Orbital Decay (Galaxy Mavericks Book 7)

by Michael La Ronn

  “Aren’t they extraordinary?” Miloschenko asked.

  The Planet Eaters continued to spread upon free fall into the atmosphere.

  Devika struggled against her chains.

  “What are they?” she asked.

  “An alien race that feasts upon the living,” Miloschenko said. His eyes were frenzied, as if he had been waiting a long time for this moment. It was the most energized that Florian had seen him on the entire trip. “Dark matter that disobeys the rules of science and everything we thought was true about this universe.”

  Florian blocked out their conversation, studying the black ink-like aliens. He had never seen anything like it. He didn’t know what to say.

  The Planet Eaters spread across the planet like a thunderstorm on a gas giant, swirling. Their red eyes flashed like lightning and they swallowed the calm, brown clouds.

  “They’re seeing some great numbers on the observation deck,” a scientist said. “The planet density is slowly changing. We’re seeing slight temperature variations. They’re blocking all direct sunlight.”

  Florian wanted to curse. These scientists knew a lot more about this alien race than they should have. He wondered how they could have kept something like this secret for so long.

  “Excellent,” Miloschenko said. “Things are progressing as we expected.”

  “We’re seeing movement on the surface,” a female scientist said. “Looks like whoever’s down there just caught wind of what’s coming.”

  “That will make things interesting,” Miloschenko said.

  “We’ve got several corsairs taking to the sky,” the female scientist said. “At this rate they’ll never escape.”

  Devika winced.

  Florian knew this was his chance to interrupt and control the conversation now. He’d done enough watching.

  He threw some nuts into his mouth and chewed.

  “Now, this is one hell of a product demonstration,” Florian said.

  Miloschenko grunted. “About time you understand the value we bring to this deal.”

  “So help me understand a little better,” Florian said, strolling toward the window where Miloschenko stood. “What exactly am I buying? Those aliens?”

  “They’re not for sale,” Miloschenko said. “Such a life form has no price. After all, we’re bound to Rah Accord, so we cannot charge money directly for a living thing. The Arguses would have to take the money upfront, and I don’t trust those goddamned pigs with their own hooves, much less an expensive sum of money.”

  “Ah,” Florian said, stopping at the window. “So, I pay you to keep the aliens and you send them wherever I need them to go.”

  “Exactly. We would conduct future sieges from unmarked ships.”

  “Ah. So what I’m buying is fear.”

  Huxley approached the weapons room with several staff behind him. A scientist in a white coat exited the room and was typing something on his tablet.

  “Excuse me,” Hux said.

  The scientist looked up. “What?”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know where to find the restroom, would you?”

  The scientist turned and pointed down the hall, gave directions.

  When he turned around, Hux punched him in the face. The staff grabbed him and Hux swiped the ID badge off the scientist’s coat, using it to enter the room.

  Quickly and swiftly, they entered the munitions room and began to stock up.

  “Fear,” Florian said, “of losing everything… Shape up or we’ll eat you… Mess with me or I’ll have the Planet Eaters expel you in a bout of astral diarrhea…”

  The scientists stared at him, their mouths agape.

  Florian shrugged.

  “I guess that wouldn’t translate so well into a slogan, so maybe we’ll keep the marketing strictly physical,” Florian said, shoving the last scraps of pecans into his mouth. He pulled a red handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his hands with it. Then he pulled out a small bottle of hand sanitizer, dousing his hands.

  “How much?” Florian asked.

  “Same price,” Miloschenko said. “Discount of five percent if you buy today.”

  “Screw your little dumbass discount,” Florian said. “You think I want to get out of bed in the morning over goddamned five percent?”

  “Seven,” Miloschenko said, “plus all the benefits of working with me. Direct access to the emperor.”

  Florian sighed. Then he pointed at Devika.

  “What do you think, little orphan Devi?”

  “Since when did my opinion matter?” Devika asked.

  Florian shrugged again.

  “Well, Tavin, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  Florian extended his hand.

  Miloschenko puffed and took Florian’s hand.

  “You’ll be happy with this,” Miloschenko said.

  “No doubt,” Florian said, glancing outside. He fingered a knife just under his sleeve. He pulled Miloschenko close, whispering.

  “You’re too stupid to live,” he said.

  Miloschenko’s eyes widened as Florian jammed the knife into his gut and twisted.

  Florian ripped the knife out. Miloschenko toppled to the floor.

  The scientists screamed and scrambled.

  But coilshots rang out.

  One by one, the scientists fell.

  Florian’s staff—they were shooting.

  Shots sounded all over the ship.

  Screaming.

  Yelling.

  Then quiet.

  Florian stood over Miloschenko’s body. Blood dripped from the knife.

  “Thanks for the gift,” Florian said. “but the thing is, I don’t actually have any money right now. My auntie wouldn’t have approved of using corporate funds to pay for this.”

  Miloschenko coughed up blood. His body shook as he went into shock. He clutched a golden pendant in his hand, sputtering.

  “Let’s roll!” Florian shouted to his staff. “We need to collect those damned things and make sure they don’t escape.”

  The staff threw the dead and dying scientists on the floor. Then they took control of the ship’s scientific systems.

  Outside, the Planet Eaters swarmed over the planet. Only bits of blue shone through. The entire planet was shrouded in darkness.

  Except for a stream of light rocketing away from the atmosphere…

  A corsair.

  It was escaping. A tendril of Planet Eaters chased after it, billowing angrily.

  The tendril turned into a claw as the ship sped out of the atmosphere.

  An explosion of purple erupted from the ship—the claw swiped but came up empty as the ship disappeared into hyperspace.

  “Rats,” Florian said, punching the window. “Rats! Can we chase that ship?”

  “Negative, boss,” Hux said. “This thing drives like a boat. We’d never catch it in time.”

  Florian watched the purple stitch of light disappear.

  “Fine,” he said. “Stick with the plan.”

  The staff grabbed the bodies and began to pile them up. One man ran into the room with a dolly, and they stacked the bodies on it.

  “Regina VII,” Florian said. “Dump them into the star and I don’t want to freaking hear any excuses, you hear me?”

  “Yes, sir,” the staff members at once.

  A staff member reached for Miloschenko’s legs, but Florian stopped him.

  “No. Tavin stays.”

  Then Florian kicked Miloschenko’s body several times. A golden flash fell from the dead man’s hand.

  The pendant. It flipped over, revealing words scratched into the back. But it slid into the corner, out of sight.

  Florian puffed.

  And then the radio crackled.

  Everyone stopped.

  “Incoming distress signal,” the ship’s computer said.

  A female voice sounded from the speakers.

  “My name is Keltie Sheffield and I’m in danger. I was on the planet Kepler and I’ve been attacked b
y aliens. Please help me. I’m in a corsair at coordinates one point two nine five four three seven.”

  “Dammit!” Florian said.

  “Should we go after her?” Hux asked.

  “No,” Florian said. “Every ship and military base within ten light-years will have heard it. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  He folded his arms.

  “Who do we have that can speak pig?” Florian asked. “Tell them to call our porky in the short arm. Tell his team to wipe her out. If they do it, no one will trace it to us.”

  “Yes, boss,” Hux said.

  “Where’s the super soldier?” Florian asked.

  “Down on Coppice, still,” Tatiana said. “He didn’t come back.”

  “I want him,” Florian said, staring out the window. “God, what I could do with a super soldier like that! Send somebody to keep an eye on him.”

  “What about his programming?” Tatiana asked. “How would we reverse it?”

  Florian shrugged. “No idea. But I want him!”

  “Yes, boss,” the staff said at once.

  Florian looked over at Devika. He couldn’t believe she was still conscious.

  “Why haven’t you idiots taken care of her yet?” he shouted.

  Two men shot the glass tube that held Devika. She closed her eyes as the polycarbonate glass cracked, crumpled, and fell away.

  Florian stood in front of her until her eyes opened.

  “You’re watching the greatest takeover of all time and you decide to close your eyes?” he asked.

  Before Devika could respond, Florian jumped up and struck her in the head with the handle of his knife.

  “How are we on fingerprints?” Florian asked.

  “They’re all over,” Hux said. “Like a scene from a movie.”

  “You’re sure all our fingerprints are gone?” he asked.

  “Positive, boss,” Hux said.

  Devika’s body lay beneath Florian’s feet. She was breathing and badly bruised.

  “Good,” Florian said. “I’m not going to jail over this.”

  “What are we supposed to do now?” Tatiana asked. Her voice was frantic.

  “We improvise,” Florian said. “But first, we need to get off this ship.”

  Part VIII

  Decay

  25

  As his private ship zoomed through hyperspace, Florian sat on the bridge and read through Smoke’s scientific and medical files. It had taken him a long time to get acquainted his new product, but it had been worth it.

  What he saw made him cringe, particularly a paragraph from the opening page:

  [Date purged]: System update to ocular nerves and central nervous system via cybernetic implants, which are switched on. Breakthrough in our in-house memory construction and deconstruction. Product can no longer speak without synapses activating preprogrammed responses. Product able to predominantly perform head nods, shrugs, and shakes. Unless access code of [purged] is administered, product will be quiet and emotionless. In the event access code is administered, product will experience extreme chemical imbalance unless careful medication is applied. Destroy if activated.

  “Access code,” Florian said. “Hmm, Tavin didn’t say anything about that.”

  He turned the page but didn’t find a code among the medical chart.

  “Hux! Tati!” he said. “Did any of you hear Miloschenko say anything about a passcode?”

  Hux and Tatiana shook their heads.

  “Damn,” Florian said. “We downloaded their database, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, but there are no access codes,” Tatiana said. “I’ll have someone comb through it again, but I’m fairly certain.”

  “What could it possibly be?” Florian asked. “If we get custody of that soldier, it’ll be no good if I can’t control him. Crap!”

  Florian thought back to his encounters with Miloschenko.

  He remembered the man’s dead body.

  A pendant around his neck.

  Hadn’t it had words etched in the back?

  Why hadn’t he grabbed it?

  “The pendant,” Florian said. “He was keeping that access code close to his chest, literally.”

  Florian kicked a nearby control panel.

  “Turn around,” he said to the skipper.

  “But sir, we already turned the ship over to that clandestine wrecker that you told us to use,” the skipper said. “It has been several hours since. Our man probably dumped it in a garbage drop-off by now. If it went through a compactor—”

  Florian sighed.

  “The ship had a beacon on it, right?” he asked. “Let’s trace it.”

  The ship burst out of hyperspace.

  “Not good, sir,” the skipper said.

  Outside, they watched as a garbage ship zoomed by, towing hundreds of giant garbage cubes behind it.

  “I need that code,” Florian said. “I don’t care if we have to take that ship out.”

  “But sir, it’s extremely—”

  Florian grabbed the skipper by the shoulders and threw him out of the seat.

  “If you can’t follow orders, I’ll handle this myself,” he said, grabbing the control stick.

  Florian kept his distance and used a systems tracker to follow the garbage ship. He watched as the ship landed in a transfer station shaped like a disk.

  “Here’s the plan,” Florian said, as the disk began to activate, “we’ll wait for the garbage man to fire the cubes into the star. Then once he’s gone, we’ll intercept the garbage shots and grab the ship. Then we’ll send the garbage back on its course into Regina VII.”

  The staff members nodded.

  “Sir, the beacon didn’t fire with the garbage shots,” the skipper said.

  “What!” Florian cried.

  Sure enough, the blinking beacon on the systems tracker was still beeping in place at the Upper Arm Transfer Station.

  “Why didn’t he fire it?” Florian asked.

  Then his heart sank.

  He clenched his fists.

  Whoever was in that transfer station must have discovered the ship.

  “Cut off the lights,” Florian said, steering.

  He had been following the garbage ship, which was now empty of its cubes, for several miles.

  “Ship’s on autopilot,” the skipper said.

  “Perfect,” Florian said.

  He pulled up on the throttle and the ship rocketed ahead of the garbage ship. Then with a jerky motion, he turned the ship around and started on a collision course with it.

  A computer on the ship beeped.

  “Collision imminent,” the computer said.

  Soon, a voice came onto the radio.

  “Hey, do you not see me? This is a garbage ship. I can’t exactly turn in a moment’s notice here.”

  Silence.

  “Do you hear me?” the voice asked. “Divert your ship.”

  Silence.

  “Divert your ship!” the garbage man cried.

  Silence.

  Prolonged silence.

  When the garbage man threatened to fire, Florian opened the radio and said, “Give us the body.”

  But the garbage ship jumped into hyperspace.

  “Not so fast!” Florian cried, following.

  Florian chased the garbage ship through hyperspace and they exited at full speed.

  The gas giant of Alpha Distoid lay before them.

  “Welcome to your death wish,” Florian said.

  “Wait!” the garbage man said, slowing his ship. “I’ll give you the body.”

  The garbage ship airlock opened, and the pioneer ship drifted out.

  “Do you think he’s telling the truth?” Hux asked.

  “Don’t care,” Florian said. He opened the ship’s guns and fired, striking the inside of the garbage ship’s airlock. A green, white and red corsair flew out into space, on fire.

  But before Florian could respond, the garbage ship rocketed back into hyperspace, using the planet’s orbit to
get a head start.

  He watched the garbage ship jump into hyperspace, unable to follow.

  “Let him go,” Florian said. “Send out a crew and get the pendant.”

  “Sir, the body isn’t here,” a staff member said on the radio.

  Florian’s eyes widened.

  “What do you mean it’s not there?” he asked, incredulous.

  He slid out of the skipper’s chair and paced the bridge.

  “Damn,” he said. “Damn, damn, damn, damn!”

  He cursed and screamed.

  “Why is my plan being foiled by a fucking garbage man?” Florian cried.

  No one in the room said anything.

  Florian’s chest heaved up and down.

  “I’m not going to jail,” he said. “Do you hear me? I don’t care how many other people we have to kill. We’re going to find that bastard and we’re going to get that body at all costs!”

  “Boss,” Hux said, pointing at the green corsair on fire in the middle of space, “maybe searching that ship is a good start.”

  Florian stopped and looked at the corsair. His face hardened.

  “Yes, perhaps it is…”

  26

  “Chief Vargas, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” Florian said.

  On a video conference screen in the bridge, a nervous-looking police chief looked back at him from the safety of a dark room. He was a portly man with a large potbelly.

  “How are those new police cars working out for you?” Florian asked.

  “Good,” Ted Vargas said. “Wouldn’t mind a few more if you’ve got the money to spare.”

  “A little unfortunate news,” Florian said. “I’m no longer in Non-Profit. As far as I know, the company will still support police efforts on Refugio.”

  “That is unfortunate,” Vargas said. “But something tells me that’s not why you’re calling.”

  Florian held up a tablet and in front of his face and read from it.

  “What can you tell me about the following gentleman: Eduardo Puente, Address 56 Rockaway Trail…apparently he’s a resident of your lovely moon.”

  “Eddie?” Vargas asked. “I’ve known Eddie all his life. His dad’s a good friend of mine.”