CHAPTER 36

 

 

 

Kari tossed the empty bag to the floor just inside the engine room. She'd sold most of the medical supplies, keeping just a few bare essentials for herself and the crew. Given the recent spate of injuries, she figured it was better to be safe than sorry. She stomped through to the pilot's pod and sat, this time pulling the door shut so that Atticus—or anyone else—couldn't interrupt her.

They'd managed to make a few hundred tokens, but once she paid Ryker, there would barely be enough left over for fuel, let alone food. And she couldn't very well charge Wren her usual rent seeing as the assassin had done just as much to save Kari's life as any of them. And what about the tinker? He was supposed to be paying for transport and accommodation, but so far all he'd got were some third degree burns and probably a bit of trauma—he wasn't likely to pay her.

And so it came down to money—tokens—why did it always come to that in the end?

She needed tokens for fuel so that she could take on a job, which would pay her tokens so she could get fuel…

Kari slammed her fist into the controls. The shock of the blow made the bench rattle and the picture of Piper came loose, slipping to the floor.

Kari snatched it up and stared at Piper's brown eyes before returning the picture to its spot. "Sorry."

What a mess, but she'd been in worse. She'd just do what she always did and dig herself out of it. That meant assessing her resources. Other than the ship and the crew, she had a few tokens, and a few weapons. But she also had the computer she'd taken from the hospital back on the Imperium ship. She hadn't even looked at it yet—in fact, she'd been avoiding it. She didn't want to see what that girl was like, before the Imperium got their hands on her. She didn't want to see all the awful things that had happened on that ship. Kari had even considered throwing the computer away, but that would have been stupid when it could hold Imperium secrets.

She sighed and pulled the tablet from a drawer set into the wall. The hinges squeaked and flakes of rust drifted to the floor. Just another damn thing that needed fixing.

The sleek tablet computer reflected the overhead lights.

Kari turned it on and a deep blue security screen appeared with a white box for entering the passcode. She took a cable from beneath Ghost's controls and plugged it into the computer, then set an overwrite software running from Ghost's central computer.

The software was outlawed, but easy to get if you knew who to ask. The Imperium thought their security protocols and secrets were safe, but the truth was that any two-bit criminal would be able to break into any one of their computers, if they could get their hands on it.

A minute later, the blue screen was replaced with a directory of files, arranged in alphabetical order, each identified with a person's name.

Kari's throat tightened. Were these all patients? Or perhaps the rumors about the next-gens had more merit than Kari had ever given them credit for. That would explain the spider thing…

She scrolled down. The list seemed to go on forever, hundreds and hundreds of names. What had the Imperium done to all these people?

She chose one at random: Alicia Bloom. A file opened, listing date of birth, known family and medical history. It included a bunch of acronyms and shorthand that Kari didn't recognize. What did it mean? What had the Imperium done to this poor girl? At the very top of the file loomed a highlighted field—Status: Deceased. Kari's fingers went cold. She had no way of knowing what had happened, but she knew in her deepest heart that the Imperium had killed this girl. Would anyone ever know? Did Alicia's family know?

Exiting Alicia's file, Kari's fingers trembled as they slid across the screen, scrolling down to "P". She didn't want to see, and yet she couldn't force her eyes away. Her hand fell away from the screen and there, in black and white, was her sister's name. Packed between Peter and Poli, like another name on a register of the dead.

Kari's whole arm trembled.

Those bastards. They'd taken her. They'd killed her. And now she was nothing more than a name in a file.

Of their own accord, her quaking fingers traced across the screen and dropped down onto Piper's name. A file opened with Piper's picture at the top. Only it wasn't her, at least, not as Kari remembered.

This Piper was older, twenty at least. But that couldn't be right; she'd been killed nine years ago, not even eighteen years old.

Kari's gaze flew to the status indicator and she froze.

Status: Alive.

 

 

***

 

Dear Reader,

 

I hope you enjoyed Starship Renegades: Uprising.

 

Kari and her crew got into more trouble than they bargained for, but this new piece of information changes everything.

 

Kari has a new mission: save her sister.

 

It won't be easy.

 

Be ready for more grimy space bars, starship battles, and galactic empires in Book 2 Starship Renegades: Liberate

 

Get Your Copy Now: https://saffronbryant.com/books/starship-renegades-liberate/