Star Raider

by Vaughn Heppner

  “But…”

  The squat consul put a hand on Tanner’s shoulder. “Listen to me, son. I’ve chosen a band of brothers, those who will never quit, who will never say die. You can take one or two people with you as your crew—”

  “I want to fight here, sir. I want to make the Coalition pay.”

  “I know,” the consul said softly. “I understand. You’re like me. You have steel in your soul. The Coalition can kill us but they can’t bend or break those like us.”

  Tanner studied the small bank unit. What the consul was suggesting…the war would never end for him. Yet…keeping a spaceship running took lots of money and high-end upkeep.

  “What happens once I run out of credits?” Tanner asked.

  “Don’t,” the consul said. “I’ll try to find ways to funnel you extra funds now and again. I wish we had squirreled away more, but money was simply too tight these past years. You’re going to have to find ways to get credits, but I don’t want you turning outlaw. You must extract the credits in lawful ways. You’re representing Remus out there, son. There’s going to be a lot riding on your shoulders.”

  Tanner stared at the older man.

  “Do you accept the charge?” Maximus asked. “Are you willing to fight for your world’s freedom for the rest of your life?”

  A burning anger mixed with love welled up within Tanner. He realized that this mission gave him a renewed purpose for living.

  “I gladly accept the charge, sir. By the Lord’s grace, I’ll fight the Coalition until I die. I will see Remus free again.”

  The consul’s fingers dug into Tanner’s shoulder. “One lost battle doesn’t lose a war. As long as one of us refuses to surrender, the fight goes on.”

  “One question, sir,” Tanner said.

  “I already know it. How do you get past the Coalition fleet?”

  “That’s right, sir. The Coalition has orbital space sewn up tight, to say nothing about the rest of our star system.”

  The consul took a deep breath. “Here’s where the plan gets tricky…”

  -4-

  Tanner made it off Remus, taking two people with him, one of them Greco. After considerable mishaps, he reached Excalibur and drew from the Markus Bank in Gawain Town. The ten thousand credits didn’t last long. Running a Gladius-class raider was expensive and none of the crew had higher-level financial experience.

  It got worse once the Coalition learned about the raiders. They sent destroyers after them, killing the band of brothers one by one. Tanner escaped two traps, learning more each time so the destroyers never cornered him again. Coalition Special Intelligence finally sent Tong assassins after him. Tanner killed an entire team one dark night on Beta Sirius VII. He’d learned bitter lessons in the slums of his youth. On that fatal night, his dirty knife-fighting techniques and monofilament blade trumped the ancient Tong martial arts. Finally, Coalition Special Intelligence made it a free-for-all by putting a bounty on his head.

  Tanner did more than survive—he flourished. He kept the raider running by collecting bounties on notorious criminals or making dangerous runs into deadly star systems for the right price. Each year taught him something new or gave him another scar, driving home an old space-strike lesson to make him more dangerous.

  It bothered Tanner that little of what he did directly helped Remus or hurt the Coalition. Maybe if he knew Consul Maximus better, he would have realized the old man had a method to his long-ranged goal. The fact Tanner and one or two others were alive and well gave Coalition Special Intelligence headaches while giving a few on Remus hope.

  Toward the end of the fourth year of this existence, Tanner finally made a costly miscalculation. He had become seriously low on funds. Then, a possibility showed itself and Tanner went to investigate.

  He didn’t know it yet, but the trip was the start of a terrible calamity.

  ***

  A heavy bump shook the Dark Star. The Gladius-class raider had dropped out of hyperspace back into normal space.

  Tanner took a deep breath. He sat in one of the two seats in the control chamber. There was some standing room behind him before an archway led into a bigger area with crash seats.

  Stars glittered through the port window, one of them a little brighter than the rest. That was the Nostradamus System star, the raider’s destination.

  Tanner began flipping switches and tapping controls. The raider’s diagnostics looked okay until a red signal caught his attention. He tapped a screen. Someone was scanning them. That was odd this far out.

  The Dark Star was one hundred and fifteen AUs from the system’s farthest planetoid, a frozen rock world. Hyperdrive physics meant a ship had to drop out of hyperspace before reaching a deep gravity well or risk sudden implosion.

  There! He had a fix on the scanning object. It—

  Tanner’s jaw dropped as the object went into hyperdrive. It disappeared into hyperspace before he could fully scan it.

  What had just happened? The scanning ship…it had to have been a spaceship, right? An automated device wouldn’t have done something like that, would it? Could it be a Nostradamus device? He doubted it. The thing couldn’t very well have gone in-system with hyperdrive. It would have used hyperspace to head to another star system.

  Could someone have known he was coming to the Nostradamus System? Tanner didn’t see how.

  With growing misgivings, Tanner activated the fusion engine. Nothing happened.

  “Now what?” he grumbled.

  The intra-ship comm came on. “Sorry about that,” Greco said. “I should have told you. I’m working on the atomic coil. Until it’s running smoothly, the fusion core won’t give you efficient service. I took the fusion engine offline.”

  “When did you do this?”

  “I noticed the problem when you were asleep. I thought I could fix it before we left hyperspace.”

  Greco was the mechanic. He kept suggesting a complete overhaul. The Dark Star had seen four years of constant service already. Tanner wanted to know where they would get the money for this overhaul.

  “I’m just saying,” seemed to be Greco’s favorite phrase, as that had been his answer each time.

  Tanner peered out of the port window. The scan bothered him. If the object hadn’t been waiting for the Dark Star, why had it jumped into hyperspace so fast after scanning them?

  He told Greco about it.

  “That does seem weird,” the mechanic said.

  “Maybe we should leave.”

  “What about Jordan?”

  Nelly Jordan was their computer wizard, financial coordinator, bounty job selector and all-around morale officer due to her cheerful nature. At the moment, she was down with Rigellian fever. At the start of the hyperdrive run, the fever had been leveling off and Tanner had figured she would be fine. During hyperdrive, the fever had become steadily worse. Jordan needed a doctor fast.

  “Doctors are supposed to be the best on Calisto Grandee,” Greco said. “It’s a luxury habitat.”

  “The best means the most costly,” Tanner grumbled.

  “We still have a few credits left.”

  “Yeah,” Tanner said. “But did you happen to read the abstract on Calisto Grandee? Everything there costs money. And if you run too low, they assess your remaining assets. Then, they sell them off to pay any outstanding debts while giving you a one-way ticket elsewhere.”

  “What’s your point?” Greco asked.

  “I don’t like getting boxed in.”

  “Meaning what?” Greco asked. “I’m too busy trying to fix this atomic coil to read your mind.”

  Tanner exhaled. “We have a possible client on Calisto Grandee. But it costs credits to dock there. Now, it’s going to cost more credits to pay for Jordan’s doctor. If the client discovers this, she can drop the fee by a considerable amount because we have to take what we can get.”

  “I have the solution to that,” Greco said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Don’t let the cl
ient know how desperate we are.”

  “I suppose you’re right. With Jordan’s fever, we don’t have a choice.” Tanner straightened. “Get the atomic coil ready so we can begin the burn in-system.”

  “Roger,” Greco said. “I should have everything ready in another hour.”

  ***

  Nostradamus System was a key refueling point on the long run from Coalition territory to Earth-controlled space. Most of the interstellar liners stopped here.

  Humanity had burst from the mother planet a long time ago. There were thousands of colony worlds scattered throughout the Orion Arm. In the beginning, there had been an Old Federation. Then, a terrible war had rocked everything, bringing vast destruction and a dark age. Remus and others had eventually climbed back up to hyperdrive technology, finding other worlds in similar straits. In the last hundred years, Earth had begun expanding, creating a New Federation as it brought its wayward children back under its wing.

  In this region of space, the Coalition of Planets was the great power, gobbling up worlds like Remus. Since that war, an Alliance of Planets had arisen to counter the Coalition. Both powers had sent envoys to Earth in order to make sure their opponent didn’t acquire a new, powerful ally. Instead of keeping Earth Force away, though, it was likely going to encourage the Earthmen to play the Coalition against the Alliance.

  That was long-term. In the short term, Remus still groaned under Coalition tyranny. That weighed on Tanner because he felt guilty. He had begun to get a reputation as a successful bounty hunter. Sometimes, he feared he might slide permanently into this new role. Honor demanded he do something to help free his planet. Rage about his sister’s death and Vesuvius’s nuking had turned into a deep hatred against the Coalition. What he could successfully do against the Coalition, though, he had yet to figure out.

  ***

  Greco finished his repairs.

  “The atomic coil will hold for a few more weeks anyway,” he told Tanner.

  “Anything else I should know?” Tanner asked.

  Greco shook his head.

  “Okay. Get some shuteye, then. You look terrible.”

  “You’re just jealous,” Greco said. “You know all the girls on Calisto Grandee will run to me.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Better check your temperature while you’re at it. I don’t want you catching the fever.”

  “That’s not going to happen. My genes are different enough the Rigellian fever can’t touch me.”

  “Right,” Tanner said.

  The planet Avernus was hot and a little too close to the Remus System star. During the Dark Age when most worlds had collapsed into pre-industrialism, the few humans on Avernus had gone through what some said were rapid evolutionary changes. A man from Avernus rarely impregnated someone from a different planet, while outsiders could never get an Avernus woman pregnant. It was true that few had tried. There were academic, scientific debates about whether those of Avernus had mutated into a true subspecies or not.

  One look at Greco’s simian features should have convinced anyone.

  The two parted company, Greco going to his quarters and Tanner back to the bridge.

  With the atomic coil back online, Tanner plotted a course to the huge gas giant gleaming on his star chart. The Nostradamus System lacked any terrestrial worlds. Instead, vast domes dotted various moons. The biggest places, though, were giant space habitats called gigahabs. Calisto Grandee was the most luxurious and orbited a stupendous gas giant called Titan.

  According to Jordan’s collected data, atmospheric mining brought trillions of credits to the corporations on Calisto Grandee. They also serviced many of the space liners stopping at the Nostradamus System for fuel.

  Soon, Tanner engaged the fusion drive. He decided to push it, adding extra acceleration, making it a 2 G ride. It was going to be uncomfortable during the journey, but the sooner he could get Jordan to a doctor, the better.

  It took time accelerating, coasting and then decelerating at 2 G’s. Nostradamus Corporation—it ran the system’s security—hailed Dark Star, granting Tanner permission to head for the Calisto Grandee gigahab.

  Tanner tried to contact his client. She was not accepting any messages at this time. He tried three more times with the same luck.

  Jordan’s fever worsened during the 2 G fusion burn. That left Tanner even less leeway in choices.

  “What do you think about our client not accepting calls?” he asked Greco during deceleration. They played billiards in the rec room.

  The apeman lined up a shot. “Don’t like it a bit,” Greco said, “seems screwy.”

  “Like a trap?”

  Greco looked up. “Are you serious or are you just trying to mess with my concentration?”

  “Maybe a little of both,” Tanner said, smirking.

  With his stick, Greco bumped the cue ball. It rolled in the 2 G’s to touch the nine, which slowly eased into the left corner pocket.

  Standing, Greco laid the stick over his right shoulder. He walked around the table, examining the green cloth. “The woman’s a recluse, huh?” he asked, referring to the client.

  Tanner nodded.

  “It could be as simple as that, then,” Greco said. “She’s not ready to talk yet.”

  “Is that what you really think?”

  “I’m the mechanic. It doesn’t matter what I think.”

  Tanner looked away. Greco was still sore about something he’d said along those lines two years ago.

  “I think we’re walking into a trap,” Tanner said.

  Greco bent over the table, lining up his shot. “Do we have enough to pay for Jordan’s treatment?”

  “They’re going to quarantine her, make us go through a thorough examination.”

  “Problem solved,” Greco said. “Nostradamus Corporation will pay for it.”

  “Things don’t work like that here. We’re charged for whatever they do. I’m beginning to wonder if we should turn around and go back.”

  Greco straightened, looking worried. “Jordan won’t survive that. She’s been coughing up blood.”

  Tanner said nothing. For a split second, he wondered how important Jordan’s life was compared to the mission to save Remus.

  Maybe Greco saw that in his eyes. “You can’t be serious, boss. Jordan is one of us. If we don’t stand by each other, what do we have?”

  Tanner almost said, “Honor.” Greco didn’t think like that, though. Everything was personal for those from Avernus.

  “Yeah,” Tanner said. “We pay to fix Jordan. We hope the client is playing it straight, and if not, we have to implement Plan B.”

  “What’s Plan B?” Greco asked, as he lined up his shot again.

  Tanner chewed on his lower lip. He was still working on that.

  -5-

  Three weeks later, the gamble had just about played itself out. There hadn’t been a client on Calisto Grandee. It must have been a trap after all, an extremely clever one meant to draw a troublesome Vesuvius street kid to this system where credits were law.

  What made everything worse was that Tanner didn’t even know if Jordan was all right or not. She and Greco were in lockup because of their lack of credits, pending transportation out-system. The docking fees had been much too pricey. And to cap it all off, he hadn’t been able to get any kind of work on Calisto Grandee, not even as a burger clerk. He’d tried twice to get work under the table. Each time, the person had looked aghast, as if Tanner had asked to have sex with their mother.

  Now, Tanner’s eyes ached from a lack of sleep. He’d been on the move for the past sixty-two hours. Maybe he wasn’t thinking straight anymore. It had been four days since he’d eaten and he was almost out of water.

  His legs felt like rubber. He needed to rest. He stopped, leaned against a stanchion and almost closed his eyes. That would be a mistake. Crowds passed him, either enjoying the star view or heading to the bazaar. If he wasn’t careful, someone would notice his weariness. It would only be a matter of time then befor
e a concerned citizen notified a member of the vagrancy squad. If the VS found his credit score was below the gigahab’s minimum…

  Tanner almost shoved off the stanchion to stagger away. Then, he noticed a woman eyeing him. She seemed suspicious, maybe understanding the strain in his eyes. He was exhausted.

  Don’t just stand here like an idiot.

  Tanner reached back with what seemed like slow motion. He unhooked his water bottle, working to keep his hand from shaking. His weakness goaded him, giving him a spark of animation. He grinned at the matron as he flicked off the cap.

  She looked away, blushing, hurrying past him.

  Despite his thirst, Tanner only allowed himself a sip. He had to make the water last. The fountain was on the other side of the gigahab. It was a vast, wheel-shaped, slowly spinning habitat. It would take a good twelve hours of walking through public passageways to get back to the fountain.

  Tanner wore a leather jacket and boots. The duty constables had made him check his gun and knife in before they’d let him onto the habitat to search for his client.

  Maybe he could sell his gun to raise his credit score enough to give him another two days leeway. There was no way he was going to sell his monofilament blade.

  Tanner rested on the S2 C5 promenade deck with a vast viewing port showing stars and the northern pole region of the gas giant Titan.

  He stiffened. In the reflection of the viewing port, he saw a woman pointing at him. Two others nodded who looked like cops.

  As Tanner hooked the water bottle onto his belt, he lurched toward the bazaar.

  Walk steady, friend. Nice and easy does it.

  In order to ease his nervousness, Tanner flexed his hands. If the vagrancy squad caught him, they would take him to a judge. The judge would see his only assets were his gun and the Gladius-class raider. The judge would put Dark Star up for auction to pay for Tanner’s many fees. And that would be the end of his quest to free Remus and screw the Coalition. It was a brilliant plan on someone’s part. To add to the insult, the Nostradamus Corporation would use the proceeds from the auction to pay for a starliner ticket to the next system, which held a rocky prison planet for people like him.