They stood around the holo-recorder at the center of the room, all cross-armed and anxious. Jinx, looking pretty and tired and ready to crawl into her bed. Rowan, who had shed his hangover, was glowing, bouncing from foot to foot. Amara stood next to him, expectant. Their eyes pinned to me as I stepped in. But we were missing one.
Footsteps sounded from the cockpit. Finally, there was Ketellin, our soft-spoken pilot. Ketellin was Batoric, an amphibious race that could breathe underwater and partially communicate with his world’s sea life. He wore a rebreather apparatus around his neck so he could breathe, and I always thought it looked funny, but who was I to judge. He was a darn good pilot and had gotten us out of more than one scrape in the past.
He came to stand by the others. And now, they were all present, my little family of misfits and thieves.
I clapped my hands together and smiled. “So, you’re probably all wondering why I’ve called you here on this fine day.”
Amara rolled her eyes. Rowan snickered. Jinx groaned. Pivek threw up his hands, and Ketellin just looked at the floor.
“Okay, okay. No messing around.” I dug into my pockets and produced the hacker-spike filled with all of Baron Valrude’s data. I dropped it onto the screen in front of me without any ceremony. “I got what We needed. One data-filled spike courtesy of one ill-prepared baron who should really up his security.”
Pivek stomped over to me and collected the spike in his mandible hands to inspect it. He put it down and signed, ‘Any specifics of what is on here?’
I shrugged. “I just plugged it in, let it work its magic. If Rowan’s source was correct—”
“My sources are always correct.”
“—then it should have everything we need.”
Amara cleared her throat. “Which is? Are you gonna let us in on the grand plan or are you just going to leave us with pieces?”
“But don’t you like playing things recklessly and half-cocked?”
She stared back unamused. As were the others, except for Rowan. They usually tolerated the aullec dung that I spewed, but it was time to get serious. I straightened up and folded my arms behind my back.
“Right, so… From what few things I’ve told you, you can probably surmise what the goal is, but if you haven’t, then I’ll spell it out for you plainly: we’re going to rob Xarren Elexae.”
That seemed to thoroughly suck the air out of the room, though none of them looked particularly shocked. Jinx knew the whole plan already, and since Rowan was my main source, he knew a good bit too, but still, to hear it so completely and without my usual lighthearted tension-breakers, it was a lot to take.
Finally, Amara broke the silence. “Well, it’s a risky play, but one that may be worth it.”
“Yeah,” jumped in Jinx. “We’re already wanted by the Hegemony, eight of the Free Systems, the Torgorans, and the Elarri Empire. So what’s one more hit on us?”
Pivek chittered and buzzed, his hands flying. ‘Actually, if you forgot, those bounty hunters we ran into on Crimmen 4 were sent by the Elexaes. So we’re already on their list.’
“See? This won’t hurt much,” I said.
“Yeah, it will only make the most ruthless crime boss in the empire put us on the top of his hit list. What can go wrong?”
Amara was hard to read at times, despite how open she was with her thoughts and emotions. Sometimes that made it more difficult, for she could display all manner of things. One moment, I thought she was on board with this, and now she was arguing. Which wasn’t a surprise, and she wasn’t wrong. Crossing the Elexae family wasn’t something to do lightly. And I wasn’t doing it lightly.
I could sway her, I always did. “You should be asking what could go right.” I stepped away from the holo-recorder and turned my back on my friends to look at the star maps. “If we get our hands on the scratch in Xarren’s vault, we can disappear. We can start over, do whatever we want.”
For each of them, that meant different things, as it did for me. None of us got into this life because it was fun or because we liked being the outcast. Though, I had to admit I liked being a thief, but that was just me. Still, we had our reasons, and I knew that my little family had things to go back to, reasons to leave if this was successful. I aimed to give them that choice.
They were silent as they mulled over my words. They didn’t have to accept this mission, of course. The Sanara was my ship, but we were a family more than a crew. I wasn’t a dictator. We would vote, and if they didn’t want to risk it, I would accept that. As much as I wanted this, needed this to help my family, this crew was my family too, so I wouldn’t risk them needlessly if they weren’t up for it.
“What say you?” I asked them.
They took more time to decide, as was their right. I was pushy and impatient in general, but this was too big to be like that. This could be life or death. This could change all our lives.
Finally, it was Ketellin who spoke. “I will do it, Yan.” His voice was impossibly deep, a sound that reverberated through you. It hummed. He didn’t speak much, but when he did, we listened. And the others did.
“You know I’m in,” Jinx said with a smile.
“Same. I never back down from a fight,” sounded Rowan.
Pivek unfurled his wings and fluttered excitedly, his head grazing the ceiling. ‘I heard Xarren has some ancient Amok tech in his vault. Can’t pass on the opportunity to study it.’
I smiled at that. Pivek was lowkey obsessed with ancient tech from across the stars, especially those that belonged to extinct spacefaring species. That was all the motivation he needed. That left Amara.
She sighed. “You’ll all die without me, so I suppose I can’t let you throw yourselves into the fire without me.”
So that was that, all of them were accounted for, as I had hoped…and expected. There had been a small part of me that was afraid they would back out—and I wouldn’t have blamed them—but it was good to know that they had my back, good or bad. We were in this together, so I knew we could pull it off, just as we’d pulled off every job in the past.
I brought my hands together again and grinned mischievously. “Excellent, crew. Now, as the captain, I—”
They all groaned. I still swore they loved me.
An alarm began to go off throughout the ship, and a flashing red light. I knew that meant the proximity alarm that Pivek had rigged was going off.
Ketellin was closest to the security consoles, so he crossed the space and started typing away. In seconds, he had the security screens of the hangar on full display. He cursed.
“We have company,” he said.
We crowded around him and looked at the screen. The camera was placed by the doors we’d come through and looked directly at the Sanara. Streaming through the doors were about a dozen armed thugs, all looking like the same idiots I’d dealt with at the brothel.
I felt several eyes on me, namely Amara. I put my hands up. “Don’t look at me. I didn’t do anything.”
Jinx cursed and sagged her shoulders. “It was probably Varreck. That shifty guy wouldn’t hesitate to sell us out if he recognized us from a wanted poster.”
Ketellin pushed away from us and made his way to the cockpit. I followed him. “Alright, K, get us off this planet, and Amara, give our guests a warm Goonish welcome.”
I didn’t have to see her to know she was grinning ear-to-ear. “It would be my pleasure.”
She disappeared into the gunner’s bay, and a moment later, as the ship hummed to life and began to hover over the cracked stone floor of the hangar, there was a resounding boom as Amara gave the mobsters our hospitality. The ship boomed a few more times as we rose higher and higher, and a few times, we rattled as the mobsters’ blaster fire slapped the Sanara’s hide, but little guns wouldn’t do much.
Finally, Amara called from below. “The beniins are dead.”
I smiled at that Zarthian curse and kicked my legs up onto the console. Ketellin didn’t even scold me this time.
�
��Alright, K, get us off this miserable rock.”
Ketellin hated Elarra—it was too hot and dry for his tastes. Only at night when it was humid could he tolerate it, and then only just. So, though he didn’t exactly smile, I could feel him get excited as he said, “With pleasure.”
He flipped the switch on the afterburners, and we shot out of the atmosphere.
4
We jumped from system to system for about a day, trying to put some distance between us and any heat that was following. The Sanara, being a light freighter, didn’t have the long-range hyper-drives that cruisers and frigates had. So, we had to just jump to the closest systems, one at a time. It was time-consuming, but there was no help for it.
I often marveled at the myriad of ways the galactic community found to travel the stars. Of course there was hyperspace travel, used by bigger ships and the most advanced, and then boom tubes that let atmospheric ships get from one side of a planet to another, or to an orbiting moon. Larger boom tubes could get you from one system to another, but they were rough and dangerous trips for smaller ships like ours. There were the solar slings that…slingshot ships to other worlds within that system, though it couldn’t accomplish extra-solar jumps.
The most dangerous were the jump-gates built around wormholes scattered throughout the stars. Those were heavily guarded and monitored by the governing bodies of the galaxy, and they cost a hefty price to use. Luckily, our ship could manage atmospheric, inter-solar, and extra-solar travel just fine.
I thanked my lucky stars every day that I had stole the ship.
While Ketellin piloted, I filled in the rest of the crew on the bones of the plan.
The data-pad Rowan had stolen contained work schedules of all the employees of Xarren’s mansion, including cooks, servants, and especially the guard detail and patrol routes. Jinx had acquired a bunch of uniforms—all servant uniforms. We couldn’t play at being guards because only members of the mob were used, and they were all Elarri, but they had no qualms hiring us “lesser” races for the help.
Finally, with the hacker-spike—which Pivek had thoroughly analyzed—we were able to learn a great deal. It contained shipping manifests for most of the Elexae crime family’s operations, as well as the schematics of the manor, private intel on many in the mob, as well as the compiled secrets of dozens of VIPs across the stars. The data alone was probably worth a small fortune, and we all made a note to sell the info later. Rowan protested, thinking that it would bring more heat on us, but we ignored him.
The only problem we had now was that we wouldn’t be able to just stroll into the manor as servants. We had to get fake ID chips and find ways to replace existing employees. Nothing sinister, of course.
And there was the issue of an escape plan. Xarren’s estate was on the outskirts of the capital on the one side that wasn’t being encroached by the wastes. He owned acres of vineyards, so we wouldn’t be able to get anywhere close with the Sanara. But we would take this one step at a time. The bones were there, we just had to find the meat.
“I actually have a friend that once contracted at the manor, before she was let go,” said Amara.
I crossed my arms and lifted a brow. “A friend? That’s a mighty big coincidence.”
“She’s more of an acquaintance really, and she’s a skeeving little thing, so she won’t be eager to help us.”
“Ah, that’s more like it. Not too easy.”
Amara rolled her eyes. “If she’s where I last heard from her and hasn’t jumped systems, then she may be a good source of intel. She might also be able to get us a recommendation.”
Jinx yawned and stretched her arms over her head. “Let’s hope so. I would hate to be stopped at the gate and have Xarren torture and kill us.”
“Cheery, Jinx,” Rowan snorted.
Jinx grinned.
“Okay, Amara,” I said. “We’ll give her a go. You have a destination for us?”
She bit her lip and flushed, her cheeks going a shade of green darker. “She’s, um, she’s on Preoria.”
Rowan nearly choked. Jinx cursed. I just laughed. Of course her friend was on Preoria. She couldn’t be somewhere easy. She had to be on the home world of the Galactic Bounty Commission, which, though it sounded official and legit, was just a club of ruthless hunters that trawled the galaxy for people like us.
Suffice it to say, going to the world countless bounty hunters called home was not my idea of fun. Although, on the other hand, it was so insane to go to Preoria with a high bounty that they wouldn’t even think to look at us.
Even so, we would have to be careful. The planet was a cesspool of crime and fighting. I usually liked those things, but not on a planet where every pair of eyes wanted to kill me and collect the price on my head.
“If this little trip gets us killed, Amara, I swear to the saints, I’ll—”
“Says the man who wants us to rob the most ruthless crime boss in the empire.”
“Fair point.”
“We’ll just need to be extra careful, okay?” said Jinx. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “We’ve been there before and survived. We’ll do it again.”
“I appreciate your optimism,” Rowan said.
Just then, Pivek climbed up from the hold and looked between the four of us expectantly. I had to fill him and Ketellin in on the plan, though I was sure that K had probably heard bits and pieces from the cockpit.
“Pi, but do you happen to have all the materials you’d need to make us all fake ID chips? New ones obviously. The last batch ran their course.”
He chittered and scratched at his neck. ‘I do, yes. I was saving them because I had a feeling we would need it soon.’
I grinned. “You can always feel when I got something cooking.”
‘It is a gift, I suppose.’
“Some might call it a curse,” chuckled Amara.
‘Some might, yes.’
We shared a laugh that defused any lingering tension about Preoria. I filled Pivek in on the plan so far, and he had no complaints or suggestions on the matter. If he did, he didn’t share them. He was never one for planning, though. He was a fixer, a tinkerer, and a mechanic. He just supplied us and let us do our thieving business while he got his cut. Fair trade.
He went back down to his workshop to start working on the chips, and the others dispersed to their rooms while I went to the cabin to tell Ketellin our new destination. He gave me a hard, wordless look when I said the word.
“Are you sure?” he asked grimly, like he was giving me one last chance to back out. But we couldn’t back out. We had to follow this lead.
“I’m sure.”
He huffed. “Okay. Setting course for headhunters HQ.” I smiled. K didn’t tell jokes, but I appreciated his sense of humor when he did display it.
He punched in the coordinates, and we were on our way.
It took a few hours to jump from star to star before we arrived at Preoria, so most of us got some sleep. K didn’t, but his race could stay awake for absurdly long amounts of time, sometimes even hundreds of hours. It was a trait I wished I had, though I was a glutton for sleep. But thieving took up a lot of hours, and sleep robbed those hours. Sleep was a better thief than I was.
I jolted awake when the ship arrived at Preoria. The ship jerked and rattled as we descended into the atmosphere. It was always worse for little ships like ours. I wished K would have given us some warning, but he liked to mess with us in his own silent way.
I stumbled out of my cabin as I pulled on a shirt and joined him in the cockpit. Jinx was there already, rubbing sleep from her eyes, her hair a tangled mess. Still, she was flawless. She smiled at me.
“Here we are, waking up in hell.”
I yawned and shrugged. “Could be worse. We could get news that all alcohol has been banned throughout the galaxy.”
“Oh yeah, that would be a tragedy.”
The others crowded into the cockpit one by own as we blasted through the planet’s atmosphere. The ship s
hook violently, the roar of our descent almost deafening. But finally, after nearly a minute of jerking and near nausea, we broke through to pale gray skies and a vast, bright landscape.
We approached the surface quickly. The planet was a blazing orange rock filled with ancient canyons and dried riverbeds. There were oceans, but most settlements were situated on the few rivers and lakes that dotted the planet, since the tides were so violently drastic, and the sea life was so large and hungry. It wasn’t worth living on the coasts.
The official headquarters of the GBC was in Goldclaw, a large city built into a jagged canyon that cut across the southern continent. As we approached, we could see the shimmering blue gravity bridges that crisscrossed the canyon. Small speeders and hovercars buzzed about the airways like a swarm of flies. For bigger ships like ours, there were huge holes in the surface of the mesas that went to deep, underground hangars, many levels of them housing ships of the deadliest hunters in the galaxy. K guided us into one of those nests.
While we descended and ran our “registration and identification” with the traffic control, the rest of us went to our rooms and got ready. Since we all more or less had bounties on us, we couldn’t simply walk around with bright smiles.
Over my nondescript shirt and trousers, I threw on a long cloak and headwrap, along with a pair of thick wind goggles, which fortunately wouldn’t be too conspicuous since the cities of Preoria were always hot, windy, and sand-blasted, so it wasn’t uncommon for people to dress like this.
It was a perfect disguise.
Jinx and Amara were dressed similarly, though neither wore goggles. Jinx had a thick hood that completely covered her hair and face, and Amara was only slightly less clandestine.
The ship came to a stop with a thud. Ketellin called out from the cockpit. “We’re good to go! The fee was a hundred digits for the next four hours, then it doubles after that.”
“You hear that, Amara? We have a time limit.”
“I don’t need that type of pressure, Captain.”
The Elarri Heist (Plundering the Stars Book 1) Page 5
