by Taylor Smith
Realization dawned on her face. “That’s how you were doing it,” she said and looked back to the table.
“It’s like,” he paused in thought, then grinned. “It’s like taking a shower, but instead of water its numbers and equations, and you feel it all at the same time. Not like reading, though you can read reports and other data, too, but it’s not like that when I’m piloting. You think of a problem such as an intercept course, and you feel the numbers come together in your head. It’s pretty cool.”
Haley smiled a sad smile and simply nodded. He wasn’t sure what to think of that.
Andy returned with a few opened bottles of a dark brown liquid. Cade took a swig and tried hard not to spit it out. “That’s…”
“Yeah,” Andy said with a wince after trying his. “So here’s the deal. We make contact with Jerry and we’ll have access to the transmitter. I need to send out the call for all Clew ships to get home, and Haley makes contact with the Alliance. Then we’re gone. In and out. We have to get back home to help with the preparations and pick up the rest of our crew.”
“Who’s Jerry?” Haley asked.
“Owner of this bar, also our emergency contact on Stormcall,” Andy answered.
Cade pondered a moment then looked at Andy with a questioning air, then nodded toward Haley. Having an Allied Fleet officer with them in a bar that was a front for Clew Pirates was obviously going to be a problem.
“Don’t worry Cade, all of this changes after today,” he said, then looked toward Haley. “No offense. This place can’t continue as-is after you’ve been here.”
“None taken,” Haley said taking another long draft from her bottle, obviously unaffected by its taste.
“You back for more?” came a woman’s voice from across the room.
Cade looked up from his friends to see a middle-aged woman making her way toward them wearing tight blue pants, a plaid flowing blouse and the biggest hair he’d ever seen in his life.
“Jerry,” Andy said uncomfortably as the woman sat beside him and flung her arm around him like they were best friends.
“Where you been all my life, Andy?” Jerry said and planted a kiss on his cheek. “I ain’t seen you in ages.”
“Glad to see you too, Jerry,” Andy mumbled trying not to spill his drink at being yanked around by Jerry’s excitement. “This is Cade, and Haley,” he said introducing his companions.
Jerry produced a wide, creepy grin. “He’s cute, Andy,” she muttered and leaned over the table toward Cade. “I like ‘em bald.”
Cade shuddered doing the best he could to politely smile back.
“But this one,” Jerry said leaning toward Haley. “She stinks of official. What is she? Spacelane Patrol? Alliance?”
Haley’s eyes went wide at the callout.
Jerry slapped the table at her reaction. “Yup! Alliance. Honey, you gotta drop that stick-up-the-butt expression if you wanna walk around these parts.”
Cade couldn’t help but laugh. Upon seeing Haley’s horrified expression, he could only shrug at her. Jerry was right, Haley did look like she had a constant tooth ache. He found that he liked this Jerry character. With all the craziness lately, she was a breath of fresh air.
“You three are in for a treat,” Jerry said looking at all of them with a wide, almost comical, smile. “We got six Deshi in here with us now and at least another four watchin’ the door. They been here for two days just waitin’ for me to take someone to the back, I bet.”
“Shit,” Andy muttered under his breath.
“That’s what I said. So what in all tarnation is goin’ on?” Jerry asked.
“The Deshi found home, Jerry,” Andy said quietly. “It’s a general recall. We also ran into a Deshi ambush when we arrived in-system. Things are heating up again.”
Cade watched as Jerry’s face dropped to a deep frown for the first time. She suddenly looked older in her worry.
“How long do we have?” Jerry asked.
“A week if we’re lucky. We have to get to the subspace transmitter and get the recall off, then get Haley in touch with her contacts,” Andy responded quietly looking around the bar. “Then we’re out of here.”
“Well hell,” Jerry said with a sigh. “My tour was just about up anyway and this pit was about to be decommissioned. Mind if I catch a ride home on the ol’ Reaper? I heard about Torbeck. Didn’t like him much anyway.”
Cade’s gaze flitted across the room, and he found several tables staring back at them. Jerry was right, there were about six people in the bar that were obviously watching them like hawks and not being very secretive about it, either. “What’s the plan?” he interrupted. He had a feeling the guys watching them would figure it out sooner rather than later.
“Well, that’s easy,” Jerry said. “Everybody packin’? Good,” she said after they all nodded to her. “Behind me, left to right, one through six. I’m one. You’re two,” she said pointing to Andy. “Baldy, you’re three and Stick-Up-The-Butt, you’re four. Got it?”
Cade was too tense to laugh, but he could tell Haley was about at her wit’s end. She nodded anyway, so he concentrated on the task and activated his implant for targeting.
“Good. There’s cover here for you two, me just over my right shoulder, and Andy, you better dive for the bar,” Jerry explained as if she’d done this before. “One more rodeo at the ol’ Sinful Whistle.” She pulled a small handheld screen from her pocket, her finger hovered over it. “Ready? Go!” She pressed a command on the screen and the music playing through the bar suddenly blared loudly.
All four of them stood from the table, pulled the weapons from their holsters and fired. The sudden commotion caused everyone in the bar to freeze in shock, then dive to the floor. Three of the men watching them went down. Cade landed a shot on his target, but it wasn’t a solid hit, and he was able to take cover. He quickly switched targets and landed three rails on the man just to his left though, then Cade dove down next to Haley in the booth.
“Four down! Six left! One’s wounded! Keep the suppressive fire up! Their reinforcements are gonna’ be here any second! Watch for flanking around the bar!” Jerry shouted to them over the music and gunfire.
Her accent had changed slightly and Cade wondered if she had ever been a soldier as he popped up over the booth and fired several shots. Haley rose the second Cade dropped back down behind the booth and unloaded a few rounds as well.
“One more down!” Haley shouted.
“Andy get that girl to the back! We’ll cover ya!” Jerry shouted over the hail of gunfire.
Cade stood up again and fired twice, waited a second, then hit the next gunman to stand up as he rose to return fire. The man’s head jerked back, and he slipped slowly to the floor. He looked to his side as he took cover again and found Haley had dove across the room toward Andy. From there they would get to the transmitter in the back of the bar.
Jerry threw herself into the booth with Cade and grinned wide. “Hiya, Handsome!”
Cade grinned back and let loose another shot before saying, “Is station security going to come at some point?”
Jerry laughed at him. “This is Stormcall, dumplin’! Ain’t no security here!”
Cade shook his head at her amusement under pressure. The bullets hammering the booth had risen to a crescendo. Cade guessed the Deshi’s friends had arrived.
“Their backup is here!” Jerry yelled her confirmation, then held a small sphere up for Cade to see.
“What’s that?” he asked over the ruckus.
“Birthday present,” she said, depressed a small button then threw it over the edge of the booth toward the middle of the room.
Chapter 20
Haley found herself lying next to Andy on the floor as small shards of plastic and glass rained around them. The gunfire had picked up, and she frantically crawled across the ground toward the door that led to the office in back. She had to drag herself low through the already littered floor to have the best chance of not getting shot
by the onslaught.
Andy suddenly grabbed her arm, hoisted her up and around the corner and slammed the door behind them. “Thanks,” she said and placed her hands on her knees trying to catch her breath and slow her heart rate.
“Let’s do this quick,” he said as the noise died down after closing the door. It was still chaos out there, but at least they didn’t have to yell to speak to each other.
Haley brushed the dirt and glass from her and watched as Andy sat at the computer terminal in the corner of the room. The small office was a mess. Papers were strewed about as well as clothes and dirty dishes. It reminded her of Saundi’s cabin and she wondered how her friend was getting along back on Clew.
“Got it. The recall system is active,” Andy said typing furiously. “Unless they’re in subspace, they’ll hear it. Your turn.” He vacated the seat so Haley could sit.
“That was quick,” Haley said as she sat down.
“Pre-programed alert,” Andy shrugged. “Hurry. We don’t have a lot of time.”
Haley took both the originals and the decrypted data drives from her pocket and linked them to the terminal. She accessed the long-range comms and entered a specific subspace channel into the software. When dealing with subspace communications, she knew there were billions upon billions of possible channels to choose from, but there was only one she could think of in such an emergency.
The indicators on the screen lit up and a voice answered saying, “Name and rank.”
“Haley Marks, Ensign, reporting an emergency,” she replied as steadily as she could when a loud crash jerked her attention from the screen. The gunfire suddenly stopped. “What was that?” she asked Andy.
“Flash-bang,” Andy replied, cracking the door to see outside. “She’s crazy,” he said in a high-pitched tone and shut the door again. “Jerry just lit the Deshi up and charged them. I’m going back out. Hurry it up!”
Haley watched as he left, then turned back to the screen. A picture of an older woman wearing Allied Fleet dress white’s was staring back at her. “Is that gunfire I’m hearing?”
“Yes! Look I have to speak with Admiral Jonas’ office, or someone in fleet Admiralty! This is an emergency,” Haley said frantically.
“What’s this about? Let’s see… Ensign Marks, I have you assigned to-“, she cut short and looked back to Haley in surprise. “Hold on,” she said suddenly and the screen went black.
“Come on!” Haley shouted and dropped her head to the desk. She couldn’t catch a break.
“Ensign Marks?”
She looked up and saw Admiral Jonas himself staring out of the screen at her. Out of reflex she quickly squared her shoulders and said, “Sir.”
“It is you. We were wondering about you. Ensign Adair as well,” he said with a look of relief. “Is that gunfire?” he asked, mirroring the woman before him.
“Yes sir. You were worried? I’m sorry sir, but do you know what’s happening?” Her relief had turned to confusion. There was no reason an Admiral should give two flips about a couple of freshly graduated cadets. Maybe something else was going on in the Alliance, and Andrelli had been caught. She dared to hope the Alliance had gotten involved on a larger scale.
His demeanor turned serious. “Ensign Marks, more than half the crew of Valiant were found dead on one of our border stations not two days ago. The investigation is still ongoing, but initial findings point us to the fact that they were drowned in their transit tanks and left intentionally.”
Haley sat stunned. That would have been her and Saundi had she not acted. Everything she’d done had been right. She couldn’t believe it. A fear washed over her suddenly at the thought of the man who’d help them escape. “Sir, what about Senior Chief Benley?”
Jonas shook his head. “The Senior Chief was among those left for dead. Now what the hell is going on out there?”
Haley’s heart broke. She had hoped to be able to thank Benley for his help. “Sir,” she regained her posture and quickly ran through the chain of events, highlighting the conspiracy between Andrelli and Torbeck, the fight with the Reaper and finally the data that implicated Andrelli as being a Deshi spy. If all that data didn’t convince someone on its own, that, combined with the information Benley gave her and the news that Andrelli had over half his crew murdered, would. “Transmitting,” she said and began the upload.
“Receiving,” Jonas said. “My god,” he muttered as he skimmed through the data.
“Admiral, the location of Clew is included. Andrelli’s headed for it, and my guess is that the Valiant is being crewed by a full complement of Deshi. There are a lot of people there, sir,” she pleaded. “Civilians. They don’t deserve to die at the hands of those monsters.”
“You have the location of Clew Station?” Admiral Jonas shook his head, then said, “We’re not in the business of getting in the middle of conflicts outside the Alliance.”
Haley’s mouth dropped, but before she could say anything, he continued.
“But,” he said. “Captain Andrelli has made it personal now. And we’ve been looking for Clew for a long – “.
A loud crash from the next room interrupted him. The office shook and the power blinked out. Haley grasped the blank screen with both hands and shouted, “No! Admiral!”
The door suddenly crashed open. Haley drew the sidearm from its holster and aimed toward the commotion.
Cade, upon sight of the weapon pointed his way, ducked slightly and shouted, “Hey! It’s me.”
“Sorry,” she said and winced. “I got the data to command and even talked to Admiral Jonas but it was cut off.”
“We have to go! Now!” he urged with his blood-covered sword as several shots rang out from behind him. The action sounded more distanced than inside the bar now. “The power is out in this section of the station and our reinforcements are on their way. Come on!”
Haley unhooked the drives and shoved them back into her pocket as she eyed the sword he held. Definitely a real swashbuckler. “Reinforcements?” she asked.
Cade looked back at her with an eyebrow raised. “Remember the Reaper? Hell, yes; we have backup! Chuck and his crew wouldn’t come though. They said they were paid to guard the dock and nothing more,” he added with a roll of his eyes.
He led her back out into a large hole in the world that glowed from red pulsing emergency lights. There was so much damage she couldn’t tell what it had looked like before and she stumbled over several pieces of debris trying to keep up. The gunfire was still constant, but seemed to have moved out into the main thoroughfare.
Suddenly she realized that this was her chance. If there was any time to escape, now was the time. Dangerous backwater station be damned, if she could get away from the Clew pirates she could find a ride back to Alliance space. But she kept on following Cade out of the wrecked bar. Saundi was counting on her to return and there was something inside her unwilling to betray Cade.
They finally reached the main entrance to the bar where Cade stopped and checked outside. He pointed out the door and across the way for her to look.
She leaned toward him and looked over his shoulder to see Andy and Jerry hunkered behind several metal crates. Another check revealed a loader and more crates in the middle of the main concourse where men were returning fire.
“On three. Ready?” he asked as he sheathed his sword.
Haley took a deep breath and reloaded her pistol. “Ready.”
He grabbed her and immediately started running across the wide open hall, unloading his clip as he ran dragging her behind him to shield her from any weapons fire.
They both landed in a pile behind the crates next to Andy and Jerry. Haley wriggled her way loose and slapped Cade lightly across the head. “You said on three!”
Cade shrugged. “You looked nervous,” he said and rubbed the top of his head.
Jerry laughed at them while Andy leaned around the crates and fired a few shots off.
“You two done? Or are you going to help?” Andy said bet
ween spats of return fire. “There’s three Deshi left. Our guys should be here any –“.
A thunderous amount of gunfire erupted from the other side of the crates. Haley felt the vibrations through the floor as she covered her head with her arms. It seemed to go on for an eternity. The smell of spent ammunition was so overpowering that she began to cough.
As quick as it began, it stopped. Haley looked up slowly, wishing the ringing in her ears would end.
“About time!” Andy shouted.
“Was that it, Captain?” Finns voice called back. “I thought you said you were in trouble!”
Haley followed Andy and Cade’s lead and stood up slowly. The scene looked like a cover from a holomovie. Six pirates stood in a row, brandishing their weapons, barrels smoking. In front of them was an obliterated mess that may have been the wheeled loader and crates. Scattered throughout the remains was what was left of their opposition.
“I think you got em’, boys,” Jerry said, wide-eyed.
“Hey Jerry! Yeah. I wondered why they didn’t fight back much,” Finn said shouldering his rifle.
“Thanks fellas. There’s probably more Deshi on board. Let’s get the hell back to the Reaper,” Andy ordered and led the way back to the ship. “We’re done here.”
***
“We’re out of that muck, and approaching the edge of the system, Captain,” Cade said as he sat down beside Andy and across from Haley with a bowl of chili. “Criss is keeping an eye on things.”
Haley smiled at him as he sat. She had a lot of questions for him but wasn’t too sure how to ask. She knew he was young, and about her age and there was something about him that didn’t seem so cutthroat at times. It was almost like there were two different people in there. In an instant he could become a very deadly man, seemingly without fear. She cringed inwardly and hoped that she hadn’t had a part in what had created such a man.
“You know you don’t have to call me that, Cade,” Andy said before taking a bite of something Haley didn’t recognize.
