by A A Warren
Chapter Six
PLANET GESA
The Gyre, Wild Space
A few days later…
Talon wiped sweat from his brow. He grunted as he twisted the torque-spanner one more time, locking the power coupling in place. He lay on the stone floor of small rented launch pad, farther up the spire from the dusty windswept streets of Legaras. Wedged beneath the rear starboard thruster pod of his ship, all he could see were rows of power relays and transfer coils, hanging in his face behind an open access panel. The stench of coolant gas assaulted his nostrils, and a sheen of sweat and grease covered his skin.
He tapped the comm unit on his harness. “The new transfer coils are in place,” he said. “Power up the dark energy cell.”
“This unit calculates that dark energy levels are still insufficient to open a star-path.” The voice in Talon’s ear was a cold, inhuman monotone. Although the repair mech’s official designation was Utu-M1977, its AI inhibitors forbid it from referring to itself by name, or any pronouns used by organic creatures. Many systems even frowned on giving mech’s vocal synthesizers. Some units could only ‘speak’ in a series of beeps and chimes, a universal code that required a wrist display to decipher.
Talon was beginning to wish he had purchased one of those models.
The voice continued droning in his ear. “This unit recommends —”
“Utu, I don’t give a vermirak’s tail what you recommend,” Talon snapped. “Every minute we spend on this dusty rock is a minute too long. Power up the cell.”
“Very well. This unit will comply.”
Talon knew the short, gangly mech was stationed in the craft’s engine room, where it had interfaced with the main computer. From there, it could control and monitor the ship’s vital systems, diverting power to whatever area needed it most.
Above him, a row of indicators near the new power coupling glowed to life, bathing the cramped, narrow enclosure in a faint blue light. A low hum emitted from the transfer coil, and the air crackled with energy.
“There, you see!” Talon exclaimed. “I told you this coupling would solve the—”
Before he could finish his sentence, the hum turned to a mechanical shriek, and the lights glowed bright red. A shower of sparks cascaded from the panel, burning Talon’s skin as they fell to the grounds.
“Enough!” Talon shouted. “Cut the power! Quickly, before—”
A trail of sparks arced along the underside of the craft, following the transfer coil into the innards of the thruster pod. Talon twisted sideways, as a small explosion vibrated through the rear hull.
“Iberon’s harem!” Talon cursed. “Did we blow the relays?”
“Confirming now,” the mech answered back. “Perhaps if you used your reward to purchase higher quality parts, rather than the animal carcass hanging beneath this platform, this test would have succeeded.”
Talon grit his teeth and clutched the torque-spanner in his fist. “The meat is for our new friend. He’s already proven more useful to me than a surly repair mech like yourself. Perhaps I’ll come into the engine bay and discuss it with you in person. But I warn you, I have little funds remaining to repair your—”
“This unit would like to inquire if you have paid the rental fee for the landing platform?”
Talon paused. Something in the mech’s tone made him uneasy. “Aye, we’re paid up till the end of the week. Why do you ask?”
“Six men have just exited the elevator on the spire side of the platform. They are heading this way. And their appearance is… unpleasant.”
Talon muttered a silent curse and turned his head. Sure enough, he could see several pairs of boots, marching towards him across the platform. He twisted his neck in the opposite direction. His plasma axe lay on the floating work bench, near the other side of the landing pad. It was only a few meters away, but Talon knew it was hopelessly out of reach.
Keeping a grip on the heavy metal tool, he slid out from under the ship, as the intruders fanned out around him. He recognized them instantly. Tattered leather clothes, puckered scar tissue surrounding cheap cybernetic implants… It was the wing-rider gang from the Silver Sobek. The men whose animal he had stolen in pursuit of Sukal.
Most of the gang were armed with blades and neural whips, but two of the leather-clad men carried heavy pulse pistols. They swung the guns back and forth, making exaggerated movements and poses as they laughed and cackled.
Fools, Talon thought. But well-armed fools none the less…
He wiped his hands on a rag, then leaned against the ship, resting his arm on a protruding coolant valve. One of the men stepped closer. His skin was pale and his face had a round cherubic look. His spiked hair was a vibrant neon blue.
“Yeah, there you are, makula. What happened, tough guy? You say we meet in arena, settle things up, no?”
“I took pity on you,” Talon said, glaring back at the thug. “And on your beast. Even a one-eyed vermirak deserves a better rider than the likes of you.”
The man laughed. “Ah, you like my bird, eh? Want to keep him for yourself?” He nodded and glanced down at the sword he held in his hand, running a finger along the glittering edge. “Okay, maybe we work something out?”
Talon chuckled. “Very well. Let me make you an offer. Take your mangy curs, get back in that lift car, and leave this platform. Then, jump into the poison sea. Saves me the trouble of throwing you in myself.”
The leader laughed again. He looked up and met Talon’s stare. His pupils were wide and black. He pointed at Talon with his blade and stepped closer. “Big man. Big talk. But there’s six of us, and only one of you. So I think we take that pretty eye of yours instead, eh?”
He stepped closer, and tapped the point of his blade against Talon’s chest. “What you say about that, big man?”
Talon grinned. “I say, thank you.”
The gang leader gave him a quizzical look. The pistol-wielding thugs shifted their weight back and forth as they lowered their weapons.
“Huh? You crazy? Thank me for what?”
“For coming into range,” Talon replied. He yanked down on the coolant valve’s purge lever. A jet of hot steam blasted out. The gang leader screamed and stumbled back as the vapor scalded his face.
Talon dropped to the ground and rolled under the ship. The two pistol-wielding thugs opened fire, but the haze-filled air obscured Talon’s body beneath the hull. Sparks cascaded around him, as their glowing pulse bolts scorched the metal plating.
Popping up on the opposite side of the vessel, Talon sprinted towards the floating work bench. A loud screech pierced the air, stopping him in his tracks. He glanced up, as a shadow loomed over him.
“Orion’s blazing bow,” he gasped. Another gang member swooped towards him, mounted on the back of a vicious looking razor-wing. A pair of light pulse canons hung from both sides of the beast’s riding harness. Talon ducked beneath the ship’s wing as the weapons blazed to life. A high-pitched whine cut through the air, and a trail of glowing energy bolts strafed the platform where he had been standing. A cloud of rubble and debris flew up, as the powerful weapons punched sizzling holes in the stone.
Talon peered under the ship… one of the armed men was crouched below the hull, making his way toward him. The boots of the other men were advancing around the front and rear sections. Talon grit his teeth as the flying beast swung around for another pass. The glowing bolts screamed closer to his position, tearing up more chunks of the platform.
Suddenly, another roar echoed above him. He heard the flap of wings, and a burst of wind rushed overhead.
With an angry howl, the razor-wing he had ridden earlier streaked into the sky, flying out from under the landing platform. It collided with the other creature in mid-air. The two animals spun and fell toward the ground, their claws digging into each other’s hides.
The furious attack threw the startled rider of the gang’s animal out of his saddle. He screamed as he fell through the air. Then he struck the ground w
ith a loud crack.
Talon’s lips curled into a grin. He raced over to the rider’s corpse and tugged a pistol from the man’s belt. As the armed gang member emerged from under the ship, Talon opened fire, sending a barrage of energy bolts streaking towards him.
The man ducked back under the ship, as sparks erupted from the hull. Talon glanced up… the two enraged creatures dove towards him, plummeting from the air in a tangled, writhing mass of leathery skin and claws. At the last second, they broke off. He felt the wind lift his hair as the two animals swooped above him.
Racing towards the hover bench, Talon fired wild, covering his path. As he reached the floating cart, he felt his feet shift beneath him. The landing platform shimmied and wobbled.
The pulse canon, he thought. Those blasts must have damaged the support struts!
Grabbing his axe, he tapped the transponder on his harness. “Utu, fire up the thrusters! You have to lift off!”
“This unit has not yet prepared the—”
“The platform is unstable,” Talon shouted. “Lift off now, or the salvage gangs will fish both our bodies from the rubble when this thing collapses!”
Chapter Seven
Talon holstered his pistol and slipped his hand into a metal gauntlet that lay on the floating bench. The landing platform trembled again. He steadied himself, barely able to maintain his balance as a pulse bolt struck the ground next to him. Spinning around, he powered up his axe. The glowing blade blocked another energy bolt, as one of the armed men rounded the stern of the ship.
The man turned in surprise, as the vessel’s thruster jets roared to life. He stumbled away from the ship, gasping and coughing as another burst of plasma exhaust filled the air.
Uttering a fierce battle cry, Talon hurled the axe towards him. The glowing blade spun in a circle, streaking towards the armed man. With a loud hum, it tore through the gang members neck. His body stood rigid for a moment, as his head toppled from his shoulders, and bounced across the ground. Then the corpse went limp, and collapsed to the platform.
Talon held out his gloved hand. The spinning plasma axe emitted a high-pitched cry. It changed course in mid-air, flying back towards him. Reaching back, Talon grinned as he caught the spinning weapon in the gauntlet, plucking it from the air.
Another volley of pulse bolts erupted before him, tearing into the platform at his feet. Talon ducked and zig-zagged towards his attackers, deflecting some of the glowing bolts with a well-timed swing of his axe. The platform shook again… the hover cart slid across the shifting stone, and toppled over the side.
“What in blazes?” one of the gang members shouted as he struggled to maintain his footing. “The platform is falling off the—”
Before the thug could finish his sentence, Talon was upon him. He slashed with his fiery axe, and the gang member fell to the ground. Talon whirled around, blocking a sword strike from a nearby enemy. A deafening squawk sounded above him. Talon kicked his attacker in the gut, sending him careening across the platform. Then he dipped under the hovering ship, as the battling razor-wings crashed to the ground. The massive beasts crushed the gang member beneath their heaving bodies.
Their impact sent a fissure rippling through the platform. The stone slab dipped at a steeper angle. The two avian creatures slashed at each other with their wings and claws, as they tumbled to the edge of the sloping platform.
The ship rose higher into the air. Talon put his fingers to his mouth and whistled. The razor-wing he had befriended swung its head around and howled. Raking its claws across the other beast’s snout, the animal flapped its wings and took off. A spider web of cracks ran across the platform, and the rock beneath the injured animal crumbled away. It uttered a panicked screech as it plummeted down, spinning towards the swirling gas below.
Talon struggled to stay on his feet. The scream of torn metal echoed beneath the platform. “Utu, open the ramp!”
With a loud hum, a panel on the hovering ship lowered, allowing access to the rear cabin. Talon powered down his axe and slid it into his harness. He leapt up, grabbing the edge of the open ramp. As he hung on by his fingertips, more crashes arose from the platform… The shearing force of the collapsing landing pad had weakened the entire rock spire, dislodging stones and boulders from above. He heard a loud clank, as falling debris struck the hull above him.
“Utu, get us out of here!” Glancing over his shoulder, he saw his razor-wing swooping right and left, dodging the falling rocks.
Grunting with exertion, Talon heaved his body up onto the ramp. Suddenly, he slipped, and fell. One of his arms slipped off the ramp, as a heavy weight tugged at his legs. He was left dangling by one arm.
Looking down, he saw the manic eyes and spiked blue hair of the gang leader glaring back at him. The man’s face was a horrid mass of burns and blisters, scalded by the red-hot mist. Screaming an unintelligible curse, he clawed at Talon’s breeches, struggling to pull himself up into the ship as the platform collapsed below them.
Talon kicked the hanging man in the face. “Off with you, coward! Join your friends in the Haunted Stars!”
The man slipped down Talon’s leg, but he maintained his white knuckled grip. Talon felt his fingers slipping from the ramp, as the ship drifted further away from the platform.
He kicked again. Then he threw up his free arm, reaching for the ramp’s hydraulic strut as the wind buffeted his swaying body. A loud screech drowned out the wind. He looked down…
A dark maw of jagged fangs gaped below the two men. It blotted out the sky and the swirling orange clouds of gas… it was all they could see. Talon tightened his grip on the landing strut. He felt a sudden tug on his legs, then an enormous pressure lifting him up into the air. It was all he could do to maintain his precarious grip, as a shriek of pain cried from behind him.
The razor-wing swooped past, carrying the gang leader impaled on its fangs. The creature shook its head back and forth, then tossed the limp carcass into the air. The body plummeted through the clouds, disappearing in the dust and rubble of the collapsing platform.
The beast roared in triumph. It flapped its wings and changed course, keeping pace with the ship as they sped away from the rock spire.
Talon pulled himself up on the ramp. He balanced on shaky legs and panted for breath as he observed the destruction below. With a metallic groan, the final support beam gave way. In the distance, the stone platform crumbled apart, tearing more chunks of rubble from the spire as it fell into oblivion.
Talon shook his head and slammed a fist into a glowing access panel. As the ramp closed behind him, he paced down a narrow corridor. The lights flickered, and sparks erupted from power relays as he marched past his cabin and entered the bridge.
Utu hovered in the co-pilot seat. One of the mech’s eight spindly metal limbs was plugged into an interface port on the control panel. As Talon sat down and strapped himself into the pilot’s sweat, he glanced out the sloped cockpit window. In the distance, the razor-wing swooped and darted through the clouds, flapping its great wings as it performed a series of aerial acrobatics.
“At least one of us can savor our victory,” Talon grunted. The ship lurched, as the thruster jets’ power fluctuated.
“Utu, how bad is the damage?” he asked, as he re-directed energy from other systems to keep them in the air.
The mech was silent for a moment as it accessed a damage report from the ship’s computer. Two of its glowing eye stalks rotated towards Talon. “The power surge has rendered the new conduits inoperative. They will have to be replaced if you wish to open a star-path powerful enough to return to the Dominion.”
“Iberon’s harem… how much will that cost?”
Two more of the mech’s eyes spun to face him. “Unknown. Local inventory does not list any for sale. However, this unit would assume the remains of your bounty will be insufficient. Especially if you intend to keep feeding that… creature.”
Talon uttered a bitter laugh. “That creature saved my life twice t
oday. As far as I’m concerned, it can have all the meat it wants. Prepare to take us into orbit.”
“By your command,” the mech replied, turning its eyes to the navigation controls.
Talon pivoted his chair to face a small hyper-transmission console. He opened a channel, and a glowing image of Marshal Waylan flickered in the air.
“Well, look who it is,” the marshal drawled. “Nice timing. I just received a hyper-transmission about you. Something about a damaged landing platform and an unlicensed razor-wing?”
“Never mind that,” Talon replied. He glanced out the window at the swooping razor-wing. He gritted his teeth and sighed, then turned back to the glowing hologram of the marshal. “The bounty on the murderer… Orvane Raygor. You said it’s ten times the reward for Sukal?”
The old man grinned and gave Talon a wink. “That’s about right, yeah. What’s it to you? I thought you were leaving the Gyre?”
“It would seem,” Talon muttered, “that my circumstances have changed.”
Waylon chuckled. “All right. I’ll put you down for the contract. We can deduct the damages for the platform from the reward.”
Talon nodded. “Very well. Send me his last known location. I’ll report when I have news.” He reached for the controls to kill the transmission, but the hologram zoomed in on Waylan’s face. The man gave him a concerned look.
“Transmitting coordinates now. And kid, look… Like I told you, I’ve been doing this for years. I’m no stranger to blood. But a man that could kill like this… human, alien, whatever… That’s not a man who should be breathing. The bounty’s the same on this one, dead or alive. You want my advice? Make it dead.”
Talon nodded. “So be it.”
The transmission flickered out. Utu guided the ship through the clouds, as a new transmission blinked into his screen. “This unit has received a hyper-transmission from Marshal Waylan,” the mech said. “Subject’s last known location was the planet Kharis, in the Leone System.”
