. I admit I am distressed my master is dead, but to kill another would be illogical. It would make the wronged a killer just like the original killers. I do not understand—”
KRS-88 suddenly tilted his almost insectile head.
“Miss, the local net is locked down by Republic Mandate Order 239.0910.”
“Shut it, Crash. I need to know if there are any bounty hunters here.”
“Querying now, miss.”
Forty-five floors down, the elevator finally settled with a ka-thunk. Massive locking mechanisms disengaged, and the blast doors slid open. In front of them, the smooth surfaces of the city, angled and blocked like futuristic pyramids, rose above the narrow alleys leading away from the service lane.
“The city intelligence is quite frightened, young miss. But it did tell me that the Republic is searching for someone identified as Tyrus Rechs. Among many other terrible things, this Rechs seems to have a lengthy and outstanding list of warrants relating to activities often associated with bounty hunting.”
“Like what?”
“Like what what, young miss?”
“What did this Rechs do? What are his offenses? Why does the city intelligence think he’s a bounty hunter?”
“Well…” began KRS-88, as though warming gustily to some new mindless task. “It seems he has engaged in unlawful murder. Several counts. Illegal administration of the law. Again, several counts. Discharge of a blaster. Of course, several counts. Robbery. Assault of Republican personnel. Tax evasion. Hate crimes. Failure to appear to summons. Miss, all of these have several counts. Oh, and acting as a known bounty hunter in violation of Republic Mandate 20.0020567F. Pursuant to the Republic’s Law Violations Act of—”
“We’ll go with ‘known bounty hunter,’ Crash. Since that’s what we’re looking for.”
“Young miss—”
“I know. Bounty hunters are dangerous and violent.”
“Yes. I was going to say that. And…”
The bot hesitated.
“What, Crash?”
“It would seem that this ‘Rechs’ individual… ah… well, the Republican legionnaires consider him a high-value target for their current operations. Local officials have advised all bots and citizens to be on the lookout for him. His last known location is a refreshment establishment known as the Jaris Cantina. I do not know who this Jaris is, but his cantina has been the site of several murders, and it has been cited for food safety violations twenty-one times in the last sixty cycles. My! We should avoid eating there. Apparently the Bandalorian snake fritters are quite vile. Though I do not eat, of course.”
“Lead me there, Crash.”
CHAPTER TWO
The Indelible VI’s internal comm light pulsed blue on the cockpit control panel. An electronic chirp sounded with every fifth flash. Captain Aeson Keel alternated stares between the comm display and Ravi, his turban-wearing navigator occupying the seat beside him.
Ravi adjusted the lavish azure turban over his thick black hair. With a thick Punjabi accent, he said, “I am thinking you should answer.”
Keel stared at the display a beat longer, leaned his well-worn Parminthian leather chair forward, and flipped on the comm switch. “Yeah?”
A coughing fit came through the forward speakers, followed by a youthful but commanding male voice. “There’s barely any air in here for the princess and me.”
Keel frowned. Giving them an internal commkey had been a bad idea. “That’s because it’s meant for smuggling non-living cargo, General. I rerouted just enough air from the Indelible’s life support systems to keep you two alive. Anything more and the Republic would get suspicious.”
He switched off the comm, leaned back in his chair, and put his feet on the cockpit console. He turned his head toward his navigator. “I thought that would have been obvious. I mean, name me one freighter captain who provides life support to the non-inhabitable areas of their ship.”
Ravi didn’t look up from his on-screen navigational charts. “I am not aware of any such individuals.”
“Exactly.” Keel rubbed the stubble growing along his jaw. “How long until Lieutenant What’s-Her-Face arrives at the delivery site?”
Ravi paused his work at the navigation helm. “I am saying perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes before lead elements arrive to secure the landing zone. The rocky terrain will deny access to their main battle tanks, so they will likely move by combat sled. Otherwise you would have had perhaps an hour.”
“I’ll gladly lose the extra time in favor of no tanks. We’d have to get airborne to use the main cannons to stand a chance. The Indelible’s burst turrets can handle a few sleds if things get nasty.”
Ravi nodded. “I am also thinking you should retrieve your blaster prior to meeting the legionnaire vanguard.”
Keel’s hand dropped to his hip, instinctively reaching for a heavy blaster pistol that wasn’t there. “Yeah,” he said, feeling unease over the missing weapon. “I left it on the shop table. Still trying to scrub out the last bit of carbon scoring from the pickup. You know, I thought about increasing the particle—”
Chee-chee. Chee-chee. The internal comm chirped again, and the light flashed blue once more.
“Really?” shouted Keel, dropping his feet from the console. He lurched forward and keyed open the channel. “Yeees?”
A female voice, parched and strained, came through the speaker. “As a royal princess of the Enduran system and a member of the Mid-Core Rebellion against the Republic, I appreciate your saving the general and me from the attack on Jarvis Rho. You saved our lives by stowing us in your ship. But I fear it is all for naught. We are suffocating in your smuggler’s hold.” She emitted the dry hack of a patient recuperating from a bio-strain of tuberculosis.
Keel opened the channel to speak. “Your Highness, I assure you this is entirely mental. You’re not actually suffocating.” He muted the comm and looked to Ravi. “She’s not suffocating, right?”
Ravi shook his head. “The hold shielding prevents my reading any life scans, but I’ve been monitoring air quality. I can see no toxicity levels in the smuggling hold harmful to humans or near-humans.” He made a circle of his thumb and index finger. “They are A-Okay.”
The cockpit speakers came to life again. “There must be something you can do?” The princess was almost pleading.
“So demanding.” Keel chewed his thumb, considering what to do next. Getting in good with a princess could lead to an untold number of advantages down the road. Even if it meant a death mark on his head should the Republic ever find out. But then, they were idiots, and who could they send that could take him on in a blaster duel?
“Ravi, I don’t think she’s going to stop calling until I pump more air in there. What’re the chances a scanning crew notices?”
“Ninety percent, sir.”
Keel’s eyes bulged. “That bad, huh? How likely are they to notice if I mute both sides of the comm channels and let it blink?”
“Seventy-five percent.”
Grimacing, Keel asked, “Well, what are the odds the scan officer would investigate?”
Ravi twirled the pointed tip of his black beard. “There are a number of variables, including temperament, ambition, schedule, threat awareness…”
“Just give me an average.”
“Fifty percent.”
“Too high.” Keel frowned, calculating whether the extra money he would get from the Rebellion, coupled with special consideration from the princess and her boy-toy general, was worth the risk of withholding them from the Republic. If they found out that he had spared two of their biggest targets during the attack on the rebels—an attack that Keel himself had planned and executed—they might fine him, or insist on half pay after they took her into custody. On the other hand, if the rebels found out that he had wiped out their moon base on Jarvis Rho and taken eight VIPs, including the princess and her general, to the nearest Republican outpost, they’d probably kill him. Or at least they’d give it the old MCR try, which was about all the pitiful rebellion was good for.
Maybe the loose ends beneath the Indelible’s decks needed tying up.
Keel stood and walked past the second row of cockpit seating. Just inside the walkway leading from the cockpit to the ship’s common area, he pulled open a panel, exposing breakers and wires.
The comm squawked again, relaying the voice of the princess. “Captain? Captain Keel?”
“Switch the comm relay off mute, will you Ravi?”
Ravi flipped a switch, then looked back at Keel and nodded to indicate that the comm was live.
“Princess,” Keel yelled from the corridor, “I think I can fix the problem.”
“Bless you, Captain Kee—”
Keel ripped a wire from the open panel. A shower of sparks danced down his vest before extinguishing themselves on the impervisteel deck. The comm light switched from a blue pulse to a steady red glow.
Dusting his hands, Keel sauntered back into the cockpit. “That’s that. We can fix the comm system next time we’re in port.”
Ravi looked scornfully at the captain. “This is a very dishonest thing. You made her to be thinking you were to provide help with fresh air.”
Keel put a hand on his chest as if Ravi’s words wounded him. “Dishonest? Me? Ravi, she’s a princess. I have to at least make her think I’m doing all I can to bend the knee in her presence, or she might not be so willing to pay back the favor down the subspace lane. And cutting the comms is a hell of a lot easier than explaining Republic scanning procedures. You heard her—she was getting psychosomatic. What?”
Ravi’s curled mustache moved upward in a tight smile. He laughed his low, quiet laugh, “Hoo, hoo, hoo.”
“What?” asked Keel. “What’s so funny?”
Ravi finally answered from behind a grin. “You are thinking the princess will help you due to her social power and connections.”
“Yeah?”
“Hoo, hoo, hee.”
Keel could not abide not being privy to a joke, especially when it was obvious he was the punch line. Staring daggers at Ravi, he waited for the navigator to tell him what was so funny. He’d shoot him right now if it was worth the charge depletion. And if he had his blaster.
A muffled noise from the ship’s common area put a stop to Ravi’s laughing and Keel’s gnawing frustration. It sounded like a scream—distant, but distinct.
Keel spun around. “What was that?” Without waiting for Ravi to answer, he strode fearlessly into the hallway.
“It’s our hidden cargo,” the navigator called from the cockpit. “The princess and her general. They are yelling quite loudly, and their voices are penetrating through the seams in the smuggling hold.”
“That’s it!” Keel strode down the corridor leading to the common room. He went straight to his workbench to retrieve his blaster; he was determined to put an end to this trouble.
From here, he could clearly make out the shouts coming from below. “Captain! Captain Keel! Our comms have gone red! We can’t reach you! Captain!”
Keel pushed aside an oiled rag and his blaster’s bristled cleaning rod. He grabbed his gun belt from its spot hanging on a workbench clamp, strapped it on his hips—askew for an easier quick draw, like the gunslingers of the old public domain western holos—and picked up his x6 heavy shot Intec blaster. He stormed toward the cargo hold, only to swing back to the bench a moment later to polish one last spot of carbon scoring on the blaster’s barrel.
Ravi emerged from the cockpit’s long corridor.
“Ravi, what’re the odds someone hears these two?”
“Assuming their vocal cords don’t give out?” Ravi held his arms out helplessly. “I’m not sure what I am to say, Captain. As long as the scanning crew is not deaf, of course they will hear them, yes.”
Keel aimed the blaster at the deck plate hiding the smuggler’s hold, putting the toe of his boot to the pop-up mechanism beneath the deck’s hidden seam. He paused, shook the barrel of the weapon twice as though it were an extension of his finger, and turned toward his sleeping quarters. “I’ve got an idea.”
Holstering his blaster, Keel moved to the dormitories. An automated door leading to his chambers whooshed open upon recognition of his bio signature. An ancient trunk sat at the foot of his bed, its wood nearly petrified, a relic from when ships sailed on water. He popped open the lid and removed an Armonian fleece he kept around for those long hauls from core to outer rim, where the Indelible’s comfort controls couldn’t keep up with the numbing cold of deep space.
The blanket was easily sixty pounds balled up, and Keel had to hoist it out of the trunk with both arms, holding it like a soft and cushy bag of duracrete. The fleece’s natural fibers were shorn from shepps that had survived on a frozen wasteland for millennia. Climbers of the galaxy’s tallest peaks insulated their gear with Armonian wool.
Returning to the smuggler’s hold, Keel dropped the blanket over the plate and spread it out like a throw rug. The sound of hoarse shouting from below was instantly silenced. Only the hum of the ship’s auxiliary systems could be heard.
Tilting his head as if to say, “Not bad,” Keel folded his hands beneath his arms and leaned against a bulkhead, legs crossed at his ankles.
Ravi looked at the fleece. “That will certainly raise the hold’s temperature a very substantial amount, Captain. You yourself can only stand to be under that blanket for a quarter hour.”
“Stop watching me sleep, Ravi.”
“Yes, I know you have said this, but it is frequently very boring on the ship.” Ravi pursed his lips and looked at the covered smuggler’s hold. “I am wanting to know how long they are to be in this… sweatbox, to use an old prison phrase.”
Keel shrugged. It wasn’t as if the princess had left him any choice.
“I confess,” Ravi continued, “I was thinking you would kill them.”
“That was Plan B.”
Ravi touched his fingertips together disapprovingly. “There remains a possibility they will suffer from heat stroke if they are left inside for too long.”
“Well, let’s hope the transfer gets over quick, then. Nobody has to die as long as there aren’t any Republican complications.”
A pounding reverberated through the Indelible’s impervisteel gangplank. Straightening up, Keel looked incredulously in the ramp’s direction. “Who’s knocking on my ship?” He moved toward the observation screens built into the wall above his workbench.
Ravi followed, his azure chola flowing behind him. “There is an eighty-eight percent chance these are legionnaires in advance of the Republican transfer team.”
“Of course it’s the Republic.”
One of the monitors showed a gray-green thermal view of two Republic legionnaires waiting beneath the ship. One raised the butt of his blaster rifle and slammed it into the outer door. These types never waited patiently.
Keel knew he needed to lower the ramp before they got it in their minds to break out the cutting torches. “C’mon, Ravi. We’re going outside.”
Standing between Keel and the door, Ravi did not move. “I cannot leave the ship, Captain.”
Keel walked through Ravi like the living through a ghost. He stopped at the black and yellow button for lowering the gangplank. “What? Why?”
The hologram flickered, and Ravi looked down at his shimmering self until he optically solidified. “Because our TT-3 hoverbot was broken two stops ago at Los Larynth, when you mistook it for a fly. You have yet to replace or repair it, in spite of several promises, though you have found time to obsessively polish your blaster.”
“Okay, take it easy.” Pinching the bridge of his nose, Keel let out a sigh. “I need you out there. How far off the ship can you go?”
“I am thinking only to the top of the ramp before the internal holoprojectors can no longer render me.”
Another thud came through the door.
Placing his palm over the ramp controls, Keel said, “Okay. Let’s go.”
He gave the door a solid kick, hoping the legionnaires on the other side would have the sense to move out of the way, then he pressed the button. A yellow light flashed above the exit while a white mist of vented gases issued from the ramp’s struts, making Keel feel as though he stood inside a cloud.
The ramp lowered quickly, which was critical for the times when Keel needed to make a blitzing assault, and even more critical when circumstances called for a hasty retreat.
The mist cleared.
The legionnaires were nowhere to be seen.
CHAPTER THREE
LS-19 pushed himself up on hands and knees. His legionnaire armor scraped against the rocky surface of the LZ. Heavy breathing nearly drowned out his helmet’s bone conduction audio relays. Moments earlier he’d been banging on the hull of a late-model Naseen light freighter.
And then the ramp dropped.
Dropped without the all-comm warning message mandated by the Republic’s Work & Labor Bureau. That alone was enough for LS-19 to put a lien on the ship on behalf of the Republic.
But he wasn’t thinking about liens or broken penal codes. He was sipping in shallow breaths, trying to reorient himself. He’d barely had enough time for his neuro-mapped self-preservation training to kick in, a drilled instinct that had compelled him to leap out of the ramp’s path.
Control Breathing.
Control Breathing.
Control Breathing.
The message blinked in the upper left corner of LS-19’s visor, superimposed over the optical scans of the rocky landing zone. He squinted his eyes at the message, cursing it for taking his attention away from his surroundings. Hot breath fogged over his screen with every exhalation, blurring his vision, but it was a losing battle for the vapor—the moment it condensed on his visor, the LegionWorks Type-N Combat Envirocontrols whirred, dehumidifying the helmet, ferreting off the moisture to store for later rehydration, and maintaining an optimal battleset temperature of 71.3 degrees.
Inhale through nostrils.
Use full lung capacity. Employ diaphragm and abdominal muscles.
Exhale through mouth.
LS-19 obeyed his prompter’s commands. They had been programmed by Republic scientists dedicated to making sure that the legionnaires remained the premier soldiers of the galaxy. The instructions repeated until his breathing normalized, then the prompt faded away, leaving only the familiar OpNet HUD on his visor screen.
LS-19 examined the belly of the freighter, some three meters from the ramp. Seams were visible in what should have been a solid plate of impervisteel. It was probably a bad torch-weld from a breach, given the ship’s age, but it also wasn’t unheard of for the Naseen light freighters to be fitted with illegally concealed weapon systems. He gripped his rifle tightly and rocked to his feet, careful to stoop so as not to bump his helmet against the ship’s underside.
The L-comm burst to life with the voice of his team leader, LS-87. “Nineteen. Status?”
“Adequate for duty. What’s your status, Lieutenant?”
“Uh, I’m fine.” There was a pause. “Oh! Adequate for duty. Maintaining scan overwatch at recon sled, uh… three.”
Idiot, thought LS-19. Like most legionnaire officers, LS-87 had been appointed by some planetary governor. He wasn’t a soldier, just a politician playing war until his handlers felt the time was right to bring him back homeworld to stand for election.
It didn’t used to be like that.
“Eighty-nine, status?” LS-19 asked. LS-89 had been with him when the ramp came down. He may not have gotten clear.
The team commander echoed the call into the L-comm. “Eighty-nine, status?”
Two clicks of static came back in reply, marking an affirmative. LS-89 was alive, but his comms must’ve been damaged. His face had to be a bloody mess if he hit his bucket hard enough to knock out his mic relay. Still, the trooper lived up to his nickname. He was lucky.
“Is anyone else picking up those static clicks?” the team commander called.
LS-19 stifled a groan. “Acknowledged, eighty-nine,” he said with veteran calmness. “Confirm loss of audio output.”
Click-click.
“Confirmed audio output loss. Confirm status as adequate for duty.”
Click-click.
“Confirmed. Advise: are you under duress?”
LS-19 strained his ears in anticipation, scanning the perimeter with his blaster rifle. He loosened the clasp around a stun-clap grenade should a two-click affirmation sound.
Click.
“Confirmed negative duress,” the team commander said, apparently remembering audio-loss procedures at last. “Be advised, the uh, ramp is deployed. I do not have visuals on crew from this vantage point.”
LS-19 cursed. “That fool loadmaster could’ve flattened Lucky and I both. No comm warning received.”
“Copy,” the team commander said. “The, uh, ship-top comm tower is steady red.”
Pressing a button at the base of his helmet, LS-19 muted his comm. “Might’ve been good to know that before we went knocking, you useless kelhorned space rat! I swear to Oba, Republican appointees should apologize to trees for having to reoxygenate the air they deplete!”
He imagined that Lucky was uttering similar curses. Neither legionnaire appreciated being under the command of a politically appointed team leader. That even the vaunted legionnaires were unable to keep out the ambitious and woefully unqualified from grabbing commissions spoke volumes about the Republic’s decay. The legionnaires’ officer corps jeopardized every soldier under their command. Lieutenant Clueless in the command sled was, sadly, typical. The worst of the bunch always paid extra to get appointed to the legionnaires. It was a surefire way to get elected.
LS-19 found Lucky, his armor covered in red dust and a five-centimeter dent in his helmet. The legionnaires nodded to one another and moved swiftly to the base of the ramp, ready to take on a hostile target with overwhelming firepower.
Trusting Lucky to draw a bead on the turbaned human farther up the ramp, LS-19 aimed his weapon at a human wearing typical smuggler’s gear.
Scum.
LS-19 flicked his helmet’s external comm speaker to live with his tongue. “Hands! Hands!”
The human tilted his head to the side and raised his hands slowly, as if the command was an inconvenience. Clearly this was the ship’s captain.
“Good. Neither one of you moves!”
“Take it easy, huh?” The captain’s tone was wounded, yet somehow patronizing. “I didn’t bring you armed rebels.”
The legionnaires’ weapons remained steady. “Identify yourself and your starship. Transponder and voice.”
“Aeson Keel, captain of the Indelible VI. And I can’t send ship ID by transponder. Our comms are red.” He pointed at the steady red comm attached beneath the collar of his slate gray shirt. “See?”
The troopers lowered their rifles. “All right,” LS-19 said. He pointed at the turbaned man. “Who’s he?”
Keel looked over his shoulder as though he wasn’t sure who stood behind him. He looked calmly at the legionnaire’s expressionless helmets. “That’s Ravi.”
“I don’t care what his name is. What’s his function on the ship?”
“I am the Indelible VI’s navigator.”
“Fine.” LS-19 relaxed his guard slightly. The steady red was a good enough reason for the ramp nearly crushing him. The captain would have assumed that the big red comm light would have been noticed by legionnaire overwatch.
It should have been.
Lucky shifted from one foot to the other, scanning the horizon.
“Comms are down, so you can’t transmit the cargo manifest,” LS-19 said. “Convenient.”
Keel shrugged. “You gonna inspect ’em for concealed damage?”
“Stow it and bring down a datapad, then.”
As Keel went up the ramp to comply, LS-19 darted out his tongue, silencing the helmet’s external speakers. The helmets were soundproof, allowing legionnaires to speak secretly over L-comms inaccessible even to friendly Republican officers and soldiers. The legionnaires answered only to a chain of command that led to the top of the Republic’s Prosperity & Safety Council. “LS-19 to Command Sled. Lieutenant, what’s Command AI reporting back about ship ID and captain?”
“I, uh, missed the name. Please repeat.”
LS-19 allowed a sigh to escape over the comm. “Ship name: Indelible VI. Captain: Aeson Keel.”
“Roger,” the team commander replied from the recon sled. “Indelible VI. Captain Aeson Keel. Will upload to commsat and maintain overwatch.”
“Negative on overwatch, sir,” LS-19 said. “Site is secured and LS-89 is no-go on his L-comm. Protocol requires an exchange of post.”
“Right. Yeah. Okay, I’m proceeding to relieve LS-89 on foot. Eighty-nine to relay data to commsat on assumption of post.”
There was a hint of annoyance in the lieutenant’s voice. He was the team commander and should have made the call. But he didn’t. Probably didn’t know to. So LS-19 had been forced to take charge. He didn’t like having a leej who could only answer in clicks serving as his backup.
Four men and two humanoids shambled down the ramp. All were dressed in tattered olive-green uniforms popular with rebels in this sector of space. Their arms were tied together at the wrist with synth-wire, and strapped around each prisoner’s leg was an ener-chain receiver, designed to send a paralyzing jolt of electricity through all of them should one choose to break formation.
Keel came last, a heavy blaster pointed at the back of the final prisoner. He tossed the datapad to LS-89, who fumbled and barely caught it while Keel halted the prisoners at parade rest outside the ramp.
Dropping his pistol to his side, Keel said, “Terms were payment on delivery. So pay up.”
“You’ll have to wait for the main elements to arrive,” LS-19 said through his bucket’s speakers. He looked over the horizon for the lieutenant’s approach. No sign yet.
“Fine,” Keel answered. “But you’ve only got fifteen standard minutes before you start owing for detention.”
Lucky joined LS-19 to review the manifest. The silent trooper pointed a finger repeatedly at the datapad. LS-19 leaned in to look.
“Captain Keel!” LS-19 shouted, holding his rifle with heightened alertness. His HUD instructed him to raise his weapon another degree to optimize his ability to aim and fire. “The shipping docs say you were tendered eight prisoners by the bounty hunter Wraith. Where are the other two?”
“Oh, no. You’re not gonna pin that on me.” Keel marched over to the legionnaires with a furrowed brow. “Here.” He pointed at an R-verified notation on the datapad. “See that? ‘SLC.’ Means shipper load and count. I delivered what was put in my hold, and I’m not liable for any overage, shortage, or damage. Go back to whoever captured these rebels to ask for the rest.”
The legionnaires motioned their rifles menacingly at Keel, careful not to point them directly at him, but letting him know that things might easily change. Very easily.
LS-19 amplified his speaker output. The increased volume made compliance 1.4 times more probable. “Captain, surrender your ship for immediate search and seizure.”
“Oh, give me a break.” Keel glanced up at the navigator, who remained on the ship’s ramp. “Search it all you want, but seizure? Not happening. I’ve been around the block a few times, Leej. The impound fees are more than I’m getting paid for this job.”
LS-19 repeated his order, enunciating each word perfectly and leaving no doubt that he meant what he said: “Surrender your ship for immediate search and seizure.”
“And what if I don’t?”
The captain was clearly stalling, but the legionnaire had his answer ready. “Should you refuse, you will immediately become guilty of Republic Ordinance N.779.631-2: Resisting a lawful representative of government. If in the view of said representative the aforementioned resistance requires the use of lethal force, such force will be rendered and deemed justified by its deployment. I won’t ask you again.”
“I had a feeling something like this would happen.” Keel shook his head. “You just never know what you’re going to get when dealing with the Republic nowadays. I guess you guys are pretty serious about all this, huh?”
“Ninety-two percent,” Ravi called down from the ramp.
Keel understood his navigator at once. Ravi was telling him the likelihood the legionnaires weren’t bluffing. These were the go-getter type, determined to ignore basic shipping procedures on the off chance they might uncover a clandestine smuggling operation—or the two missing rebel VIPs. Things would have been so much easier if an officer had been handling the transfer instead of these front line troops. Still, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t planned for this possibility.
“So I need to come up with two more bodies, huh?”
Ravi’s lip twitched in understanding at his captain’s meaning. He contrasted the position of the legionnaires’ rifles against Keel’s blaster, factored in Keel’s reflex and fire time—which was considerably faster than most humanoids in the known galaxy—and filled in the legionnaires’ reaction time using the average reflex time of the Republic’s foremost shock troopers. Multiplying by 1.09997543 to account for the potential injuries sustained by the silent legionnaire in his dive to avoid being crushed by the landing ramp, he computed the odds.
They weren’t great.
“Thirty percent.”
Keel hissed, boring holes into the legionnaires, his every muscle and sinew primed to draw and fire.
The legionnaires shared a look before turning their attention back to Ravi.
“Thirty-seven percent,” Ravi said.
“Still not enough,” Keel said, hoping the legionnaires would do something further to better his odds.
LS-19 pointed his weapon at Keel. “What’s he talking about?”
“Ten percent,” said Ravi.
“Shut up!” The legionnaires swung their weapons toward the hologram.
“Sixty-six point nine percent.”
Like the whip-tail of a gungrax, Keel’s blaster was up. He fired at the black synthprene bodysuit exposed at the neck beneath the nearest legionnaire’s helmet. The heavy red blaster bolt blew through the trooper’s neck and hit the visor of the second trooper’s helmet. Both legionnaires clattered onto the rock-strewn landing zone, smoke rising from their bodies.
Keel smiled and holstered his weapon. “One shot!” He shook his head, impressed at his own marksmanship.
“Yes,” Ravi said. “And if you were to be taking two shots like I suggested in case of this situation, you would have had much better odds.”
Keel shrugged, still all smiles. “I already knew I could do it in two shots.” He looked over at the stunned rebel prisoners, their mouths hanging open in surprise. They, at least, ought to have been impressed at his shooting display. “One shot!” he crowed.
The rebels looked unsure what to say.
“Oh, like any of you could’ve done better.”
Keel walked down the row of rebel prisoners. They seemed afraid—probably imagining their coming execution. “Listen up,” Keel said, gesturing to the two dead legionnaires behind him. “I’m going back on my ship. Without you. Take the legionnaires’ weapons and set up a defensive perimeter for when the rest of the Republic’s force shows up. I’m going to wait for the Republic to transfer me my credits, then I’m taking off.”
A rebel with captain’s insignia spoke up. “Surely you don’t mean to just leave us?”
Keel pretended to consider for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, pretty much that’s exactly it.”
“What the—” The helmet-filtered voice belonged to a legionnaire who had just reached the landing zone. Keel looked up in surprise, swiveling his blaster toward the newcomer, who had lieutenant bars on his armor. The legionnaire quickly looked from Keel to the two dead legionnaires, then turned and ran, frantically keying his bucket comm. “LS-87 to Liberty-Actual!”
Keel gave a half frown. The legionnaire’s communication wouldn’t go through; the Indelible had begun jamming the L-comm network from the moment Keel took his shot.
The legionnaire ran in zigzag patterns across the terrain in an effort to… dodge? Keel raised his blaster with the indifferent posture of a barfly playing a casual game of darts, and squeezed off another bright red blaster shot. The bolt hit the trooper between his shoulder blades, sending him tumbling end over end. He came to a sudden stop against a crimson boulder.
Keel holstered his blaster and addressed the prisoners. “You can have his weapon, too. Good luck. You’re gonna need it.”
The Indelible’s ramp began to rise as soon as his feet touched it.
On the ship’s monitors, Keel watched the rebel prisoners. They stood, dumbfounded, then ran to grab the N-6 blaster rifles. They began to liberate one another from the bindings on their wrists with a vibroknife taken from a legionnaire’s chest webbing.
Keel switched out his blaster’s charge slug, then scowled at the back of his navigator’s turban as he followed him to the cockpit. He flopped into the pilot’s bucket and began flipping switches, running through the ship’s takeoff sequence. “What was that?”
Ravi raised an eyebrow, his own hands moving across the control console, the shipboard computer activating switches as the holographic fingers hovered over them. “What was what?”
“That.” Keel pointed a thumb to some vague place outside the ship’s hull. “There were three? You couldn’t have warned me?”
With a shrug, Ravi reached up and diverted additional airflow into the smuggler’s hold. “I am thinking the ship would have told me if you had not ripped out so many of her comm wires and such.”
Keel looked at Ravi blankly, unable to argue the fact.
Ravi continued to cycle through the pre-launch checklist. “Shields online.”
After keying in a 140-character pass key, Keel leaned back in his chair to watch his monitor. The spinning credit symbol from his off-moon bank account rotated as a secure connection was established. “Ravi, with the money I just got for unloading these prisoners, I’m going to have Olivet Systems do some R&D on how to shoot and kill a hologram.”
“Yes, this is a wonderful use of resources, sir. I am wishing I had—”
The screen flashed, then began to play the animation for a lost connection: bold red arrows moving toward the four corners of the screen.
Keel knitted his brows. “Lost signal? That’s not s’posed to happen unless the Sharon moon explodes…”
BOOM!
The ship rocked violently, sending Keel out of his chair and onto the deck. He looked up at Ravi, whose holoprojectors rendered him steady, though the cockpit lurched around them. “Who’s shooting at us, Ravi?”
The hologram frowned as he looked at sensor screens. “It would appear that the Republicans found a way to get a main battle tank to the landing zone after all.”