Renegade Union: An Intergalactic Space Opera Adventure (Renegade Star Book 9)

by J. N. Chaney

  Ratchell’s lips twisted into a mocking smile, as though he’d momentarily forgotten the shock collar around his neck. “The Union gave us a next-gen cloak. Seventh, I think,” said the soldier. “Not only could we follow The Galactic Dawn through slipspace undetected, we were practically under your noses the whole time. Our commander decided to see what he could learn by getting closer. The rest of it was . . . unplanned.” He trailed off, his eyes taking on a faraway look.

  My finger twitched at the thought of Felix lying dead in the room I’d found him in, and I wanted to use the remote to punish the man in front of me, but I wasn’t done with this Sarkonian just yet.

  “What do you mean happened after?” I asked, dropping my voice a few octaves and leaning forward.

  His eyes darted to the remote again, going wide when he saw my grip tightening.

  “We stayed in high orbit, waiting to see if you would be able to detect us. When you didn’t, we attempted to land on the surface near one of your camps. The girl was spotted nearby, unprotected, playing with a few other children. A quick facial scan showed a match in the system. The Union is paying top credit for that girl, but you already know that. She’s the most wanted child in the galaxy. We couldn’t walk away from an opportunity like that. The commander knew that, and he ordered us to—”

  “Abduct a little girl,” I finished for him, not bothering to hide the contempt in my voice. “Then what?”

  It irked me to know that we had been so easily infiltrated, and by the Sarkonians, no less.

  “We tried to take the other children, but there wasn’t time. Those drones of yours arrived in two or three minutes. There was only enough time to take her,” he said, glancing at Lex. He cleared his throat. “She fought us. You’ve got a real wild one here, you know. A regular—”

  I pressed the button again and sent a shock through his body. He screamed as the electricity caused him to collapse. “G-godsdamn you,” he muttered, spit dripping from his mouth.

  “What happened next?” I asked, my voice steady and uncaring.

  “Y-your people were on us and we had to fight our way out. I don’t know how you . . .” He coughed, suddenly. “I don’t know how you got onto our ship without anyone noticing. Internal sensors never detected a breech. Whatever you did, you—”

  “Does the Union know the location of Earth?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No, our signal was too weak to reach them.”

  That, I could believe. Earth was farther than any known system and the Sarkonians didn’t exactly have top of the line equipment. Except for access to a seventh gen cloak, it seemed.

  I relaxed a fraction. “And you were just going to hand her over?” I said, gesturing at Lex, who had taken to standing in the corner. I knew that this was the agreement that the Sarkonians had with the Union, but I had to say I was surprised to see them following through with it. No Sarkonian that I’d ever made a deal with had held up their end. It was part of the reason I avoided their territory if I could help it.

  When it came to these people, it was generally best to avoid any deals and just kill them outright. You know, handling your business the civilized way.

  For the Sarkonians to give Lex willingly to the Union, they must not have known her actual value. The pieces were slowly coming together. The same couldn’t be said for my memory. The details of my treaty with the Union were still cloudy at best.

  Ratchell continued, seemingly oblivious to how distracted I was at the moment. “What’s so special about this girl anyway? She doesn’t seem all that important, aside from being an Eternal. A skinny little brat with funny hair and tattoos. What makes her any different from those other kids, I wonder?”

  The man screamed when the collar went off, kicking his feet and clawing at his neck trying to pry it off.

  “Oops,” I said, releasing the button. “Finger slipped.”

  He went limp, breathing hard, and glared at me.

  I ignored it and continued the interrogation. “Next question. How far from Union space are we?”

  “Close,” he gasped, not quite able to manage another cocky grin.

  “What information were you trying to get out of Lex?” I held up the remote, indicating the shock collar.

  He shrugged. “She’s important to the Union, important enough to offer us a deal if we’re the ones to bring her to them. They’ve been combing every system looking for her ever since you stole her. We wanted to know why.” He coughed again, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve and cleared his throat. “You want more than that, you’ll have to ask the commander.”

  I’d had just about enough of Lieutenant-Ratchell, but before I could threaten him, another stab of pain lanced through my side and I couldn’t suppress the groan, so I closed my eyes for a split second.

  It was all the window the Sarkonian needed. He sprang to his feet, quickly, as though the pain of the shocker had totally dissipated. He moved toward me, eyes on the remote. I pressed one of the buttons, but my reaction time was too slow. He was there the next second, fighting through the shocks battering his body, and knocked the control from my hand. Unlike before, the collar barely slowed him, as though something about it had changed. Or perhaps his display had all been for show.

  I was still in the chair and at a disadvantage. He towered over me, swinging a wild punch at my face. I threw up an arm to block, but the force of it was enough to throw me out of the chair and hard onto the floor. I groaned from the impact, struggling to free my gun from the holster. Ratchell dove for my weapon, wrestling with me and driving an elbow into my side in the process.

  On a normal day, the smaller man wouldn’t have even made it across the room to take a shot at me, but I was weak from the injury and it wouldn’t have taken much at this point to put me on my ass.

  The lieutenant landed blow after blow to the side of my head, making the room swim. In a desperate effort to keep it from him, I tossed the gun to the other side of the room. Spent, my arms gave out and Ratchell pushed my face into the floor. He proceeded to thrash me with another blow to my cheek, following it with yet another.

  “Stop it!” yelled Lex from the back of the room, although I couldn’t see her. Ratchell was between us and took up most of my line of sight.

  That was when I heard the shot.

  It hit the wall behind Ratchell and he reflexively ducked. It didn’t take him long to realize what had happened, and he quickly leapt off of me and lunged for Lex.

  There was no way I could get to her, not before he did, but I was damn well gonna try. After struggling to get up, fighting the clawing agony, I threw myself in his direction.

  Then I heard the second shot.

  The lieutenant stumbled toward Lex, but tripped on his own feet, falling into the corner as Lex moved out of the way. His hand dropped to his side. Red bloomed from the hole in his chest where the bullet cleared through his body and left him empty.

  He curled, fetal, on the floor, clutching himself as a soft groan left him.

  I stared at all of this, not knowing what to do.

  “Mr. Hughes?” Lex said. “Are you okay?”

  She stood with her feet apart in a surprisingly good shooting stance, still holding the gun in her small hands. And while the question may have been for me, she continued to stare at the dying lieutenant.

  I couldn’t believe what I’d just allowed. I’d only wanted the gun away from him, not for her to use it. Never for Lex to—

  “Mr. Hughes?” she asked again.

  “I’m good, Lex,” I said, taking a second to try and get my breath back. “Give me the gun, okay? It’s alright, kid. Just hand it here and get away from there.”

  She nodded, slowly, but paused before she moved. “O-Okay,” she finally said, her feet shuffling small steps toward me.

  I tried to sit up to go to her, but the room started to spin, and I sank back down.

  “Mr. Hughes!” snapped Lex.

  She ran the rest of the way to me as I collapsed against
the door. The room was fading, and her along with it. I could barely keep my eyes open.

  “I’m alright. I just gotta . . .” My words trailed off. I couldn’t fight it anymore.

  The sound of Lex’s voice was the last thing I heard as the dark took me.

  5

  A warm body pressed into my back, arms encircling my waist, and a familiar scent washed over me.

  “It’ll be fine, Jace,” a voice whispered in my ear.

  I turned to face Abigail, then pulled her close and we tangled our limbs together. She was completely bare, stray locks of hair going this way and that. I enjoyed seeing her like this—sweet and vulnerable, a stark contrast from what she usually showed people. I leaned in close to kiss the top of her head.

  “Mmm,” she said, smiling. “What was that for?”

  I stared into her eyes, taking in a long breath of her. She darted her eyes to my lips. I smiled.

  “I just wanted to—” Before I could finish, there was a discreet cough from a different part of the room.

  “Sir, pardon the interruption,” said Sigmond. His voice caused both of us to nearly fall out of bed. “We are nearing our final destination.”

  Abigail raised the sheet to cover her breasts.

  “Siggy, how many times have I told you not to do that?” I groaned.

  “My apologies, sir. Your orders were to inform you when we were close to our final destination. We are now two hours from our destination.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Now, get the hell out!”

  “You are most welcome, sir,” Siggy responded with a cordial smile before vanishing into the air.

  I glanced back at Abby. “Plenty of time to finish what we started,” I said, but she was already up and pulling on her clothes.

  “Next time, Renegade,” she said coyly, emphasizing the last word. Without a backward glance, she sauntered out of my quarters.

  I looked around my room. “If I didn’t know any better, Siggy, I’d say you did that on purpose.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it, sir.” Sigmond appeared next to me, glowing in his usual gold aura.

  “Uh huh,” I grunted, pulling on my pants and boots. “Is the crew ready for arrival?”

  “I believe so, sir. All personnel are standing by their respective stations. We have fifty strike ships ready to launch at a moment’s notice. The Union would be foolish to attack us.”

  “I’m not ruling it out,” I muttered, flinging on my coat.

  A tantalizing aroma suddenly filled the air and I inhaled deeply.

  “Siggy, is that . . . ?”

  “Your morning coffee is ready, sir. Again, my apologies for truly terrible timing.” He motioned to the personal coffee maker that had come with the room. One of many amenities to the captain’s quarters of The Galactic Dawn. “Shall I disable it?”

  I didn’t respond, already up and sipping on the glorious cup of liquid life, moaning after each swallow.

  “Siggy, what the hell did you do to this coffee?” I asked, surprised by the unexpected taste. It was better than yesterday’s batch. So rich and pure.

  “I’m terribly sorry, sir. This one is a new recipe taken from Athena’s Old Earth records. Highly rated, she tells. I will remake it to your usual tastes,” he said gravely.

  “No need for all that, pal. This is good as is.” I yanked the cup closer to protect it and took another greedy sip, my eyes sliding into the back of my skull in ecstasy. “This is . . .” I couldn’t come up with a word that fit.

  “I’m thrilled you approve,” said Sigmond. “We’ve added pure cow’s milk and sweetener extracted from recently harvested plants.”

  “Cow’s milk? You mean we can milk those things?” I asked, recalling the recently birthed animals the various domes around Earth had started delivering. Ancient beasts of all kind were coming back to life after thousands of years.

  And now we were using them for our coffee.

  “Just keep doing whatever it is that you did,” I told him.

  “Of course, sir. I am delighted that it is to your liking.”

  “Make sure I’m not disturbed unless it’s an emergency.” I was only half kidding, but we still had a couple hours before we arrived. I figured it’d do me well to relax a bit longer. Maybe think through what I was going to say when I met the Union representative.

  “Understood,” said Sigmond, inclining his head and looking pleased, and with a flash he winked out of sight.

  Two hours later, I was dressed and on the bridge, sipping on a third cup of coffee—decaf this time—and preparing to exit slipspace. I just hoped to gods that there wasn’t a fleet of ships waiting with weapons trained on us on the other side.

  The opening formed before us as the ship’s slipspace engine activated the tear. The Galactic Dawn exited the tunnel and emerged through the rift, letting it close behind us.

  “Targets appearing on sensors,” informed one of the crew. A woman named Chelanah. “Detecting a small fleet, but weapons are not charged.”

  “Not that it would help them if they were,” commented Abigail.

  She was right. The Galactic Dawn had already been outfitted with advanced Earth technology. Where there once had been quad cannons, now there were beam cannons four times as powerful. We’d also modified the ship to carry Titan’s strike ships, giving us unprecedented firepower. Previously, these smaller ships could only travel a certain distance from Titan without losing power, but with a modified Tritium Core at the center of the Dawn, Athena and Sigmond were able to create a new hub.

  “If they decide to fight, they’ll be in for one hell of a surprise,” I commented.

  “Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Abby.

  “Sir, one of the ships is hailing us,” announced Sigmond. “A Vice Admiral Vick.”

  “Put him through,” I said.

  A few seconds later, a voice came on the line.

  “Captain Jace Hughes, this is Vice Admiral Vick of the USS Centaurus. We will be your escort to the station. Please be advised that any action perceived as hostile from you will result in the immediate use of deadly force.”

  I cleared my throat and forced myself not to respond with something that might be considered hostile.

  “Vice Admiral Vick, this is Hughes. Rest assured, we’re here to talk. However, if you fire on us, we’ll be forced to respond in kind, and no one wants that. Copy?”

  The line was silent for a second. It was a bluff, but we did have enough drones to clear us a path back to slipspace and keep them busy while we hightailed it back to Earth.

  “Captain Hughes, if you will accompany us, we will continue to Centaurus.” Vice Admiral Vick didn’t seem happy about the situation, but admittedly neither was I. Coming this far away from Earth to ask the Union to help in the fight against the Celestials didn’t sit well with me, but it was necessary. If it weren’t for the imminent threat of death hanging over our heads, I’d just as well have stayed on Earth and kept to me and mine. The less I saw of the Union, the better.

  The line clicked off before I could respond. “Typical,” said Abigail, rolling her eyes. “Complete lack of decency.”

  “To be fair, we’re talking to them from their former flagship,” I remarked. “Makes sense they’d be steamed.”

  “Still, you’d think they would send a diplomat, not a Vice Admiral,” said Chelanah.

  “The Union doesn’t work like that,” I said.

  “Odd,” she said, leaving it at that.

  Chelanah was, like so many others under my command, from a remote world far from known space. They were direct descendants of the Eternals, although they lacked the immortality of their ancestors. Living on a hostile world like theirs had taught her people to survive under conditions so inconceivable I almost didn’t believe it. The near constant threat of death meant every one of them living to adulthood was sharp, wary, and an invaluable asset to the team. I was lucky to have them.

  The Centaurus became visible about an hour be
fore we actually reached it, a blinking light in the distance. As we drew closer, I could see it was pretty damn big—maybe three times the size of the Dawn. It was a great, colossal thing, positioned at the edge of Union controlled space.

  “Gods,” said Felix, clearly unable to contain his own astonishment.

  Bolin whistled, Freddie babbled something unintelligibly, and even Abby seemed impressed. Only Alphonse remained unfazed, but he had likely seen the inside of a Union space station before, maybe even this one.

  On that thought, I turned to him, ready to ask the question, but he answered before I could get the first word out.

  “This space station is the largest in the Union, and their crown jewel. They wouldn’t bring us this far and start a fight,” he explained.

  “Why’s that?” asked Freddie.

  “They wouldn’t risk the station’s safety. It’s far too valuable,” he answered. “In fact, if they were going to do anything, it would have been during our arrival.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Freddie.

  “He’s right,” I said, nodding to Alphonse. “Chances are, the Union has seen the holos of our last encounter. They know what they’re up against.”

  “Besides,” continued Alphonse. “Commander Shaw gave me assurances that we’d be safe here.”

  Shaw was an old friend of Alphonse’s, the way he told it, and he trusted him. I couldn’t say to what end, but I trusted Alphonse more than most folks, so I gave him the benefit.

  As for Vice Admiral Vick, I had my doubts.

  It took an hour to finally dock. When the airlock connected, the ship shuddered slightly, and I tried not to feel uneasy.

  Abby put a hand on my arm. “Don’t worry,” she assured me. “Remember, we can always rip the airlocks off and take them with us if things get rough.”

  I chuckled at the thought, recalling the last time we’d done that. It was back on Taurus Station and I’d only known Abby for a short time. The memory was cut short by another incoming transmission from Vick.