Star Rebels: Stories of Space Exploration, Alien Races, and Adventure

by Audrey Faye

  I craned my neck to get a look at the six-foot machine looming just behind me, its wide nozzle pointed at my back. A sandblaster; lovely. My brother had once told me I’d die in some alley somewhere if I didn’t get my shit together. The joke was on him: Caleb Shepperd—sandblasted by a compulsive hoarder in Jotunheim. A manic chuckle bubbled up my throat.

  Jin leaned on one of many curved metal panels strewn about the windowless room. “You’re more crazy ’an me, Shepperd.”

  A sense of humor was about the only thing I had left. That, and my ship.

  Fran sat against a panel near the back of the room, her tied wrists resting over her drawn-up knees, guarded by the guy who’d clocked me over the head. My laughter cut off at the sight of Fran’s bleak face. She’d die when Jin was done with me.

  “How about we do a deal?” I asked Jin, pointing my toes down to stop myself from swinging. “There must be something you want. I’ll carry any cargo. Let me go an’ I’ll get whatever your withered heart desires.”

  “I already have your ship. I’ll strip her of anything valuable. That’s all I need from you, Fleet Captain Shepperd.”

  My smile died. “You could go anywhere, do anything. There’s a whole lotta black out there. But you’d rather stay in this stinking rig? You can hardly move for all the scrap. Haven’t you stolen enough?”

  “It will never be enough.” Jin’s glassy eyes hardened. “If the jump gates fail and the nine systems collapse again, I’ll be prepared.”

  He really was nuts, and old enough to remember the last years of the Blackout. “You’ve been out here too long, Jin. Jotunheim’s fucking with your head. Let me go and I’ll take you to Lyra, show you a city made of stars. Drink and girls aplenty. Guys too. Whatever floats your boat. You’d love it.”

  The old man’s top lip curled. “It’s a lie, Shepperd, fed to you by fleet.”

  I knew that better than most, better than him. I blinked sweat or maybe blood out of my eyes. “Everything in the nine is a lie, Jin, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it. C’mon, you don’t wanna live out the rest of your days here.”

  A flicker of fear darted across his gaunt face. What was he afraid of? Unless Jin couldn’t leave. This rig, these broken bits of ship… They occupied his every day, his every thought, his entire life. He couldn’t—wouldn’t see a way out. My heart galloped harder and panic clawed at my thoughts. “All these ships, huh? And all you do is dismantle them. You’re afraid to fly them. Afraid to leave.” Afraid of freedom. Afraid of the black. He feared the very thing I lived for. He’d never leave, and he’d never change; some upstart ex-fleet captain wasn’t going to alter a perspective buried under a lifetime’s worth of junk. Shit, I was really gonna die here.

  Fran’s pale face confirmed it. She’d worked her fingers into her boot. The knife. Her guard watched me, assuming his quarry was beaten. Fran had better hurry up with the rescuing; the old guy wasn’t going to let either of us go. I swallowed and darted my gaze back to Jin as he pushed himself off the panel and brandished the slim sandblaster control pad.

  “I’m fleet,” I blurted. “And you’re right. It’s all a long con. Why do you think I left?”

  Jin tilted his head, his eyes flat and unerring. “Dismissed for misconduct, so says your data.”

  “I saw things. The lies you mentioned. It could happen again. The Blackout. Starvation—the wars an’ riots. I can help you get ready. You need me, Jin. I can bring you more scrap, all kinds of shit people will need when the gates fail again.” I’d agree the sky was purple and the nine systems were flat if he’d let me go.

  Behind Jin, Fran had the blade out and hidden behind her hand. I gave my ties a tug, rattling the pulley wheels, keeping the dull-eyed guard’s attention all on me.

  The old man’s thumb hovered over the control pad. Was it doubt delaying him? He didn’t look doubtful, just pensive—like he might be committing my final moments to memory. How do you reason with insanity? There was nothing I could say, nothing I could do. No escape. Jin jabbed the controller. I flinched away, hiding my face for all the good it’d do me. The machine’s generator coughed to life. The next press would kill me.

  I twisted and bucked, trying to dig my toes into the floor. Nothing worked. This couldn’t be it. I couldn’t die here. There had to be…more. Mouth dry, I scratched around my head for any information I could dredge up from my past that might help now. “Killing me is a waste. I have connections—”

  He’d moved closer while I’d fought with my ties. Was his gnarled, liver-spotted face the last thing I’d ever see?

  “If I let you go,” he calmly said, “you’ll bring fleet here and they’ll change everything.”

  “No.” My voice cracked. “I’ll work for you. They won’t come.”

  He smiled, but it was a thin wisp of smile, barely skimming his lips. So flat, so cold. Old Man Jin was already dead inside. “You can run from your past, kid,” he said. “But I reckon it’s like running from your shadow. Fleet will come for you.”

  “Then…not like this.” Any second now sand would pressure-blast my skin. My racing thoughts imagined it would feel like fire, like being burned alive. It wouldn’t be quick. “Please, not like this.”

  The old man’s face softened, and a flicker of hope skittered through my heart. C’mon, you old bastard. Feel something…anything. Don’t do this.

  “You’re trouble, Shepperd. There ain’t no place for trouble on my rig.”

  The guard’s ragged cry whipped Jin around. Fran came for him, blocked a wayward swing with her forearm and plunged the dagger deep into his gut, then clutched his shoulder and pulled him into an embrace. She slowly whispered something into Jin’s ear, her lips brushing his skin, and all the while she looked at me—through me—then she prized the control pad from his gnarled grip and let him go. He crumpled at her feet.

  That fire in her eyes, the way she was smiling; was she about to finish what Jin had started?

  “Wait—”

  She jabbed the controller. I flinched, turning my head away, but the pain didn’t come. Instead, the generator died and the machine powered down. My thoughts swirled, my head light and my body numb.

  Fran reached up to cut me free. “You owe me, Caleb Shepperd.”

  The ties snapped. I fell to my knees, bracing myself against the floor while battling with waves of hot nausea and cold relief. The guard she’d taken out writhed and groaned, clutching at his bleeding ankles. Jin didn’t move. His wheezing breaths sawed through the quiet. He’d die here, trapped by fear on the fringes of nowhere. Nobody would come. Nobody would care. Fuck obscurity. I was getting off this rig, and now.

  “You know where my ship is?” I asked Fran, my voice rough and broken.

  “Sure do.” Fran wiped her dagger on her thigh and offered her free hand.

  I closed my hand around hers without a single doubt. “Let’s get black bound.”

  We made it one level before the yellow work lights flared bright white, chasing away the shadows. Alarms beat through the corridors. Fran ran hard, swung herself around ladders, and dropped down hatches so damn fast I had a hard time keeping up with her. After so many twists and turns, I lost track of where we were until we emerged near the rig’s mouth—a jutting dock, currently sealed and sheltering my ship among a line of other vessels waiting to be stripped.

  I pounded up the ramp only to find the locking panel hanging loose. Fran’s handiwork. “Couldn’t get in, huh?” I said dryly. I expected the lock to be intact, but at my trembling touch, the doors clunked and opened.

  “Maybe I could, but had second thoughts about leaving your worthless ass behind?” She brushed by me, nudging my bleeding arm, and sauntered into the ship’s hold. Her perpetual smile still threatened to break out, but didn’t quite settle on her face.

  “Women like you are the reason men die earlier in marriages,” I muttered.

  Shouts ricocheted behind me. A phase bullet smacked into the ramp somewhere near my feet. I ducked inside a
nd sealed the door, wincing every time a bullet skipped off the ship’s exterior. The bullets wouldn’t penetrate, but that didn’t stop them from hurting. I knew every wound on this ship like I knew my own scars. We’d gained a few more on this job.

  “Get to the bridge.”

  Fran appraised the cargo hold with a less-than-impressed frown. “This bucket is an antique. We should have stolen the hawk next door. It’d be faster, and in better condition.”

  “Welcome to Starscream. She’ll fly us straight, but keep talking like that and I’ll leave you here. Go. Bridge. Now.” My threat was an empty one. I owed her.

  “You can’t take off, you realize that?”

  Man, she just knew it all, didn’t she? I ignored her and left the hold, striding along the familiar catwalks, running my shaking hands along the rails. It was good to be home, even if we weren’t yet free.

  Fran fell quiet when we arrived at the bridge.

  “Not so shabby now, huh?” Starscream’s unusually pristine bridge was the only outward hint she wasn’t all she appeared to be. I dropped into my flight chair and booted up her initial sequences, watching the rudimentary display blink a quick succession of system-check lights.

  Fran gripped the back of the chair next to mine and peered out of the obs window. “They’re never going to release us.”

  A quick glance out of the obs window and I counted half a dozen of Jin’s guys waiting to see what we did. “I don’t need them to.”

  Fran’s fingers tightened on the back of the chair. “You can’t fly manually in a pressurized bay. It’s insane.”

  “Insane is coming to Jotunheim. This system is more fucked up than I am. Sit down,” I said. “And strap in.”

  She moved the antique romance novel from the co-pilot’s chair and to her credit didn’t say a word, but the look she shot me was enough to summon a grin. Yeah, honey. You think you know me. You don’t.

  Starscream’s engine noise quivered through the ship, and a similar thrill spilled through me, kicking my husk of a heart up a beat.

  “What’s the plan?”

  “Plan?” I flicked the atmosphere engines to manual and gripped the flight controls in my grease-caked hands. A sharp twinge sparked down my arm, numbing my fingers. “Brute force and ignorance?”

  “You’re just going to take off? What about the umbilical? The clamps? The thrust alone will tear the ship apart.”

  I threw her look of disbelief right back at her. “Tugship. She’ll pull this whole fucking rig before she breaks apart.”

  “The pressure door? You just going to fly right through that and expect to live, huh?”

  “The bay will depressurize and the door will open on approach.”

  “And if it doesn’t? If you try and punch through it, the blast will twist—”

  “Ssh.”

  “But—”

  This was the first time I’d seen her rattled. I liked it. “Do you trust me, Francisca?” A loaded question, designed to rile her.

  “I trust you’re an idiot.”

  At least she was honest. “‘I trust you’re an idiot, Captain.’”

  She gripped the arms of her flight chair and muttered a string of Spanish.

  “Close your eyes, if you think it’ll help.” I flexed my fingers on the grips, trying to clear the numbness. My arm continued to throb. If I didn’t get out of the rig soon so I could go find the med kit, we wouldn’t be going anywhere. I pulled back on the controls, turning the four atmosphere engines ninety degrees, ready to heave off the dock. Starscream responded in every way I knew she would. The rumble of the engines, the strum of the thrusters vibrating through her hull, even the damned flicker of the gyro light that I’d been meaning to fix for countless cycles. I knew it all, and could fly her in my sleep.

  “You can’t do this.”

  “You already said that. Any other last words?”

  “No, Captain—you can’t do this. You’re wounded and you’re not good enough. But I am.”

  She might have been right. She seemed to be right about a lot of things. It was starting to piss me off. I could fly in the open, but in a cramped bay like this one? I’d never officially tried it—definitely not with a rear-heavy tugship. Shuttles, yes. I could fly one of those through a canyon. But despite Starscream’s many upgrades, she was still a tug, and a bitch to handle at low altitude, in artificial gravity or tight spots, or in-atmosphere. Anywhere that wasn’t the wide-open black.

  “This is a mark-two independent tug.” Fran’s tone had taken on a hard, no-bullshit edge. “About the same age as you. She’s all power and no finesse. Has a nasty bite at low atmo. Given her age, I reckon she’s had, what? Three recalls to rectify the blowback from her RR engines. Am I right?”

  “Two recalls. I never got around to the last one, what with bein’ a smuggler an’ all.”

  Her frown scolded. “What’s the first rule of the black, Shepperd? Look after your ship, and she’ll look after you. Switch control to me.”

  “I thought the first rule was expect to get screwed?” I wasn’t switching control to her. I barely knew her.

  “How’s the arm? Losing sensation yet?”

  “Fine.”

  “You were out a good while, and bleeding all that time. And when Jin’s guard cracked you over the head…” She winced. “Must hurt, huh? Those twinges, they’re bitches. If one of those hits while you’re flying in this cramped dock—” She sucked in air through her teeth. “Could kill us both.”

  I cast her a side-on unappreciative glare. She smiled.

  “What are you afraid of, Captain? That I’m better than you?”

  She wasn’t going to shut up until I let her have control, and given how half my attention was already focused on not passing out, she was completely right to do so. “Okay.” I sighed and flicked the master-control switch over to her. “But take her easy.”

  Fran immediately tapped out a few new inputs on the flight dash and wrapped her fingers around the controls.

  “She pulls starboard, made worse when—”

  “Shepperd. I have her.” I must have broadcast fear all over my face, because she glanced my way and her smile softened. “Trust me.”

  She eased back on the controls and Starscream’s engine whine dropped toward a growl. We pulled away from the dock with a godawful sound of grinding metal.

  “The clamps will give,” I said. “They always do.” I may or may not have made some quick getaways from similar docks before.

  The handful of orange-jumpsuit clad guys along the dockside quickly realized we weren’t hanging around and fled the dock, sealing the pressure doors behind them. If shit went sideways, and we crashed and burned, those doors would keep the rig’s internals intact. Unlike their boss, they weren’t dying today.

  Starscream jolted. Her port side dropped, and Fran wrestled with the controls. “I got her… We’re good. One more clamp to go.” More groaning rolled through the ship. The remaining clamp released. Starscream’s nose veered upward, hauling her ass away from the dock until the umbilical snagged. The ship twitched one way, then another, and all the while Fran corrected, keeping the ship from flipping stern over bow and taking a dive into the dock.

  “More thrust,” I suggested, gripping the flight chair.

  “Thrust isn’t everything, Captain. Sometimes you gotta go slow.”

  She was clearly enjoying my discomfort. “Too slow and you’ll burn out—”

  “Ssh. She’s right where I want her to be. Are you sure the doors will open?”

  “The proximity sensors will pick us up.” I hoped.

  The umbilical snapped, lashing across the dock, taking out much of the equipment in its path. Starscream bucked, but Fran had her. I sat in silence the whole time, while Fran piloted my tugship like she’d always been behind the controls. She turned the ship at the dock without an inch to spare, her hands working fast to correct Starscream’s many fluctuations. She’d been in the flight chair minutes and flew my ship better than I d
id. One of the benefits of growing up the daughter of a shipping merchant.

  The pressure doors opened, and with a blast of air, we left Rig 19 behind and punched into the black.

  When Jin had summoned me to his rig with a job to track and kill a nuisance smuggler, I’d expected someone like me. Fran wasn’t like me. She wasn’t like anyone I’d met in the black. Instincts told me to drop her at the next port.

  “I did him a favor,” she said, once we were well enough away to relax. “He was rotting away on that rig.” She kicked back in the flight chair like it was her own. “I put him out of his misery.”

  Jin might have disagreed with that assessment, but I couldn’t say I wasn’t happy Francisca had my back.

  I needed to get my ass to the rec bay, so I could fix up my wound, but that meant trusting her to fly us straight. That thought had unease twisting through my gut.

  “Are you afraid of anything, Fran?” I asked. Know a man’s fears, know the man. Or so my father had once told me. I didn’t listen to much of his BS, but he had a few gems worth holding on to.

  Fran considered my words for a few moments. The background din of the engines cocooned the bridge in a comfortable quiet.

  “Falling.” When she flicked her gaze to me, a challenge burned in her eyes.

  A half smile lifted the corner of my lips. “Plot a course for Ganymede.”

  You couldn’t move in Tink’s bar without nudging some asshole with a bounty on his head. Ganymede’s notorious hangout was exactly the kind of a place someone could keep their head down and hide in plain sight.

  I was doing just that, while nursing a whiskey and watching Fran sweet talk a guy at the bar. Somehow she fit right in here, chatting with the dealers and outlaws like she’d always belonged.

  She laughed at something her mark said, even threw in a little touch of his hand. Poor bastard didn’t stand a chance. The crowd spilled in and blocked my view, interrupting thoughts of how I wouldn’t mind her playing me. I soon scrubbed that fantasy clean. A woman like her was trouble. Maybe the kind of trouble that just might be worth it.