by Ian Cannon
Ben murmured, “To make it right, Axum.” He fished a holopad from his pocket and chucked it onto the table. As it landed, it emitted a holocone displaying a space vessel. It showed a forward operations deck, long, narrow cargo hold with an engine cluster at the rear. A rail gun track ran along both flanks.
Axum tilted his head studying it. “It’s a freighter.”
“It is,” Ben agreed.
“With a rail gun.”
“Two rail guns,” Ben corrected.
“Why does it look odd?”
“It’s a Karbatt model.”
That caught Axum’s attention and he looked up. “Karbatt? It’s not local, then.”
Ben gave him a look of absurdity. This was Teridrone. Nothing was local. He said, “This is Raider’s Bay,” pointing out the obvious.
Axum got the point. He gave him a congenial look of agreement. “True, true. You want to know if it’s here, eh?”
“That’s right.”
“Who does it belong to?”
Ben sighed, “A Krutt bounty hunter called No.”
“Krutt!” Axum boomed and spat hard on the floor—Ptewy!
The entire establishment followed suit—Ptewy!
A bit shocked at the sudden show of universal disdain, Ben said, “Then you’ll tell us?”
Axum paced, backpedaling. “Well, we have sanctions against burping up such information, old boy. Rules, you know.”
Ben gave him a bitter, doubtful look, and said, “The only rule you know, Axum, is yield.” He rubbed his thumb and fingers together indicating money.
“Oh,” Axum said suddenly interested. “You’ve come with a proposition, then?”
Ben clicked his teeth and said, “Eight-thousand. Plus interest.”
“Ha! I like the way you do biz, Benjar.”
“Then, we need to know. Is it here, and if so, where?”
Axum nodded, coming to a conclusion in his head. “I’ll tell you everything you need to know, but first,” he grinned big, “the yield.”
Ben stiffened. His bluff had been called. He admitted as coolly as he could, “You’ll have to put it on my tab.”
“Hahaha!” Axum bellowed, slapping Ben hard on the back. “Now I really like the way you do biz.”
“Then, what’ll it be?”
Axum stroked his chin shooting his considering gaze back and forth from Tawny to Ben. He said, “Norg. He’s a friend, you say?”
Ben nodded, certainly. “He is.”
“Well, agreed then. You want to know where the Krutt is? As it turns out, he arrived just before you did.”
Tawny and Ben froze, hiding their sudden surprise. Their plan worked. Axum even confirmed that with, “Your plan worked, my friends. You see—old Norg—he’s a good old boy, ain’t he? Me and him, oh, we go way back. He comms me just yesterday, see? Says something about Tawny and Benjar Dash needing some of my gracious help. What was I to do, eh? Couldn’t turn the old geezer down. Hells, I figured you two would get here first, but the Krutt’s an efficient little bug. So, yeah. Your Krutt is here, and I can tell you exactly where he’s going to—”
VWAP—the Krutt appeared into view just across Axum’s den, faster than a blink, as quick as a light beam. The bastard drew his plasma spear weapon, and Ben charged into Axum screaming, “Tawny!”
The two toppled over as the Krutt’s blast railed across the room exploding the entire observation port into droplets of thick glass. Tawny drew on the quick, returned fire. The Krutt’s body shield singed into action deflecting the strikes and exploding them off the ceiling. Everyone screamed, drawing weapons. The Krutt turned away as Tawny sprang after him, leaped into the air and tackled him hard.
VWAP—he disappeared. Along with Tawny.
Ben looked up, aghast. “No!”
Axum shook his head and collected himself on the floor, muttering, “Guess he was closer than we thought.”
Ben screamed, “Where?”
The pirate thrust a finger toward the shattered observation window. “Down below on the lander platform!”
Ben bolted toward the open port as a hard, high wind blasted through the opening. He looked down frantically. There was a row of open taxi carriers parked along the platform. His eyes darted left, right.
There, found them!
It was eighty feet down.
Eighty feet.
“Oh gods,” he groaned. No choice. He stepped onto the ledge … and jumped.
Thirteen
VWAP—Tawny found herself sprawling across a personnel carrier’s deck, the sky open from above. It was a large flat vessel with seating along the edges, perhaps twenty feet long, eight feet wide, with a control console at the fore and a large bundle of cargo netting at the aft. Someone’s luggage. One instant she wasn’t there. The next …
It was her first matter transport. She found it disorienting. And in the middle of a fight.
The Krutt wheeled her off him and she floundered backward. The guy spun to his controls and flashed quickly through the taxi’s start up process. Engines wound up.
Tawny shook her head, collected herself and reached for her gun. It was gone, left above in Axum’s den. She snarled and charged at him from behind but he met her with his glowing spear. She ducked feeling the heat flash over her head and came up from below, snagging the spear. The two pirouetted around, both desperate and off balance. Tawny slammed down against the craft’s forward railing. The Krutt stumbled backward.
The Krutt found his footing and spun the glowing weapon into an attacker’s poise. Tawny’s eyes went wide. She was unarmed and out-numbered. Until …
Something came screaming out of the sky growing with the speed of terminal velocity. She shot a glance directly up and gasped. Benji came thundering down into that big pile of luggage and cargo netting exploding it all around him. The Krutt spun, surprised. Ben rolled painfully to the deck shaking his head and popping his ears. He clamored to his feet drunkenly and immediately had to dodge a blow, backing him up and making him stumble back down.
Tawny lurched forward, wrapping their assailant with both arms and jerking him backward with her. She fell onto the forward control panel initiating the final ‘Go’ command, and the skiff zipped off.
Ben, back on his feet, got thrown down again under the inertia. He looked up still shaking his head. His wife had the Krutt immobilized, so he got to his feet and charged forward snarling angrily. The Krutt’s boot smashed him in the gut. He flew back and crashed into the luggage netting. The buckle released. Straps loosened.
Tawny Thrashed at the Krutt. The guy dodged, took a shot with his elbow. Tawny crumpled back into the forward control deck tasting blood on her lip. She grinned hotly. The Krutt whipped a knife from his thigh holster, drew it overhead for a thrust, but something snagged his wrist unseen from behind, jerked the knife away. It flipped into the sky, disappeared. The Krutt spun around.
Ben had him tethered with the luggage netting. The Krutt whipped the netting around his arm and yanked mightily. The cord ripped from Ben’s grasp, flew across the skiff. Tawny caught it, bound it around the Krutt’s throat and spun him around to face her. She hissed, “Been here before, haven’t we!”
The Krutt headbutted her, knocked her backward. His hand shot for the glowing apparatus on his chest.
It was his transporter device—going to blink away and take her with him!
Desperately, she caught his wrist with the strap and yanked his hand away.
His other hand slapped for it. She caught his hand with a boot, knee up high, and kicked it away. Growling with frustration, the Krutt spun around, reached behind and flipped her over his shoulders. She crashed down flat on her back, her arm in the Krutt’s grasp. He reached for the transport device.
“No!” Ben screamed launching forward. He tackled the Krutt pinning him against the forward pilot’s chair. Another headbutt from the Krutt’s face shield sent Ben staggering backward, blinking his eyes. The Krutt smashed the apparatus on his chest.
&n
bsp; Nothing happened. No transport. No disappearing act.
He looked down, surprised.
The apparatus was gone.
Ben laughed at him holding it in his palm and showing it to him. “Oh, hells no, buddy,” he said.
The Krutt whipped his plasma spear from the deck where it lay, lit it up stark in the night, and swung in a wide arc. Ben thrashed backward feeling fast wind reach through a rip in his shirt. The Krutt wheeled the spear around perfectly agile, and came in for another thrust, but was caught.
Tawny snared it from below, still on the floor at his feet. He looked down. They both had hands on the long handle.
She hissed, “Oh, hells no, buddy!”
The Krutt jerked on it but she wouldn’t let go.
Ben got to his feet as the spear hummed to a high note and blasted a plasma shot at him out of control. It seared across his shoulder, struck the skiff’s railing and blew into a fountain of sparks. The concussion threw him airborn. In the next heart-stopping moment, he found himself sailing through the sky, the skiff with his wife went zipping quickly away overhead. He heard her voice scream his name as it faded away in the distance—Benjeeee.
He floundered around in mid-fall and came face-to-engine-hood with another taxi car—Ooomf!
He shook his head. Couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t falling. Wasn’t going to die. He looked up, made eye contact with the driver—a dimply, yellow-and-brown-skinned Tremusian with big features and wide, little eyes.
“Yaga maga!” it screamed in shock.
Ben shot a frantic glance over his shoulder. The target skiff was fifty feet above, speeding off and gaining distance.
Ben wheeled himself over the Tremusian’s windshield making the big fella scream as if under attack, and set his wrist mol up against the taxi’s money deposit counter. The digi-screen wound up to three-thousand-eighty-two yield bits and beeped. It was all they had left.
The Tremusian’s expression turned to a huge grin.
“That skiff!” Ben screamed pointing forward. “Chase it!”
The taxi driver’s big, square hand jammed the accelerator forward and the boost almost knocked Ben back out of the car.
Tawny was on her feet facing the Krutt. She ducked, moved to the left as the spear sizzled over her head. The thing sliced through the railing in a hail of fat, golden sparks. The Krutt wheeled at her again. She juked a second time and dove across the floor closing the distance between her and the attacker, unsheathed another knife from the Krutt’s thigh band as she slid by, and slashed it at his flank, all in one fluid motion.
Pay dirt.
The blade opened the Krutt’s outer bio layer. A squeal of heat and wind blasted Tawny’s hand, burned the inside of her palm. She screamed and flummoxed backward. The Krutt jerked around holding the breach in his suit. He was uninjured, but his internal atmosphere was evacuating out into the Teridrone night. He’d be dead in minutes.
The spear went into a helicoptering maneuver sheading bright, orange light over Tawny’s head. It dizzied her. She yelped and ducked as it came down slicing the control panel. Sparks erupted. She juked again, to the left. Light burned and bounced all over her driving her over the pilot’s bay and onto the nose of the skiff. The night flew by all around her. The Krutt pointed the weapon at her. It hummed to a high note.
She gasped out of options.
A plasma bolt shot out, skipped across the nose of the skiff at her. She dolphin dove off the skiff, grabbed the underside of its bumper and swung her legs up under the undercarriage. Down here, the engine was exposed. A long shaft spun at several thousand revolutions per minute between her knees. Teeth clenched, she unlatched the narrow tow cable from her utility buckle, fed it over the spinning drive shaft seething flame and sparks all around her. The end of it whipped through the other side giving her a zip line. She grabbed it with her free hand and went slewing across the undercarriage of the skiff muttering in cold anger, “Oh, so he thinks I’m dumb?” She hit the rear of the skiff snaring the aft passenger ladder and let her feet fly out behind her. Turning herself around against the pounding wind, she climbed painstakingly back up over the rear railing and dumped herself back onto the passenger deck groaning and mad.
She had to collect herself momentarily. Looking forward, she could see the Krutt manning the controls at the front. His back was to her. He had no idea she was back on board. She shook off her latest maneuver and got to her feet angling in her head how to take him down.
The cargo netting.
The knife.
She’d thrash the netting around his throat like before, bind him down with it, and hold him at bay with the knife. The threat of another breach in his containment suit would make him think twice. Yeah—good idea.
She slunk forward, grabbed a handful of the netting and moved for the knife sitting on the deck. She froze, blood chilling in her veins. A shadow moved across her from above. Something approached, and it was big—big enough to eclipse the whole sky.
Tawny shot a look skyward. The Krutt’s space vessel hovered into position hardly fifty feet overhead. It matched their course as it slid by. The damn thing was huge, narrow and long. Three hundred feet, easy. A pair of louver wings tilted and adjusted, and its hover drives pelted wind down at them, engines roaring. It settled just ahead of the skiff moving traffic out of its way. A bay door lowered at its rear.
Tawny gasped as sudden acceleration rocketed them forward. They flew into the space ship’s cargo hold—skiff and all. She fell back, pinned against the rail before hard braking spilled her forward onto the floor with a bang.
The Krutt spun around. She got up and dusted herself off, facing him. The cargo bay door lifted shut behind and here she was … aboard his craft.
Tawny gave him a smirk, said, “Yeah, that’s right—it’s me again, narse hole.”
Ben’s mouth dropped open. His pursuit just got more difficult. The Krutt was now inside his vessel, and he’d taken Tawny with him. This chase had just become a kidnapping.
He stood up in the Tremusian’s passenger seat and blared, “There, there!”
The taxi car angled upward and the driver hit the gas. As they swung behind the big ship, its turbines flared on shedding massive heat into the valley and over the traffic, making Ben turn his head and wince. The taxi arced around to the starboard side and moved up. The huge bulk of the ship began sliding ahead, picking up speed.
Ben squirreled back onto the hood and crouched into position. He looked into his gloves switching their arti-grav caster feature to magnetic grip. The palm and fingers lit up blue. With wind whipping his hair around and the sound of a booster engine screaming out, he yelled, “Thanks, pal!” and jumped.
The Tremusian returned, “Gahoona nabbawat!” and veered his taxi away.
Ben smacked into the ship and slid sidelong across the rear fuselage dragging his hands desperately across the steel frame. The mag-gloves caught and he jerked to a stop. Wind blasted him relentlessly as the ship angled toward the sky, and the thruster rockets howled out like thunder. He felt sudden, immense inertia flatten him against the vessel’s side. Adjusting to the drag of wind threatening to rip him away, he looked down at his feet. The entire valley-scape dropped below at speed. The lights of Raider’s Bay became tinier and tinier. The whole planet began falling away. Here he was riding a rocket toward outer space. He’d be in thinning atmosphere in seconds. This was so very bad. This was worse than falling into a moggot pit. He needed a way inside the ship … real bad.
Tawny bolted after the Krutt. He headed for the ship’s forward compartment where, beyond the compartment hatch, the atmospherics spiked to three hundred degrees. It was the Krutt’s natural temperature. If he made it, she’d lose him.
But the cargo bay was incredibly long, two hundred feet, maybe longer, with stall bays to one side, heavy equipment to the other. And he was running drunkenly as his containment suit reached failure. It made Tawny grin fiercely and press after him, closing the distance.
&nbs
p; The Krutt crashed into a standing locker and knocked the whole thing over with a smash. It spilled open fanning small spheroids out onto the floor. She halted on her feet, wide-eyed.
Grenades.
The Krutt wheeled one at her surprisingly fast.
She ducked to her knees. The thing sailed overhead and attached to an enormous crate. There was a tiny beep and a—VWAP! The huge crate disappeared. She yelped in realization.
Not grenades.
Matter transporter balls.
Outside, Ben clung to the side of the ship as wind slammed him back and forth against the plating. He was pinned. Couldn’t move.
VWAP! The huge crate appeared in front of him making him bark in terror. The thing tumbled enormously through the sky slewing past him. It continued its plummet back toward the planet’s surface, which was now—shoot—maybe four thousand feet down.
“Jeez …” he groaned.
Back inside, Tawny got to her feet off balance as another spheroid sailed at her. She barked out and dropped back down. It hit a robotic mobile crane arm on a hover platform—VWAP!
Ben’s eyes went big. The crane appeared outside the ship. It clanged unwieldly off the hull and flipped around him barely missing, falling earthward.
“Awe balls!” he cried trying to slide a mag-gloved hand forward.
In the cargo bay, Tawny threw herself against a bulkhead as the Krutt wound up to throw another spheroid. She grabbed a heavy chunk of plating and held it forward. The spheroid clanked against it and she let go, quick. The thing disappeared—VWAP!—right in front of her face. She blinked, opened her eyes. Another spheroid came at her, fast. Too late! It gripped onto her shoulder—VWAP!
Outside, Ben struggled against the constant blast of wind. The heavy chunk of plating popped into view making him bark out. It shuddered by missing him by inches—a sure decapitator. He glanced over his shoulder, watched it fall toward the dark surface. Then …
He heard screaming.
