Sunscapes Trilogy Book 1: Last Chance

by Michelle O'Leary

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  DLSIJ Press

  www.dlsijpress.com

  Copyright ©2005 Michelle O'Leary

  First Published by DLSIJ Press, January 2005

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  Prologue

  "Why?” the woman asked as she stared across the desk at him, expression serene, but green eyes sharp with a cynical intelligence. She was leaning back in her chair with feet crossed on the corner of the desk, her lithe form a study in casual grace.

  That callous nonchalance and the clinical detachment in those bright eyes stung him, and he couldn't help the defensive aggression in his tone, as he answered, “Because he's my brother. Because he put himself in that situation for me. Because he deserves—"

  "That's not what I meant and you know it. Why should we help? What's in this for us?"

  "I'd owe you,” he said through stiff lips. It wasn't something he would live with easily.

  "That's nice,” she murmured with a wry twist of her mouth. “Nice, but not enough. Try again."

  "You've been looking for a new pilot."

  "Most pilots are easier to come by than your brother."

  "Not the kind you're looking for,” he said with a challenging tilt of his head.

  The serenity slid from her face like a mask, and she studied him with a dangerous glitter in her eyes, tensing subtly. He wondered for a moment if pushing her had been a mistake. But “Tell me,” was all she said, her low voice mild.

  He told her. It took a while, and there was a point when she dropped her eyes, propping her chin on one hand with a faint frown creasing her brow. When he was done, she was silent for a long moment.

  "Sins of our fathers,” he thought he heard her say, and a restless shadow stirred behind her with a whisper of protest.

  "Pardon?"

  She raised her eyes to his again with a brittle smile. “You've asked for our help. You have it."

  Chapter 1

  "I see lots of pain in your future, Del. Just do the job like a good mutt and maybe that'll change."

  Del looked up at the big man standing next to him with soul-deep contempt. Stupid people always made him feel that way. “Fuck you, Brax,” he muttered with a brand of weariness that came from frequent repetition.

  It got the same response it always did. The man's shovel-like face writhed in a tortured grimace of anger, and he lifted one brawny arm, bringing it down like a sledgehammer.

  Del didn't bother to dodge. That arm was too big to duck when he was on his knees with his arms locked behind his back in magnetic restraints. Blinding pain burst through his skull and he went down face first, unable to stop himself. Twisting, he managed to catch most of his weight on a shoulder, but he still cracked his jaw a good one on the metal floor.

  A spurt of fury spiraled through him, momentarily erasing common sense. Without thinking twice, he mule-kicked Brax in the balls and was gratified to hear the man give a short, hoarse cry of pain. He would pay for that, but when he maneuvered himself back to a kneeling position and saw Brax doubled over, he decided it'd been worth it.

  "That's enough,” someone murmured out of Del's range of vision, but he recognized the voice and tensed. Brax was big, but simple and obvious. The man who walked around to crouch in front of Del was neither. He eyed Del with cold, pale blue eyes and a gentle smile. “I believe what Brax is trying to get through to you is that you are out of choices. Do the job or give us what you owe. It's that simple."

  "You want me to kill somebody. That's not gonna happen, Trev,” Del answered in patient tones.

  Trevani's eyes flashed with something dangerous, but his smile didn't waver. “Squeamish are we? Well, who'd have guessed? Then all you have to do is pull about a hundred thousand credits out of your empty account and we'll part ways. Think that's gonna happen, Del?"

  Del stared into the man's pale eyes with a combination of fierce hatred and black despair. He had no answer that wouldn't get him in a world of hurt. Brax was recovering pretty well and though he wasn't very creative, he was good at following directions. Trevani was very creative when it came to pain—and very good at giving directions.

  Trevani's smile widened. “I see we understand each other. We'll give you four standard days to follow through.” He flicked one hand at Brax without looking at him, and Del felt the big man release his restraints.

  Rubbing his sore arms where the restraints had been, Del slowly rose to his feet.

  Trevani followed suit, studying him with an expression that had gone as cold as his eyes. “The job or the credit, Del. There's no other option."

  Del didn't bother to answer. Trev wasn't expecting one anyway. He turned and strode towards the exit, gingerly feeling the swelling behind his ear from Brax's blow.

  They didn't move to stop him, but before he reached the door, Trevani called to him, “And, Del?"

  He paused and glanced over his shoulder with weary resignation. He knew what the man was about to say.

  "I know you're thinking of skipping out on us and the job, but my heartfelt advice is this: Don't run."

  He ran.

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  Four standard days later, Del had run about as far as he could, the job not done and the credit only a possibility. He was out on the Fringe, a ragged area of space on the edges of civilization, far away from the influence and interest of the Federated Planetary Alliance. And far away from Trevani and Brax, though not out of range of their influence or interest. He wasn't hoping to disappear forever, just stay ahead of them long enough to build the credit he owed to their mutual employer, Quasicore.

  And build credit he would, now that all his time wasn't taken up with running the Core's nasty errands, doing its dirty little jobs, and paying its arbitrary penalties and fees. In all the years that he'd ruined lives in the Core's name, he estimated that he'd paid back nearly twice over what he'd owed, or more specifically, what his father had owed. But somehow the ledger still had him deep in the red. It wasn't like he could dispute the claim in a court of law, though. To the law, he was as black with sin as the beast that had sunk its claws into him.

  Desperation was a sour tang in the back of his throat and a shadow at the edge of his sight, a gloom that darkened his every step, his every breath. The Core haunted him, even here on the Fringe.

  "Man, I know you can slice. I've seen it. But how am I s'posed to trust you?"

  Del turned his head and stared at the little grease ball next to him. He thought there was a hell of a lot of irony in that question, considering the reputation the small man had for backstabbing and cheating. It's why he was racing slicers out on the Fringe instead of legitimate slicing circuits—he'd pissed off some powerful people.

  "When's the last time you trusted anybody? Look around, Hec. Ain't exactly the peak of human civilization out here."

  Hector scowled and shifted in his seat. He looked insulted, which was laughable considering that he stank like he hadn't sanitized in over a week and he was wearing black blood spatter across his chest from the Krell fight that was going on in the crude pit right below them. The spiked beasts were coming down to the last of it. The reddish one had been cornered by the blacker Krell, which was going for its throat in a rabid sort of way. The yells and cheers of the crowd nearly drowned its dying squeals.

  Del supposed
Hector's scowl might also have been because he'd had credit riding on the red. He waited patiently while his companion cursed and screamed insults at the animal that now lay in pieces below them, before asking, “So, am I in?"

  Distracted from his loss, Hector sighed heavily and shot Del a disgruntled look. “I got a slice goin’ for tomorrow night, but nobody in your caliber."

  "I don't like winning easy, but I need the credit."

  "Hey, I get a cut either way, so no grind on my bones.” Hec felt around in his grimy shirt for a second with the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth in a look of squinty concentration, before pulling out a worn data crystal. “This is the location. You lose this, show it to anybody, or let somebody follow you, and they'll tear you apart like a pack of Krells. You catch me?"

  "Yeah, I catch you,” Del muttered, taking the crystal with a barely concealed wince of disgust. A quick list of the diseases he could get from handling the little man's property skipped through his mind.

  "See you then,” Hector said before getting up and heading for the exit, giving the dead Krell a last insulting gesture as he passed the pit.

  Del decided he was going to run the crystal through a sterilizer—hell, maybe his hand, too—before he did anything else.

  The location on the data crystal was an abandoned processing station on the edge of a used up asteroid field. The next night when Del first approached the place in his slicer, he was sure that Hector had played him. At first glance, it looked completely deserted, but when he did a closer run, he saw lights deep inside one of the service hangars and a glimmer from a functioning atmosphere shield. Piloting his slicer through the shield, he entered the hangar with caution.

  Ships in a variety of sizes and shapes were clustered at the far end of the hangar, and Del could see a crowd of people gathered close to a row of slicers. He counted the racing ships as he maneuvered his own to land on the next pad in the row. There were six slicers to race against him—his made the seventh.

  "Lucky seven,” he muttered as he disconnected himself from the slicer's controls, quickly adding up the potential winnings in his head. At four thou a head, the total winnings would be only a quarter of the amount that he needed to pay back the Core. But it would be a damned good start, he thought with a glimmer of hope. That was, if Hector didn't take too large a cut for himself.

  Del agilely levered himself out of the slicer and began working his way to the center of the crowd. The slicer groupies let him through without protest, and he supposed his size had as much to do with that as being a slicer pilot. Though not as massive as Brax, he was muscular enough to intimidate and tall enough to see Hector in the middle of the crowd.

  "Del, where in the twelfth hell've you been?” the grease ball yelled over the excited rumble of people. “Been waitin’ on your ass."

  "You found such a nice out of the way spot, thought I'd go sightseeing,” Del replied with enough sarcasm that even Hector caught on.

  The little man gave him a hard grin, beady eyes narrowed like a weasel's before it bites. “This ain't no legit slicer circuit, big man. Even shootin’ the Fringe, we gotta keep low."

  Del inclined his head, letting Hector think what he wanted of that response. It must have satisfied him, because he turned towards the loose semi-circle of what had to be the other slicer pilots. Del could see obvious data ports—the cybernetic neuro-implants necessary to pilot a slicer—behind the right ears of several of them.

  "This is Del Tower. He makes the last slicer. Got any objections or you can't ante up, now's the time to back out."

  They looked him over and several began grinning. Del knew exactly what they were thinking. His size would be a disadvantage in a race where speed was essential and the lighter the craft, the faster it would go. But they'd never seen him slice.

  He eyed them in turn. Two were female, and though they both looked capable, the bald-headed one might give him a challenge. She was a tiny little thing, and her gaze was rock steady. She had the size and the nerves to push him, but he wouldn't know how she sliced until they were into it. Of the four men, two were awful jittery—either they were new to this or high on something, which pretty much put them out of the running. But if they were willing to give away credit, who was he to complain? The other two weren't so easy to dismiss. They both looked confident, one with a cocksure attitude and the other with a steady, quiet calm. Of the two, Del thought the quiet one would give him the most trouble.

  When no one said anything, Hector continued briskly, “Right then, time to bleed out credit. I hold and give over to the winner, minus my cut. The track'll get downloaded to your slicers when I got the ante—it's a run through the ‘roids and it's gonna be a twist and a half, kiddies. Any problems with that?"

  One of the nervous pilots grumbled, but not loud enough to be heard, and Hector grunted in satisfaction. Pulling a creditor from one of his grimy pockets, he held it out like a priest at communion. Del was first to stick his finger in the slot and feel the sting of the extractor taking a sample of blood from him. His DNA registered, he tapped the amount of credit to transfer, and when the creditor flashed green acceptance, he stepped back to let the others do the same.

  They were down to the last two pilots when Del was distracted by the hum of slicer engines—very powerful, very expensive slicer engines, the perfectly tuned hum almost subliminal, making the hair rise on his arms and the back of his neck. He looked up to see two sleek, black slicers coasting towards them and fell instantly in love. Those ships made his beauty look like a lump of used up metal. Piloting one of those, he thought lustfully, would be like having sex with a goddess—all smooth, profound ecstasy. Their black surface reflected the light in opalescent gleams as they settled lightly and in perfect synchronicity on the next pads in the row of slicers.

  "Oh shitballs, the Shadow Twins!” Hector moaned next to him.

  Del realized that his grungy companion was sweating beads of fear. And he wasn't the only one. The crowd's reaction to the new arrivals was a mix of dread and awe, if he was reading the whitened faces, worshipful eyes, and muted whispers right. There was also a new, greedier current of energy running through the crowd, and Del watched for the two pilots with increased interest.

  The new arrivals levered themselves out of the sleek slicers with liquid ease, and when Del saw them, he began to understand the crowd's giddy yet fearful reaction. One male and one female, they were dressed in unrelenting black, the clothes casual, but unmistakably expensive. They carried with them an air of unconscious arrogance that only the rich and powerful can manage, but there was also an edge of real danger in their movements. They moved like predators coming into view of their prey, and the crowd parted before them as if they knew they were the next meal.

  As they came closer, Del also realized that they were extremely attractive, with the kind of striking looks that made people stare involuntarily. They had blue-black hair, hers in a severe braid between her shoulder blades and his in short disarray over his forehead. They both had high cheekbones and straight noses, but there the resemblance seemed to end, and Del wondered about Hector calling them twins. The male's brow was heavier, jaw thicker, and his skin had a dusky quality, while the female had skin like smooth cream and a much more lush curve to her mouth.

  Del was staring at that mouth when she entered the circle around Hector and the pilots. He noticed the sardonic curl to her lips and lifted his gaze, only to collide with the most beautiful pair of green eyes he'd ever seen. “Sun's blood,” he muttered and saw Hector snap a look at him out of the corner of his eye.

  "Don't do it, man. She's poison,” Hec whispered hoarsely, as the two arrivals stopped and looked around the circle with casual propriety.

  When the woman's eyes came to rest on Hector, she smiled like a shark, all sharp edges and bloodlust. “Hector, my slimy little friend! You don't look happy to see me,” she said, her voice smooth, cool, and edged with dangerous humor. She stepped forward, but her companion stayed where he was
, folding muscular arms across his chest with a faintly amused expression.

  Del guessed that this was her show.

  Eyes bright with something that looked like malice, she paused in front of Hector. “How's the hand?"

  Del had never seen anyone quail before, but he watched Hector do that now, his eyes falling and his shoulders hunching as he tucked his hands into his armpits in a protective gesture. Whatever had happened to Hector's hand, Del would lay odds that this woman had either done the work herself or been responsible for it.

  "Fine, fine,” Hec rasped. “Healed up real good."

  "That's great,” she said with false enthusiasm. “So it looks to me like you're running an illegal slicer race here, Hector. Can that be possible?"

  "You know it is,” he snarled softly, shooting her a look of pure hate from under his eyebrows.

  "Well, you're in luck. As it happens, I haven't had a decent race in a long while. Can you give me a good slice this time, friend?"

  Her eyes slid with narrow speculation over the group of pilots, and Del caught his breath when her gaze once again met his. It only lasted a second, but he snorted inaudibly at his lustful reaction. Down boy, he thought to the part of his anatomy south of his waistband. This one's way out of your league and your timing couldn't be worse. As usual.

  "Y-you're here to slice?” Hector asked with a hopeful note. Greed was making its usual appearance in the grimy lines of the little man's face. It looked more natural there than the fear had.

  She shot him a quick, hard look, and he quailed again. “Yes, Hector. Try to keep up. Is there anyone here who can give me a good run?"

  Del wasn't surprised to see the cocky pilot take a half step forward. The man had an ugly scowl on his face, though. “You expect us to slice against one of those black demons?” He pointed to the pair of powerful slicers at the end of the row.

  "The skill of slicing is in the pilot, not the ship,” she stated coolly, looking the man up and down. “But for those who need added incentive, I'll double the winnings if I lose."