Cut and Run: From the Athena Lee Universe (Smuggle Life Book 3)

by T S Paul

  Aldis agreed with him. As much as he was glad to be off the ship and in the mix, being trapped in a box wasn’t what he called glorious.

  “I just hope this doesn’t go bad,” Aldis said. The last thing he wanted to do was fight pirates. He had no idea what to expect.

  After a while, the truck slowed and eventually stopped. It couldn’t be at the Dragon Corp. yet. It was on the other side of town, a good hour trip. This wasn’t long enough.

  Cody stood. “Something wrong?”

  “I think so,” Aldis replied.

  The rear opened up, and Jason was there. He smiled. “Hey, guys. I’m sorry about this.”

  “About?” Cody asked.

  Jason stepped to the side, and Drake appeared with four men.

  “Well,” Drake said. “Just who you said. A shame it isn’t my sister, but you two will have to do. “

  Aldis’s hand went to his gun.

  “Don’t even bother,” Drake said.

  Just then, the area around them exploded. Aldis looked up, and a small shuttle from the Rossi was there. It slammed on the ground and sent sparks into the air.

  The shuttle slid to a stop next to the truck. Drake had dived out the way, but the others weren’t so lucky. Jason laid on the ground lifeless. Aldis couldn’t believe what he was thinking, but he was glad the man was dead.

  On the top of the craft, the hatch opened, and Parker stepped out with Nicole right behind her. Never in all his life had Aldis been so happy to see the CATT. He jumped down to the ground and watched Drake run away for his life.

  Aldis took a few steps to give chase.

  “Don’t bother,” Nicole said. “You won’t catch him, and he has reinforcements not far away.”

  The hacker stopped. “Okay. If you say so.”

  “We need to get out of here,” Cody said.

  “You do,” Nicole said. “Parker here can’t fly the craft back.”

  “Hey,” Parker said. “I think I did a good job.”

  “You crash landed,” Nicole said. “I was tossed around like a rag doll.”

  Aldis laughed. “That I’d pay to see.”

  “You will live to regret that,” the CATT said. “I’m am not made to be tossed around and not for your amusement.”

  Aldis threw up his hands. “Just a joke. A phrase.” The hacker leaned down to the CATT. “You don’t want me to tell the others about the ship on Mars.”

  Nicole peered up at him. “No.”

  They both nodded and moved on. Aldis stepped back and looked at Parker who gave him a look, questioning the exchange. Aldis wasn’t about to tell her. She would get tired of not knowing what was going on between them.

  Nicole was already back to being a cat and licking her tail.

  “I’ll fly it back,” Cody said. “You two can get the truck out of here.”

  “One slight problem.” Aldis looked at the truck. “I can’t drive that thing. Can you, Parker?”

  “Sure. Just like the shuttlecraft.”

  “Then that’s a no.” The hacker didn’t like this at all. They couldn’t just sit here and wait for Drake to return.

  “The others will arrive in two minutes,” Nicole said.

  “Steve can drive it,” Parker said.

  “Good,” Cody said. “You coming with me, Nicole?”

  “I am.”

  Nicole and Cody went to the shuttle. As Steve and the others pulled up, the shuttle hovered into the air and went back to the Rossi.

  Rea was going to be angry. The shuttle wasn’t supposed to be used, but it had saved Aldis’ bacon, and he was fine with that.

  Chapter Twenty

  Rea couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The shuttlecraft from the Rossi was climbing into the air and leaving. Just because Nicole had told her it was here didn’t mean she had believed it. Seeing it depart meant it was true.

  Parker was here too. She was shaking in her boots. Clearly, she had just experienced some excitement. Rea didn’t know what to make of it and exited the car.

  “What is going on?” Rea asked.

  Aldis replayed what happened, talking so fast that Rea had to slow him down to understand it all. Jason had been bought off by Drake. Parker had flown the shuttle. By crashing it, she had killed him and a few others, but Drake had gotten away.

  “Drake is close?” Steve asked. The Marine and Lindsey had exited the car to listen to the story as well. They both had a shocked look on their faces. “Parker, you could have died.”

  “I know.” The young girl shrugged. “But Nicole said that Aldis and Cody would be killed or kidnapped. She helped me fly it.”

  “Crash it,” Steve said.

  “Crash. Fly,” Parker said. “It’s all relative. I saved Aldis and Cody.”

  “You did,” Rea said. She was proud of the girl, and both frightened to look at the damage she had done. “You did well. Just try to be more careful in the future.”

  “I will.”

  “I hate to be a downer,” Aldis said, “but Drake might be back soon.”

  “True,” Rea said. “Let’s go.”

  Rea and Steve sat in the front of the truck. The others climbed into the car. They drove to the drop-off point for Dragon Corp, this time without any other problems. Thankfully, it didn’t take long to unload the cargo.

  “Run into any problems?” a Dragon Corp employee asked.

  “Nope,” Rea said. “Nothing out of normal.”

  The captain had gotten used to understating things to the people she had dealings with. If she told this person the truth, he would probably call her a liar or run in terror. Best to just say it went great.

  Going back to the Rossi was what terrified Rea. She wasn’t sure what to make of it. This mission just couldn’t be over fast enough. The off-loading of cargo had gone smoothly, despite the issues with both Beyer and Drake here. It worried her, and she knew it just couldn’t be this easy.

  Sure enough, things never were.

  Waiting for them on the landing pad for the ship was Drake. Just what they needed. He didn’t have many men with him, only four stood around him. This was a bold move on his part. He was taking a risk.

  The shuttle was next to the ship. Cody and Nicole must on board waiting for them.

  Rea left the car and walked over to her brother. “What are you doing here?”

  “My boss wanted to send you a message.”

  “You going to tell me who your boss is?” she asked.

  Rea wanted to know more than ever who this woman was. She clearly had something against the crew. Rea had angered a lot of people in her life. That was one of the many drawbacks of being in charge of a smuggling ship. Add that to her time serving on an anti-pirate Navy vessel. The list of people who wanted Rea dead or in jail was so long the captain would never be able to narrow it down.

  “Even if I knew her real name,” Drake said, “I wouldn’t tell you, but I don’t know it.”

  “You’re working for a woman, and you don’t even know her name? That doesn’t seem smart.”

  Drake shrugged. “She is paying me a lot of money to get the revenge I want. I’d do it for free, but she is throwing credits at me. Tell me you wouldn’t. I know you would. Think about how this started.”

  Rea knew he was right. This started because Rea and the rest had thought about nothing but the money. It had been a lot of credits, enough to settle nicely, perhaps even on Mars. That was a thing of the past now.

  “I won’t argue with you,” Rea said, “but I have morals. My crew has morals.”

  Drake sneered at her. “Like that matters. You work hard and get nowhere.”

  That wasn’t true. Rea and her crew had a lot. They had fun, family, and friends. Got to see the empire and all its glory. And travel to planets that many people only dreamed about. That was enough for Rea, it was since she finally got to see Mars.

  “If you say so,” Rea said. “So, what is this message?”

  Drake smiled. “That if you give her want she wants, I can
’t kill you.”

  The captain rolled her eyes. “That is vague and not useful at all.”

  “Just relaying the message,” Drake said. “She said you would be able to figure it out.”

  “What is stopping me from taking you prisoner now. You don’t have many men. We can take you.”

  Drake pulled out a controller of some kind. “Dead man’s switch. I’ve set it up for your ship to explode.”

  “You’re bluffing.”

  “Since when have I bluffed?”

  As long as she had known him, now and before, he was a never one to take a risk by just bluffing. If Drake said there was a bomb, there most likely was a bomb. That it might go off no matter what.

  “Very well. You can go.”

  “See you around, sister. I’ll be back to finish what I started. I know you won’t give her what she wants, and I’ll get to kill you for leaving me. I’ll still get my revenge.”

  Then he and his men turned and walked away. Once they were gone, Steve and the others joined her.

  “Why didn’t you give me the signal?” Steve asked.

  “He said a bomb was on the ship.”

  The crew immediately went to work to find it. Aldis and Lindsey knew the ship the best and what places a bomb would cause the most damage.

  “Here,” Lindsey said.

  Rea and Steve arrived at the same time. It had a timer on it, just as Rea expected. “Great.”

  “Ten minutes.” Steve eyed it. “Not good.” The Marine turned to Lindsey. “Can you disarm it?”

  “Nope,” she replied. “I’m an engineer, not a bomb tech.”

  Steve reached up and pulled it off. Rea couldn’t believe he did that. He had risked it going off.

  “Seriously? You could have killed us,” she said.

  “In ten minutes or now, makes no difference.”

  “Big guy.” Lindsey patted him on the shoulder, the one not near the bomb. “We could have gotten away from the ship.”

  Steve crinkled his nose. “Not everyone. There are innocents here.”

  That was true.

  He was looking at the shuttle, which was capable of space travel.

  “You don't think what I think you are?” Rea asked.

  “I am. Getting this thing out of here.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Steve jumped into the shuttle and powered it up. It was ready to go in thirty seconds. Next to him, the bomb continued to countdown. He had to get this thing into space. The shuttle had a port to eject it. Then he would be able to fly away.

  In theory, it should be easy, but in Steve’s experience, theory never went the way it should. If a problem could go wrong, it would. Murphy was alive and well in space.

  All the Marine cared about was getting the bomb away from his crew. So long as they were safe, he would be happy. What happened after that would take care of itself.

  The shuttle took off, slowly at first. It wasn’t the fastest craft around. It had been made for short trips on and off planets that didn’t want larger ships and didn’t provide their own transport.

  Once high enough in the air, Steve gave the ship all it had. It rocketed into space. Steve wasn’t worried about the proper procedure. Nicole and Rea would take care of that and let the authorities know he was taking a bomb off the planet.

  New Reno officials had to be okay with that. Steve shook his head. That wasn’t important. Getting off planet was imperative, and it took several minutes. Precious minutes. Ones he really didn’t have. He needed to be far enough away to not damage any of the off-planet stations.

  The bomb now read four minutes. The shuttle was still too close to a station. The Marine was being hailed by the station.

  The Marine knew if he didn’t answer, he would be in trouble. They’d send fighters at him. And with the bomb on board, if they fired, Steve’s shuttle and the fighters would perish. Not a good thought. One that Steve hoped didn’t happen.

  “Yes,” Steve answered.

  “Unidentified ship, why are you in our space?”

  “Someone placed a bomb on my main ship. I’m removing it.”

  “Prove it.”

  The screen flashed, and video on both sides appeared. Steve held up the bomb with a counter showing three minutes and thirty seconds.

  “Very well. You won’t be attacked unless you get any closer to our satellites.”

  “I won’t.”

  The comms died, and the Marine flew on. Steve wasn’t a math guy or an engineer. He didn’t know how far he needed to get, so the Marine went as far as he could.

  He let the countdown get to a minute, placed the bomb in the port, and shot it away from the planet and the station.

  The shuttle was low on fuel, but Steve did his best to get away. The bomb exploded and sent shards flying. Of course, Drake had used one that was made for both space and land.

  One of the shards smashed into the shuttle and ripped a small hole in the hull. The force of the impact sent Steve off course. He plunged back to the planet. The ship heated up, burning because its reentry profile was off. The hull temperature was quickly rising. He had to hurry up and correct it before he burned up and died.

  It took all the Marine had to get it back on the right trajectory. The heat became too much, and his body strained to remain conscious. The Marine had managed to make the fix before he passed out.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Parker stood in the hospital on New Reno. Steve had been here for the past week. At first, they weren’t sure if he was going to be okay, but he was stronger than most. The crash landing of the shuttle had broken several bones and caused some severe internal damage.

  Thankfully, modern medicine would heal him, and he would be back into working condition in no time.

  “You okay, kid?” Steve asked.

  The Marine lay in the bed with a cast on his arm and leg. Even though he was going to be okay, Parker didn’t like seeing him like this. “I’m fine. I just hate you to see you weak and injured.”

  “I’m okay,” Steve said. “I’ll live. I get to leave in a few days.”

  Parker smiled and nodded. “Leave and limp around.”

  “That is okay. Better to limp and be alive than dead.”

  Parker wasn’t going to argue with him. That was true. “I know.”

  “Good, kid.” Steve patted her on the shoulder. “Go back. I know it isn’t fun here. I’ll be there soon, and we’ll start our next job.”

  That was the way of things. The next job. Always the next job.

  “Okay.”

  She gently hugged Steve and went back to the Rossi. A taxi took her to the ship. She reboarded and headed to her quarters.

  “You free?”

  Parker looked down to the CATT. Nicole had been waiting for her. “I am.”

  “Good,” Nicole said. “I think I know more about the person who is after us.”

  “Oh.”

  They walked to Parker’s room.

  Inside, Parker sat on her bed. “Let’s hear it.”

  “I was talking with my boss and Cody,” Nicole said. “I’ve found a person who claims to know where this woman paying Drake is from.”

  “Okay.”

  “A pirate who once worked for Drake but fled. He was scared for his life.”

  That sounded good to Parker. “Let’s go get this guy.”

  “Slight problem.”

  Parker didn’t like hearing that it. “What?”

  “He ran to the Supai system.”

  That was one Parker had never heard of. Nicole told her where it was. It was at the furthest reaches of the known Empire. It would take a month or even longer to travel to the system. Rea would most likely not want to venture out that far.

  “I do have a contact for a job there,” Nicole said. “A royal family member is looking to escape. Might be dangerous and stuff.”

  Parker laughed. The perfect type of mission for them.

  “Why don’t you try to get Rea on board?” Parker asked.<
br />
  “I will,” Nicole said.

  “Before you go?” Parker asked. The young girl rubbed her neck. “Why do you help me? And not the others?”

  “You’re a good kid. I want you to—” she stopped mid-sentence.

  Parker tilted her head. “You all right.”

  “Dandy,” the CATT said. “Let’s just say I want you to be happy.”

  Parker wasn’t sure what to make of Nicole wanting her to be happy but went with it. Some happiness would be welcomed for sure.

  <<<>>>

  Rea was on the bridge of the ship when Nicole arrived. The captain was the only one there. The others were taking the break to get some rest and relaxation here on the planet. Rea had been hesitant at first. The last time she had allowed that here it turned out badly.

  “I found some useful info and a job,” the CATT said.

  Rea hadn’t noticed her arrive on the bridge. The captain had been so lost in her thoughts. “Okay.”

  Nicole laid it out for her. Rea wasn’t sure about traveling so far for just a rumor about a someone who might know about the planet the mystery woman was from.

  The door opened, and Cody appeared.

  “You know about the guy on Supai?” Rea asked.

  “I do. Been working with Nicole and Parker. It’s our best lead.”

  Rea sighed. “Very well.”

  Once Steve was back, they would take the job and find some other reason to go. Maybe she could pick up some cargo here and transport it there. New Reno had a lot of exports. She would figure it out. A place like Supai would probably want pretty much anything they could get their hands on.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Steve exited the shower after cleaning himself up. It was good to be back on the Rossi and away from the hospital. The Marine couldn’t handle being laid up in the hospital. The first thing he did was get some real ship’s food and carry it back to his room. Setting it down to cool off, he had gone to take a shower.

  The shower helped his muscles relax. His body still ached from the injuries and would for a while. This wasn’t the first time he had been hurt on the job, and it wouldn’t be the last. He did hope that he didn’t crash land a shuttle from space again.