by Taylor Smith
The back of her gloved hand held a small shield of armor, so it didn’t hurt, but the impact sent her sidearm to the ground.
Haley leapt back several paces, barely avoiding another swing toward her head. She steadied herself and took a close-quarter combat stance. The hooded, dark clothed figure before her had to be Jerry. Haley was now one hundred percent convinced that she was no random criminal. She was well trained and very, very deadly.
Jerry matched her stance, and for several seconds they were both still.
Haley made the move first. She leapt toward her opponent quickly, and took several probing shots toward Jerry’s left side. Her attacks were blocked expertly, and she quickly found herself on the defensive as Jerry’s response came in a hail of well-placed blows. Haley was able to block most, but several made their mark and drove her backward. One attack landed on her unarmored side, and the pain told her immediately that a rib had been fractured, if not broken.
They separated again and Haley took a breath. Jerry was better than her, but she didn’t dare allow fear to come into play. Her left side was throbbing so, with a few flicks of her cheek, she activated her suits medical suite in hopes the pain would subside soon. She would only have two to three minutes before her senses became dulled from the meds, but knew the fight would be over long before that.
Jerry sprang forward, and Haley allowed herself to relax and fall back on her training. She countered each blow with one of her own, just to be blocked again. After a few more seconds of trading, blocking and countering hits, Jerry backed a pace. Haley didn’t let her separate, and redoubled her attack and tried to ignore the pain in her side at the same time. She landed several well placed hits, one that seemed to drive Jerry back even further.
She could tell the woman was tiring as her chest heaved rapidly. Haley didn’t relent, and continued her assault. It was her overconfidence in that moment that was her greatest enemy. Jerry sidestepped one of her more intense thrusts, which made Haley lurch forward wildly. Haley winced as Jerry landed a solid hit against her already bruised side, and wrapped her in a headlock with her right arm pinned behind her.
Haley fought for breath as her enemy squeezed tightly. With her left arm, she reached over her head in attempt to grab ahold of her opponent to flip her, but wasn’t able to grasp anything. She finally reached to her waist and activated a small device. A hissing sound erupted from Haley’s suit, and Jerry let go. Haley was able to hold on to Jerry’s arm for another moment before she felt a violent impact to her back that shoved her forward.
Haley landed on one knee and quickly turned to face Jerry. She steadied herself again, and shook her head as she tried to ignore the light headedness from the choke-hold. Jerry coughed, turned to run and then fell face first into the dirt.
Haley’s knees hit the sandy ground and she let her shoulders slump. Her breathing and heart rate were at crazy levels. She reached up and depressed a small button at the base of her neck. Her helmet retracted, and she breathed deeply. The dry night air of Yanna filled her lungs with the cool air that smelled of rust and grime. She focused on calming her nerves as the breeze ruffled her shortened hair. She sat there for several minutes and just breathed. Even in her overestimations of Jerry, she’d drastically underestimated her.
After a short rest, Haley moved to the still form of her opponent and rolled her over. The meds were finally kicking in, but she could still feel the burning sensation from her side. She removed the hood from Jerry’s head and took the sight in. Jerry was a bit older than she remembered, but it was definitely the same woman.
She reached around to the small of her back and unclipped her pack. Inside, she found the small round patch she was looking for, tore it from its package, and then stuck it to Jerry’s neck. The patch would keep the woman sedated for twenty-four hours if she didn’t remove it. That would be plenty of time.
Haley reactivated her helmet and browsed through the suit’s menu. Her turn. With the original night’s mission in shambles, a new mission had been born: get her prisoner back to her ship. Even without a broken rib it would be tough. She chose one of the medium-grade stimulant kits and braced herself. Her body began to shake immediately and she could feel the cool, tingling sensation of the kit doing its work. Tomorrow, when the kit began to wear off, would be a bad day.
A few seconds later, she was good to go. The rush of energy was an odd sensation, and she could tell her side was in immense pain, but she no longer cared. She checked the area of their brawl and recovered her sidearm before heaving her prisoner over her shoulder and starting back toward her ship.
Jerry wasn’t a large woman, but she was heavy enough. As she walked back through the shadows of the town, she took care to retrieve the cameras she’d placed on her way in. Not that they did any good, but she didn’t want her equipment lying about for anyone to find.
Haley had to stop twice to rest before she even got to the outskirts of town. Here, she took more care of her surroundings. The lookouts were two hundred yards in both directions, and more than likely asleep. She couldn’t take that chance though, so after a short rest, she heaved the woman up once more and ran across the open field as fast as her burdened legs would take her.
More than once, she was tripped up and almost dumped her burden and herself to the sandy ground. When she finally reached a point of relative safety outside of town, she let the woman fall from her shoulders and fell with her. She lay there for long minutes trying to catch her breath. Her body hurt all over, even though the stim-kit’s affects were trying to mask the pain. To get Jerry at least a kilometer outside of town would be best-case, but she knew immediately it wasn’t going to happen.
She stood back up to regain a sense of her surroundings. There were in a shallow crevasse and far enough from the colony that she felt safe leaving the woman here. With that, Haley began the walk back to her ship. Then she could bring back a light grav-sled, normally used for loading equipment into the ship, to bring Jerry the rest of the way in.
Walking without the woman on her back made her feel light as a feather, so she quickened her pace to a jog. Again, she reminded herself that her training had been tougher than this.
Three years ago she’d been elated after having the adventure of a lifetime. As she returned home with the Prometheus Battlegroup, Haley found herself immediately awarded a commendation. She was also promoted to Lieutenant for her efforts on board Valiant, and bringing the downfall of the Deshi mole, Andrelli.
At the same time, Alliance Command was troubled by the fact that such a massive security breach had occurred, and had immediately instated a multitude of new security protocols in their paranoia.
Haley was delighted in her achievements, but within a week of her return to Adara she was subjected to a multitude of reports, boards of inquiry and interrogation teams. Within two weeks she’d found herself on ordered leave and without an assigned post. The questions continued and Haley did her best to maintain composure through it all, though her patience waned.
It was the third week of her return that the final report from the intelligence branch of the Allied Fleet had pinpointed the particulars of the system breach in which Clew had used to shut their warships down. She was mortified to find her own tactical systems update, uploaded and installed to every ship in the fleet, was the culprit. Further details revealed that not only had malicious code been included to disrupt a vessels entire computer system, but also to initiate the vessel’s self-destruct, if it was instructed to do so. This information had sent the Admiralty into a tirade, and heads started to roll.
For his loss at Clew and the poor quality control systems in place that had allowed the update to be approved in the first place, Fleet Admiral Jonas was the first affected. The President of the Alliance called for his immediate resignation, as well as that of his entire staff.
After already having barely sustained her character through weeks of interrogation for her involvement with the pirates of Clew, Haley was thrust head first into
a very public court martial. Saundi Adair, who originally wrote the program in question, was dead, and the Alliance needed to place blame. Haley bore the entirety of that blame.
The trial destroyed her. After two weeks of pure hell, Haley was stripped of all titles and honor, and dismissed from service. Her beloved Allied Fleet had turned her out and wanted nothing more to do with her.
Her entire life had been in the care of the Allied Fleet. What it would be like to be a civilian had never even crossed her mind. Now, however, she found herself with nowhere to go. No home. No job. She had nothing except the meager fifteen hundred credits she’d earned for her one month of duties aboard the Valiant.
For the next year Haley floundered, living in cheap hotels at first, and then in what shelter she could find. She applied for jobs with corporations large and small, for numerous positions including sensor techs aboard exploratory ships, and even freighters hauling goods between the stars. No one wanted a washed out Lieutenant and especially not her personally.
With her career over and her life in ruins, Haley Marks found a new kind of hatred had taken hold of her. She’d survived the adventure of a lifetime and now reaped the rewards from that journey. Everything that had happened was the fault of a small band of people living outside the Alliance. Even in death, she blamed Saundi. She blamed Andrew and Malian Neese. She blamed Cade. Through all that rage, the one thought that she clung to the longest, was that Cade was just around the corner. He would be there, ready to take her back to Clew with him; to save her from this hell.
He never came. They’d left her to die. And her heart had turned black with fantasies of their downfalls for what they’d done to her.
It was at her lowest point, scooping out the remnants of the cold noodles left behind on an outside table of a shabby oriental kitchen, that she noticed a ladder. She didn’t know why this old contraption was so intriguing to her, but she followed it up with her eyes and found it reached the top of the four story building it was attached to.
The night before had been horrendous. She’d been attacked several times since being on the streets of Adara but never like that. Again, Cade hadn’t come to save her. Her will had finally broken.
She sat the container back down to the table and stood, the dirty blanket she’d found fell to the littered ground beneath her. Curiously, she found herself at the bottom of the ladder looking up, and she suddenly wondered if it would hurt when she jumped.
It was the moment she’d taken her first step up that ladder that she felt a hand on her shoulder. Her entire body flinched at the touch. She turned wearily, shaking her head and knowing she couldn’t take another round of abuse, to find Ex-Fleet Admiral Harold Jonas staring back at her.
Jonas had saved her when the pirates of Clew had left her for dead. And for the next two years, her former Admiral trained her to be a top agent in an organization that never existed. She was trained to use the most advanced equipment the Alliance had to offer. She was trained to be one of the deadliest, close-combat fighters in the known worlds.
So that begs the question: Who trained Jerry? The woman she’d just beaten had fallen to a nerve gas known to many as FNG-12. The gas is one of the Admiralties old redundancies in case of mutiny aboard one of their starships. Officers were fed small amounts during their academy years and would be immune to its affects by the time they graduated. If a mutiny of enlisted crew were ever attempted, the gas would be released, and the officers would easily retake the ship.
The gas worked on Jerry, so Haley knew she wasn’t Alliance trained, which made her even more curious.
Chapter 3
Cade leaned over Terry’s helm station and nodded. “Very good approach,” he said. “It’s all yours, Terry. Watch the roll.” He patted the young man on the shoulder, walked back to his seat next to Andy’s command chair and strapped in. “He’s a quick learner,” he whispered to Andy.
For the past few days, the Reaper had slowly been making its way back to the edge of the Torj System to jettison the contents of its latest few catches. The science vessel would float along with the goods until a crew from Clew could come and retrieve it.
Procedure had changed quickly after the Deshi attack three years ago. Clew was damaged badly, and needed replacement parts as well as heavy steel to repair the damage. Many of the vessels that normally provided such material were also wrecked, unable to leave their docking cradles. Something had to change. Cade, Andy and Malian Neese, the leader of Clew Station and Andy’s father, had come up with a simple, yet risky, solution.
For the past two hundred years, the Pirates of Clew would take what they could, then return to Clew to unload their catch when their holds were full. On average, that meant a ship would return once every one to two months, if their luck rewarded them with large prizes. If not, they’d return every three months to resupply.
Clew vessels would no longer return home to unload their catch. Instead, the cargo, materials and even ships like the science vessel Cade had just stolen, were piloted out of the system and jettisoned, or set adrift at speed. The position, course, speed and time would all be logged to a data chip, and taken to either the Krit or Yanna Systems when it was convenient for the ship.
Since there was no long-range communications allowed aboard Clew Station, a runner ship made the trip back and forth to deliver news, communications and retrieve the data on loose cargo to be picked up. Finally, a team from Clew would retrieve the goods, for a small cut of the profit.
With the new procedure in place, the Reaper had only returned to Clew once in two years. A light resupply could be handled at the nearest non-aligned station, though the prices were normally outrageous. Even so, the speed at which Clew ships could hunt had drastically increased. That meant very low downtime, which more than covered the cost of the new procedure.
Before the Reaper could unload their catch, however, a tramp hauler had emerged from subspace directly in their path. It wasn’t rare to meet an incoming ship, but this specific ship was a designated target for the No Quarter, and the No Quarter was nowhere to be found.
“Terry’s fine,” Andy replied to Cade in a low voice without taking his eyes off his screen. His mind was clearly not on the hauler, but on the whereabouts of their wayward sister. “I’m going to kill her,” he mumbled with a low growl.
Cade checked his readings, saw that they were within a minute of being in grapple range and turned back to Andy. “So she missed another one,” he said as dismissively as he could, while beginning to realize that there was a good chance he’d be playing referee to his two siblings in the near future. “We’ll discuss it later. Right now we need to catch this thing.”
Andy’s gaze lifted from his screen to meet Cade. “Yeah,” he replied with disdain.
“Grapples ready, Captain,” Terry reported from the helm.
Steven Wards, working at the Reaper’s tactical station, added, “No other contacts in range, Captain.”
Andy nodded and sat straighter in his chair. “Very well. Fire grapples!”
Double metallic thumps ran through the bridge as the ships grapples were launched from their cradles and slammed home against the small cargo ship.
Cade glanced to Terry who worked his console furiously in attempt to gauge the ships mass against his grapple system. He unconsciously felt the back of his head again, and wished he still had his implant. The doctors told him that it would take up to three years for the implant site to heal before he was allowed a replacement. He never realized how much he would miss it until it was gone.
Terry looked confused for a moment as he turned to the command platform, then back to his screens.
“Mr. Beck?” Andy asked.
Terry shrugged and turned back to say, “Target secure, Captain. It was just really easy. No fight at all.”
Cade looked at Andy, and then turned back to the crewman. “The No Quarter has probably been chasing that ship through the Krit System for days. When they escaped, just to land in our laps, they we
re probably demoralized. They don’t have any fight left.”
“At least she’s good for something,” Andy ground out.
Cade looked back to Andy with a sympathetic smile. “Boarding party, Captain?”
“Not you,” Andy said with a shake of his head. “Form it, but I need you here.”
Cade stared at Andy with narrowed eyes. As XO it was his job to lead all boarding parties, and he’d become very good at his job over the past few years. It was odd that Andy wanted him to stay aboard for this one, but he capitulated and turned toward the comms station. “Miss Hulbert, lead the boarding party. Take Mr. Beck and Mr. Wards with you,” he ordered, and nodded toward the ships helm and tactical officers.
Criss stood with a grin. “You heard him, boys. Let’s go get some pay dirt.”
Cade appreciated Criss’ excitement as the three stood to leave. As she passed by, she produced a wink and said, “I’ll take care of them.”
“I have no doubt. Good luck, Miss Hulbert,” he replied and watched them leave.
Once he was alone on the bridge with his adoptive brother, he turned back to Andy and gave him a quizzical look. “What’s up with you?”
Andy’s gaze never left the small screen attached to his chair as he replied, “What’s my job, Dorian?”
Cade’s brow rose a bit as he pondered Andy’s attitude. He stood slowly, with a look of curiosity on his face and made his way toward the tactical station. “To run your ship as you see fit, Captain,” he said as he sat down to monitor the surrounding space during the op.
Andy finally turned to face Cade with serious eyes. “Yes, but not only that. It’s also my job to train you to be a Captain one day. I have to make sure you have the leadership and the chops to be a good commander.”
Cade whirled toward his brother. “Andy! Come on! I’m what, ten years away from that? I don’t even know if I want to captain a ship!”
Andy laughed, finally showing some sort of emotion. “We don’t have the luxury of time,” Andy said and then held his hands up when he saw Cade’s reaction. “On our last visit to Krit, I received word from home that we’re expecting another set of hulls to replace some of those we lost. We need crews, and we need Captains.” He turned and locked his eyes on Cade’s. “The crew respects you, as does most of Clew. They see how hard you work, and what you’re capable of.”
