Samurai Guns (Orphan Wars Book 3)

by J. N. Chaney

  J. N. Chaney

  Copyrighted Material

  Samurai Guns Copyright © 2021 by Variant Publications

  Book design and layout copyright © 2021 by JN Chaney

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from JN Chaney.

  www.jnchaney.com

  1st Edition

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

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  About the Authors

  1

  Drifting in space tries a man’s soul. The environment matches our prospects—as dark as the underbelly of lost hope. Everything about the Heptagon is on the fritz—climate control, comms, and perhaps most important of all, the engines. They sputter each time we attempt acceleration.

  Shaina coaxes power from the unwilling thrusters and fights the stuttering navigation controls. “We’re vulnerable,” she says.

  “Sure, but at least there is no one coming to save us.” My sarcasm resonates with more good humor than I feel. Why punish the rest of the crew with my dark thoughts?

  Shaina smiles and shrugs. “Who wants to be bothered by rescue parties.”

  She returns her attention to the ship, leaving me with my demons.

  Clenching my fists until my knuckles pop from the strain, I recall my last look at Jack—his smug face, his batshit crazy eyes. How did I miss the rot under his manipulative facade? Memories of our youth push to the forefront of my consciousness. I smash them back down. This is what betrayal feels like.

  Never again.

  “Are you well, Orphan?” Shaina asks.

  “Never better.”

  Her eyes tell me she doubts my sincerity. “Glad to hear it. Since you weren’t paying attention, I’ll update you on our progress. We’re continuing away from the green zone of this system.”

  It’s not a question, so I don’t bother to comment.

  Why flee the one place we might survive when our ship fails us? Well, Overlord scout ships are thick as thieves around the Earth-like planet. They’re looking for us because we helped steal the greatest weapon of this war, Jack’s coveted gate ship. And I killed Overlord Anaximander. Kind of a problem. In my defense, I didn’t have a choice, and he was a murderous psychopath. My sojourn across the Goliath Sector isn’t getting any easier or shorter. My previous life—everything about Earth—feels like it happened to someone else.

  The Midas system is no fairy tale. There’s no king, good or evil, turning things to gold—or its more valuable equivalent… food, atmosphere, and spare parts. This corner of the galaxy is desolate. All but one of the planets are cold, sheathed in miles of deep ice. The space lanes are deadly traps, full of either asteroids or ship graveyards.

  “Calling them ships is generous,” I mutter as yet another long-range scan displays on my screen.

  “Speak up, Orphan.” Shaina gives me a too-cool-for-school chin raise to soften her tone.

  She’s tough, always direct and to the point.

  After all we’ve been through, I wouldn’t want her any other way. “Just saying the debris fields look sketchy.” My hands and jaw ache from clenching them. Damn, Murph, you need to relax. Get over it. Stop being a punk and stop taking it out on your friends.

  It is definitely time to lighten the mood—time to just get over myself. I focus on breathing, then shove every single thought of Jack and Anaximander and Nova Cyrus into time-out. Surprisingly, I actually feel a little better.

  There’s no way I’m letting my guard down, but I don’t have to let the past eat me up.

  “What are you grinning about?” Shaina asks.

  “Nothing. Is there a law against smiling?”

  “Of course not. I like it better than whatever you have been doing for the last two days,” she says. “Don’t get me wrong. When push comes to shove, I like the fire. Just keep it aimed at the enemy.”

  “Sure, sure,” I say, then change the subject. “These planets, moons, and larger asteroids are barely within reach if everything goes perfectly.” I check the coordinates. “And when we get there, we’ll likely freeze to death before making repairs.”

  She maintains her perfect posture, smiling just enough to see. “You have a strange way of presenting news.”

  “Any news is good news, right?” I ask, considering Shaina for the hundredth time since we met. You can take the officer out of the Overlord fleet, but you can’t take the Overlord fleet out of the officer. It’s a good thing she’s on our side.

  She gives me a strange look. “Orphans truly are insane. We have a better phrase: no news is good news.”

  “We have that too!”

  “Like I said, Orphans are…” She twirls her fingers, one around each ear.

  Should I tell her half of the gesture is also common to school kids and playgrounds? Maybe I should cut my losses. We get along better than when we first met, but it is still easy to lose the nuances of my home in translation. I shift into professional galaxy-saver mode. “Tell me what you have.”

  The impulse to trade places with her is strong. Currently, she’s at our best sensor array, which is normally a backup just meant to provide alerts and direct the pilot or copilot to pull the information onto the main screen.

 
Which unfortunately resembles a blank wall right now. My own screen is about the size of my palm, which might explain why this system’s debris fields look so dense.

  “An Overlord cruiser has entered the system and stationed itself in orbit of Midas,” Shaina says. “That’s what I’m calling the fourth planet from the sun. You will remember it from when we first arrived. It’s the rock that somehow supports life despite constant storms.”

  I nod along and add my two cents. “But it is the least frozen. We expected that when we saw the first scouts.” I lean in, striving to get a decent view of the screen over her shoulder. “Let them search it. We’re not going there.”

  She nods and doesn’t lean away from my proximity. We’re used to each other. In a ship this small, that’s a good thing because it seems to be shrinking while we’re stuck in here together. I’m definitely getting cabin fever, now that I think about it.

  “More interesting,” she begins, “is the debris field we are approaching. Perhaps it does fall into your ‘any news is good news’ category.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “It’s the same as in the Ulan system but on a larger scale. There was a battle. Probably more than one. Major fleet engagement. Maybe, with more luck than any of us deserve, we can find parts and start fixing this old girl.” She slaps her hand on the dash.

  “That’s definitely good news. Avoid the Overlord patrols, and we’ll be landing at Tamondran before you know it. ” I stand up straight and twist my back right, then left to relieve the strain.

  “Don’t you have a saying about jumping to conclusions?” she asks.

  “Yeah, but it’s not applicable.”

  “What do you mean, it’s not applicable, Murph?”

  “Just trying to stay positive.” I can’t remember if she’s ever used my name. Is that progress? I think it is.

  She finishes her work, then swivels the chair to face me and lock me with a stern gaze. “You’re tired. Only yesterday you gave me a long lecture about the scientific method, and about how mistakes, even small ones, could kill us all.”

  “That was meant for Garin,” I say.

  “It really sounded like you were talking to me and he happened to be close by.”

  I’m not sure how to explain my reasoning. None of my degrees included parenting classes. I’m groping for examples of my own father and grandfather and finding this guardian gig a lot harder than they made parenting look. “If I lecture him, he’ll resist everything I say. If I tell you, he might soak in some of it peripherally.”

  She narrows her eyes and thinks about my statement for several seconds. The verdict doesn’t seem good because she shakes her head. “I will remain skeptical. Part of your vaunted scientific method.”

  “Okay, that’s fair. I better go see where the little ruffian is now.” Stepping into the doorway, I look back a final time. She’s still watching me. “What?”

  “There’s nothing left for him to break,” she says. “You’re just hounding him, and the rest of us, because you can’t sleep.”

  “The imminent prospect of certain death makes it hard to relax,” I admit.

  She smiles. “True. I’m going back to watching this tiny view screen to see if I can find a way out of this mess.”

  “Let me know when you do.” I take the short hallway to the primary cabin. Garin isn’t there. Zedas sits with his legs crossed, maintaining a posture that barely looks possible with all of his muscle and armor as he meditates. He’s been doing that more and more, possibly to conserve energy or just take a break from his ever-present crewmates.

  I’m not alarmed, despite my little speech to Shaina. Finding Garin won’t be difficult. I take a short trip to the little alcove that Slade used as a secondary computer station in the good old days before the Dark Eye betrayed us.

  Normally, Garin leaves the door open. I slide it aside manually because it’s not working correctly. Nothing really is right now.

  I stare into the empty cubicle for several long moments, confused. “Zedas, do you know where Garin is? He’s not in the cubby.”

  The big Dogan stands in one movement, something that still seems miraculous every time I see it. There’s no rocking forward and back to build momentum. He doesn’t stick out his hands for balance. He just stands from a cross-legged position like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “He said he had to fix something and left the room. Are all children so anxious?”

  “That doesn’t sound like Garin?” Now I’m worried.

  “He ran from the room. That is what I know.”

  “Well he’s not in the cockpit, the work room, the main cabin, or the storage bay,” I say, having glanced in their direction on the way here.

  “That would leave the sub-deck or the exterior of the ship as possible places for him to die valiantly,” Zedas says as though a twelve-year-old donning his own EVA gear and jaunting outside of our derelict vessel to fix something is the most normal thing in the world.

  At this point, maybe it is.

  I locate a hatch, jam my finger against the safety readout several times, and curse when it fails to display anything. If the monitor is dead, there’s a pretty good chance that the environment beyond the portal is equally hostile toward human life. And that’s the only place the kid can be because if he’s outside, I’ve really failed as a guardian.

  “Zedas, get this open.”

  The Dogan grabs the emergency handle and lifts it easily.

  I lean into the floor hatch and take a breath. It smells like a machine shop, with harsh chemical odors and something like ozone.

  “I’ve been calling you on comms for twenty minutes!” Garin shouts from deep in the guts of the ship. I can hear tears of frustration in his voice. He’s just a kid. “The entire bottom section of the ship is about to come off. Whoever sabotaged the Heptagon did a bunch of random damage down here. It’s psychotic.”

  I’m alarmed but also relieved. I sigh and decide not to tease him about his new favorite word. Somehow, he has decided that most things in the galaxy are somehow psychotic—not just people but ship parts, computer programs, and fate in general. “I’ve been calling you! And searching everywhere.”

  “It’s not my fault this ship is falling apart,” he complains. “You better bring me some tools and some hands.”

  “How did you even discover the problem?” I ask. My eyes are starting to adjust, and I can just barely see his shape halfway across the enclosure.

  “I was playing a game. You’d be surprised how many are on the ship’s computer. It’s like space travel is boring or something.” He’s calmer now, shifting side to side, but he never takes his hand off something he’s holding. “I kept getting this annoying glitch and decided to look into it. Found wires short-circuiting, followed them, and then saw this panel vibrating like crazy. The bolt holding it is gone, slashed off on purpose. Something a psychotic jerk like the Dark Eye would do. I hate psychotics.”

  “Psychopaths,” I correct him without thinking.

  “What?”

  “Never mind. You should’ve said something to the rest of us,” I say.

  “I did! Like a hundred times on comms. There wasn’t time to come take you by the hand and lead you down here.” The kid sounds young, but I’m sure he’s going to grow up even faster the way things are going. “You wouldn’t listen to me anyway because I’m a kid.”

  I twist away from the conversation. “Zedas, see if Shaina can come help. Unless she’s busy actually flying the ship, we need her knowledge and skills here.”

  “I will do this, Murph. Summoning the only person who knows anything about the ship seems a wise decision.” Zedas disappears toward the cockpit.

  An impact on the exterior of the ship knocks me off balance. I fall through the opening but catch myself halfway through, hanging upside down at a painful angle. One arm is twisted over my head, the other toward my knees, and I have new bruises across both shins.

  “Stop screwing around, Mr. Murph. What are you
, psychotic?” Garin says.

  “No, I’m not. Stop using that word.” Multiple attempts to descend gracefully fail, and I finally just slide headfirst and slow my collision against the sub-deck with my left hand. “Ooff!”

  A starburst of pain explodes through my vision. I touch my forehead several times, convinced I’m bleeding profusely. But I’m not, so that’s good.

  “Are you okay?” Genuine concern fills Garin’s voice now. “I’d come check, but I can’t let go of this.”

  “I’m on my way. Just hold your horses,” I mutter, then crawl through tangles of greasy cables. “Maybe I’m wrong, but it looks like this ship has been put back together more than once. Are any of these parts original?”

  Garin doesn’t answer. “Hey, my hands are getting real tired. Can you hurry?”

  “Sure, kid.” I find him holding a pipe wrench nearly as big as he is. In fact, I’m almost certain it is meant for a mechanized assembly line and some creative ship mechanic converted it for this less-than-ideal use. The only thing the tool has going for it is the aperture of the jaws are just large enough to clamp down on adjoining deck plates. The adjustment nut is screwed in as far as it will go. Garin is holding the I-beam handle of the wrench with all his might, feet pushed against the wall for leverage. The kid is sweating despite the cold.