by M. D. Cooper
“The Chimin Group is ours now. We’re launching tests on the weaponized gas you sent the recipe for in your last transmission. Please confirm the position of the rendezvous point.”
His transmission ended, and Kylie lifted her eyebrows, as she listened to see what would come next.
The next voice was familiar. So familiar, there was no mistaking it—it was family. “Thank you for your last communication, Burke.” Soo…Raynes’ real name had been Burke. “I’m glad you met with success. I’ll make great use of that gas. Once it’s ready, please continue to the included coordinates.”
His location. Kylie’s eyes widened, and she sat up straighter, feeling more energetic than she had in days.
Another pause in the transmission. “If my sister comes through, don’t harm her. Let her keep searching. She and I will meet up soon enough.”
Kylie’s heart pounded with excitement.
* * * * *
The distance they had to travel was going to be great and it could take as long as a month. Marge wasn’t a fan of long space travel—there wasn’t much to keep her occupied. She’d find something to do to take up the time.
Kylie was settling in for a nap; the poor thing really needed one. While Kylie slept, Marge would run diagnostics on the ship, make sure everything was running tip top. She’d been through it a thousand times, but at least it gave her something to do.
As she began her trawl through the systems, Laura reached out or her.
Marge was delighted to hear back from Laura in regard to the cozy mysteries. She hadn’t thought Laura had even started yet.
Marge was surprised to hear that. The idea had never even occurred to her that AIs in the Transcend had come about independently from those in the Inner Stars.
Marge had gone so long without truly sharing her mind with another AI that the thought terrified her. Plus, there were things she was not ready to share.
Things Laura may not agree with.
GRAYSON
STELLAR DATE: 11.06.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Polis Fury, The Futz
REGION: Freemont, Gedri, Silstrand Alliance
Aboard the Polis Fury, Grayson stood in his ready room and sipped a hot cup of tea as he read the QuanComm message with his XO, Commander Fallon by his side.
[It’s going to be a messy situation, but the people of Chimin need the help of the SSF, and this will go far to cement things with Scipio. With your unique background, I thought you could help—and appreciate the assignment to clean up this system. Get them onboard to join Silstrand.]
[Thank you, Field Marshal Richards. Things are under control in Gedri now, and I appreciate being given this assignment. And the opportunity to finish what we started,] Grayson said.
[Good. Contact me if you need further assistance. Tanis out.]
Grayson breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t like him to get nervous around authority. Stars, he’d spent his life around authority, but damn if that woman didn’t make him nervous.
Fallon pushed her brown bangs off to the side. The rest of her dark hair was secured at the nape of her neck in a tidy bun. “Well, this should be fun. I’ll get a brief prepared for the officers and section chiefs.”
“Thank you, Commander.” Grayson dismissed her with a perfunctory nod.
Alone again, he set his cup of tea down on his desk, his mind swirling with thoughts predominantly of Kylie. Grayson knew she’d be long gone from Chimin by the time he got there, but it was closer to her than he had been in weeks. He missed her, even if he rarely said it, rarely thought about it. But now, as the reports came in from what had happened on Chimin, it was all he could think of.
Grayson pulled his jacket down as he stepped out of his ready room onto the bridge. “Kayla,” he strode to the helm officer’s side, “get us on an outsystem vector for a jump to the Hanoi System.”
“Yes, Captain.” Kayla’s fingers flew across her piloting HUD.
Grayson thanked her. “Let me know what our ETA to the FTL dump will be.” He walked away from her and stood next to the holotank and a newly minted Hand agent. She was on loan to him from the Transcend and it was good to see an old friend.
Lana offered him the briefest of smiles, arms crossed over her gray one-piece suit. Once she’d had blond hair that flowed down her back, but now it was cut short in multiple layers just around her shoulders and it had aged her some. No longer did she look like the troubled teen Grayson had helped to rescue.
“Kylie never fails to get herself into trouble,” Lana said.
“She’s always excelled at it,” Grayson agreed.
“I wish I could say hello to her.” Lana sighed and her gaze turning down to the ground.
Grayson couldn’t help but notice that she looked far more mature than she had when the crew of the Dauntless had met her. Now, with the right training, she was a changed woman, in control of her impulses.
“We can do the next best thing. Give her help where she needs it.”
Lana raised an eyebrow. “I’m itching to get started.”
Grayson’s lips stretched into a wide smile. “So am I.”
THE END
* * * * *
Things are beginning to heat up once more for Kylie now that she has a solid lead on her brother. Her quest will take her further into the fringe systems as she hunts down Paul Rhoads and the remainder of the Revolution Fleet.
CRITICAL INERTIA
PERILOUS ALLIANCE – BOOK 5
BY M. D. COOPER
& CHRIS J. PIKE
MAPS
Find high-res versions and more maps at www.aeon14.com/maps
LITTLE FREIGHTER THAT COULDN’T
STELLAR DATE: 12.14.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Solidarity, Interstellar Space
REGION: Velorum Rift, Fringe
Captain Chassea bit back a curse as she thought about how much she hated the Velorum Rift.
Regions of space like the rift were one of the reasons why the Fringe systems between Silstrand and Scipio were so isolated. Some regions of interstellar space were riddled with dark matter berms that had to either be flown around or traversed at sub-light speeds.
Even without FTL speeds, going through Velorum was usually faster than taking the long way around, and Chassea had opted to take that route, only to have her ship come under attack by pirates.
At first, she and her crew had thought the massive ship was a cruise liner making its way through the Fringe, but that fiction didn’t last more than ten minutes. Moments after they’d picked up the ship on scan, it ha
d changed course and boosted for them.
Chassea had thought it would be a simple thing for the Solidarity to outrun such a large ship.
She’d been wrong.
The deck beneath her feet shuddered again as yet another blast from the pursuing marauder hit her ship.
“Dammit!” she swore as she jinked the ship to port, only to see their pursuer match the maneuver with ease. “How the hell can that thing stay on us so close?”
The pirate ship closed to kinetic range, and a series of slugs leapt from its railguns, scoring direct hits on the Solidarity’s aft shield umbrellas, with the ship’s grav fields barely absorbing and deflecting them. Another shot hit them, and the ship shuddered enough that Chassea had to grip the armrests of her seat to remain upright.
“Crap!” Elizabeth swore from her seat at the scan and weapons console. She whipped her head around to stare at Chassea, her shoulder-length brown hair wrapping around her face, blue light racing down the strands to glow brightly at the tips. “That did us in, Captain! Rear shields are totally gone. We’re sitting ducks!”
“This can’t be happening.” Chassea shook her head. “Jacob! Send a message to the fleet. We’re not going to—” Her words were cut off as the ship shook violently from another impact.
Jacob glanced up from his seat at his station, a look of anger in his eyes—the man did not like to lose. “They hit the main transmission antenna. Comms are fried. The impacts caused the fuel delivery system to go into shutdown. Engines are running on what’s in the reactors. It’s like they knew just where to hit us.”
“They’re pirates.” Elizabeth shook her head. “This is what they do.”
Chassea bit her lip. Things were spiraling out of control. No engines, shields, comms, or weapons. With the reactor fuel shut down, internal systems were switching over to backups.
One good hole in the hull, and they’d be done.
Who the hell are these guys?
Chassea turned and locked eyes with Elizabeth.
“You have to,” Elizabeth said. “It’s our only chance at survival. It’s the only chance that we’ll ever finish our mission.”
“You mean surrender?” Chassea was not one to give up.
“If we surrender, they’ll take our cargo.” Jacob’s eyes narrowed, and he shook his head. “These toys are mine to play with. I was promised the extra.”
There was never going to be any extra.
Jacob was a new crewmember, someone Chassea had brought on for the job. Someone who didn’t understand what they were really working toward.
Chassea didn’t want to get into it again with him, so she shifted back to her nav officer. “What are you thinking, Elizabeth? Got a plan?”
Elizabeth shrugged. “With the weapons we have, we stand a much better chance at taking out their boarding party than making a last stand in space. This old tub is barely holding it together as it is.”
Chassea had to agree that feigning surrender was their best bet…but it was also a long shot. They’d have to pray that the enemy assumed they’d be easy to defeat, and end over a small boarding team.
Who knows? We’ve turned the tables in situations like this before.
If they were lucky, maybe they’d even end up flying off with a new ship—they’d need it, with the condition the Solidarity was in.
“You two, get down to the armory. Full gear. We’re only going to get one shot at this.” Chassea licked her lips and pushed down the growing feeling of anxiety.
Jacob stood from his seat. “I’ll plan something special for them, don’t worry.”
Her crew sprinted into action, and Chassea’s fingers flew across the console to make preparations.
But to hell with these bastards if they thought she’d go down without a fight.
* * * * *
Dressed in light EV-capable armor and helmet—just in case—Captain Kylie Rhoads met Bubbs and Ricket at the airlock where they waited, also armed and armored. Kylie took the lead as she checked the charge on her rifle.
Kylie didn’t.
Kylie could barely contain her excitement—or her anxiety.
Kylie hoped to avoid that, but she kept quiet. They had been talking about the plan to confront her brother enough over the recent days, and she needed a break.
The map provided information on the location of the core systems and the bridge, as well as the contraband they were smuggling.
Kylie acknowledged.
Bubbs shook her head sadly.
Kylie stifled a laugh.
A slight vibration ran through the Barbaric Queen as Rogers completed final vector matching with the freighter. Kylie wrapped her fingers around a handhold and peered through the window of the airlock.
Kylie really didn’t care about fair. She wanted to get this done and get moving as quickly as possible.
Marge giggled.
Laura, Ricket’s AI, chuckled in return and sent a vid across of a clown getting hit in the face with a pie. Bubbs’ lips twitched into a small grin.
Bubbs grunted.
It’s almost too bad, Kylie thought as she readied her multifunction rifle, that the freighter is outclassed and outgunned. Still, after the time they had on Chimin, she could use a good old-fashioned battle, one where she didn’t have any broken bones, or wasn’t suffering from a manufactured nano virus.
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The airlock’s red warning-lights began to flash as the doors opened. Kylie took the lead and stepped into the umbilical, pulling herself toward the Solidarity with Ricket and Bubbs behind.
When they reached the far side of the airlock, Kylie placed one of the Hand’s breach kits on the access panel, and in a moment, the airlock opened.
Bubbs grunted.
They moved through the airlock and into a small cargo hold on the freighter. Kylie quickly took in their surroundings and noted an assortment of storage pods and containers to her left.
She stepped forward gingerly and experienced a strange sensation of déjà vu, as though she had done this before. Then she realized that the last time she’d forcefully boarded a ship was when she crossed over to the Titan-1 outside of Gedri’s heliopause…and was subsequently ensnared in the Silstrand Space Force’s trap.
Visuals showed the room to be clear, but she switched her vision to a mix of IR and backscatter radiation to be sure—and sent out a nanocloud to collect more data than her augmented vision could pick up.
Kylie raised her eyebrows.
