by T. M. Catron
“I could kiss you,” he said, taking the staff from her hands with reverence.
Rance rolled her eyes. “No thanks, vomit-breath. I wouldn’t be surprised if you kissed that staff, though.”
With a flick of Solaris’ wrist, the weapon extended until it was almost as tall as him. He tried to stand, and wobbled on his feet. He grabbed the railing for support. “Walking is still a problem. Let’s see about this.”
Solaris twirled the staff in front of him with one hand, pointing it down the walkway. A small shimmer of energy rippled out in front of them.
Rance put her right arm around his waist. “You shield us, I’ll get us there.”
“Let’s not dawdle, though. Everything still feels a bit numb.”
“I’m the one who’s dawdling?”
“Took you long enough to get here.”
“You’re lucky we found you at all.”
The sounds of boots on the walkways told her the mercs were getting closer. “Why haven’t they charged us yet?”
“They’re cautious,” Solaris said with a smirk. “It took twenty of them to catch me last time. And after that little lesson downstairs, none of them are eager to face me alone.”
Solaris nodded to Rance, and they hurtled down the walkway together. It was more like a three-legged race on crutches, but Rance pulled with all her might as Solaris tried to keep up with her. The guards opened fire from two directions, and blasts bounced off Solaris’ shield. It warbled and then fizzled. With fear driving Rance, she dragged her CO toward the door, desperate to get behind cover before he ran out of strength. The rooftop stairway was twenty meters away.
Solaris turned them around, their backs to the railing as more shots hit from two sides. At least four armored mercs now peeked out from around bends. One had positioned himself above, a shotgun turned toward Solaris’ head. Desperate not to get pinned down, Rance edged along, glancing over her shoulder. There was nothing but wall behind them now, so the threat of being shot in the back had disappeared. The mercs fired relentlessly, moving closer, getting braver.
“The warehouse is on fire!” she said. “They must care more about protecting their plot than dying.”
“Agreed,” Solaris said. He grunted as the shield collapsed briefly inward. Before it disappeared entirely, however, he regained control.
When they reached the stairwell, they ducked into it, protected on two sides by the metal walls, and in the back by the door to the roof. Below, another explosion rocked the front of the building, but it seemed to come from outside.
“What is that?” Solaris asked.
Rance frowned. “Abel?”
“You don’t know?”
“There seems to have been a change of plans.”
The mercs surrounded the foot of the stairs. Solaris pushed Rance up the first few. “I’ll hold them off.”
“Uh, no. I didn’t come all this way for you to die helping me escape.”
Solaris shook his head as the firepower lit up his shield until it looked like a fireball. Sweat poured down his forehead. “Get out of here!”
Rance grabbed the back of his shirt. “We’re both leaving this building, or no one is. That’s an order, sunshine. I don’t leave anyone behind.”
Solaris glanced back at Rance, saw the serious look on her face, and nodded curtly. “You’re the boss.”
The entire building rocked with another explosion, and the two of them were thrown into the wall. Solaris’ failing shield disappeared, and Rance shrank back in terror, preparing to be riddled with bullets or die in a warehouse-engulfing blaze. Already, the smoke made breathing difficult.
The explosion had interrupted the firepower. Rance hoped the mercs had all been blown off the walkways, but wouldn’t bet on it. With the stabilizers in their suits, they would have a better time of recovering.
“Let’s go!” She yanked Solaris up, pulling him up the stairway by sheer strength of will. Their going was still slow, and Rance felt like a tortoise swimming through mud.
Solaris walked up sideways, keeping his staff trained downward. When a merc appeared at the foot of the stairs, a spark shot from his staff and hit the man in the helmet. He halted, and a flashing light appeared inside his visor.
“What did you do?” Rance asked, panting for breath.
“Disabled his helmet. It won’t last long—it just needs to reboot.”
The disabled suit blocked the stairway, though, and the other mercs had to pick up their comrade and move him aside.
“Why didn’t you do that earlier?”
“Didn’t have the strength for it.” Another explosion shook the stairs, rattling the railing against the wall. “How much ordinance did you bring, Captain?” He sounded impressed.
“Not that much. Someone else is out there.”
“Captain,” Abel’s voice said over the comm, “we have company. A ship is directly overhead and firing on you.”
“Unity?”
“It’s unmarked, armed, and it just took out the front of the building. You okay?”
Rance put her hand on the door handle. “What’s the situation on the roof?”
“Bad. That ship will chew through anything moving up there. Harper was waiting for you, but it has her pinned down. Suggest you find an alternate route.”
“Negative. We don’t have one.”
The mercs had pushed past the disabled suit and were now making a final, desperate campaign to overwhelm Solaris with firepower. He fell, sitting down on the stairs as the shield weakened. It sputtered, the edges turning crimson, growing smaller by the second as if burning away.
Rance turned the door handle and pushed. The door flew open, and she and Solaris spilled out of it. More bullets flew past them. Above, the fire illuminated a small, dark ship hovering over the building. Someone on board saw them and began firing.
Rance rolled out of the way. Solaris rolled the other direction, using his shield to ward off the barrage of armor-piercing rounds peppering the doorway, chewing up the door, roof, and stairway. It prevented any mercs from coming out, but it also removed their cover.
“Captain!” Harper called. She was two meters away, hiding in the shadows behind a vent.
Rance scrambled over, crouching beside her to look back at Solaris. He had edged away from the destroyed stairwell to hide in the shadows of a similar vent on the other side.
The gunner finished blowing up the exit and then targeted the spacecraft. Solaris saw his chance and hobbled over to the women.
The first rounds hit the sleek wings as he scrambled around the other side.
“What’s the plan?” Rance asked.
Harper jerked her head to the roof’s edge. Two more hover cars waited for them in the back of the building.
“Those won’t support us!”
“We only need to have a soft landing. Er… softer than if we jumped.”
Without any other options, the trio ran, reaching the first hover car as the ship above hit the fuel tank on the sleek spacecraft. It exploded in a bright fireball that lit up the entire block. The shockwave pushed Rance forward, and she overshot the first car. The captain scrambled for purchase, desperately grabbing for a handhold as she felt herself slip off the other side. The car tilted with her weight, Harper yelled something, and the heat from the fireball overwhelmed her.
A hand grabbed Rance, and she saw Solaris’ face looking down at her, straining to hold on as more explosions rumbled in the street. The bright glow behind him made Rance’s eyes water.
With all the weight, the hover car had begun sinking, picking up speed alarmingly fast. With her legs dangling below, Rance was going to be crushed under the car when it crashed into the pavement.
“Jump!” Solaris yelled.
Trusting that he could see what she could not, Rance let go of the car, pushing off from her knees. She landed hard on her back, the wind knocked out of her lungs.
The hover car smashed into the pavement with a great wrenching noise, careening in
to the other car Rance had wrecked earlier.
Rance saw the silhouettes of two bodies, one large and one small, fly off the top of the car. She forced herself to her feet, reaching for her comm.
Another car hummed down the street, and Rance drew her stunner as she ran over to the wreckage.
The largest explosion yet rocked the inside of the warehouse. Windows shattered, raining down glass and flaming cinders into the street. Rance reached Solaris first. She trained her stunner on the car, but when it arrived, Abel got out and ran over to the wreckage.
“Harper’s all right!” he yelled over the raging fire.
Solaris moaned and reached for Rance’s arm.
James appeared from somewhere, and together they got Solaris into a sitting position. He was injured, but Rance couldn’t see where. By now, sirens blared all over the city. The streetlights brightened, illuminating the street as if it were day.
They hauled Solaris to his feet, and Abel helped fold him into the backseat of the third car. James got in the driver’s seat while Rance crammed herself into the back with Solaris and Harper. Abel sat up front with James, a large shotgun at the ready. As soon as the last limb was in the car, James careened down the street.
“How did you get that shotgun past inspection?” Rance asked incredulously.
“You forget I used to work security on Triton,” Abel said in a deep voice. “I know all the tricks.”
“You could have shared them.”
“Wasn’t time. Next time, Captain?”
Solaris squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them. Other than a gash on his forehead, he looked okay, but Rance wanted to get him back to the Star Streaker right away in case he had hidden injuries.
Harper had already pulled out a handheld scanner Rance recognized from the med bay and was checking his body, beginning with his head.
More sirens blared. The brightening streetlights seemed to follow them. Rance looked back to the warehouse, which was completely engulfed in flames. The dark ship above was now maneuvering through the city streets, but it wasn’t following the hover car. Instead, it disappeared into the hazy clouds.
Rance breathed in relief and grabbed her comm. “Tally, come pick us up. I don’t care if you have to land in the street.”
She didn’t receive an answer, and wondered if the police had activated citywide comm blockers or if something had happened to him.
“Who do you think that dark ship belongs to?” James asked, watching the video feed from the back camera. Now that they were out of the worst danger, he slowed the car in an effort to divert attention away from them.
“No idea, but they saved our skins,” Abel said. “Although I didn’t get to set off even one explosive.”
“Doesn’t mean we won’t still need them.”
“Captain,” Tally’s voice finally said, “I’m on my way. You have a message from Kaau li. I’m sending it to your handset. James, send me coordinates, will you?”
James let the car’s autopilot take over while he punched a few numbers into his comm.
Rance’s handset beeped with the data packet, and she eagerly opened the file, wondering why Kaau li would send her a message. It was timestamped from two hours ago.
Kaau li’s stern, beautiful face appeared on the screen. “Captain Cooper, I feel I should give warning that pirates are on their way to avenge my brother’s death. I suggest you get your CO out of there if you don’t want him caught in the crossfire.”
“Wasn’t the Caducean Drive in the warehouse?” Harper interrupted. “If so, it’s destroyed, too.”
“—I also need to warn you,” Kaau li’s message continued, “that Unity ships carrying Galaxy Wizards are on their way to Cronus L-58c. I found out that the mercs called them after they captured Solaris. This information clears my debt to you, for endangering your crew and losing your CO. It also clears my debt to Solaris, I believe. Give him my regards.”
Solaris smiled, leaning over to watch the video, but the message ended. Kaau li had minced no words in her delivery.
James called Tally. “Be advised, we have multiple threats possibly in the airspace or orbit around L-58c. Pirates and Galaxy Wizards. You could have sent that message a bit sooner.”
A string of angry utterances came from Tally’s end, but Rance couldn’t hear what he was saying.
James smirked. “Tally broke Rule Three.”
“Heads up,” Abel said. “Police blockade three blocks ahead.”
James turned down a side street, still driving slowly. Once they saw the street was clear, the crew crawled out of the car. Rance comm’d Tally. “Change of coordinates. Sending to you now. Fly low.”
Rance again supported Solaris. “Seems risky for the mercs to call Unity after they murdered Kai lu and his friends in cold blood.”
“The Empire doesn’t care about thieves killing thieves,” Solaris said. “They have too many other problems on their hands.”
“Hopefully they’ll engage those pirates,” Rance said. “If they do, we’ll have some cover.”
Solaris frowned.
“Would they rather capture you than a ship full of pirates?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me. My betrayal is personal.”
Solaris refused to answer any more questions. Since he was injured, Rance decided not to press him on it.
They walked down the street, careful to watch for police, Unity, the pirates, or anyone else who might be after them.
“Although,” Solaris said a minute later as if they hadn’t ended the conversation, “it also wouldn’t surprise me if Kaau li is hoping the Wizards will engage the pirates. She wouldn’t mind having some revenge on all of them.”
“She must have had another receiver for that tracker. That’s how she found the mercs,” Rance said. “I should have seen this coming.”
“I wondered how you found me.” Solaris shot Rance a grateful look.
She smiled. “Sorry we left you.”
“No apology necessary. Thanks for rescuing me.”
Chapter Eighteen
Tally landed the Star Streaker in the street one block over. The crew hurried to the ship, which whipped up the air, blowing their hair into their faces. As soon as the ramp was close enough to the ground, Rance hopped on. Abel helped Solaris and Harper while James ran to the bridge.
The ship was in the air and out of the atmosphere before the police ships made it over.
“Too many other things going on,” Rance muttered, thankful for the distraction.
“Captain,” James said, “we didn’t submit to an inspection before takeoff.”
“That’s okay, James, I plan to never land on this planet again. As long as no one else gets captured.”
“I concur,” Solaris said. Harper had bandaged the gash on his head. Nothing else was injured—no broken bones. Only bruises and lingering nausea from the drugs.
Rance watched her screens. Too many ships orbited the planet. Spotting enemies before they found the Star Streaker would be difficult. James couldn’t jump to hyperspace until they cleared all of them.
“Captain,” Harper called from the control room, “a small cruiser has broken from the pack. It’s closing on us.”
“Is it armed?” Solaris asked.
“Yep.”
“That’s the Wizards.”
“I would have thought they would fly something bigger,” Rance said.
“Some of them do. But this was a mission to retrieve me. I’m sure they have plenty of things on board to do that with. Send us those specs, Harper.”
“Coming at you. Oh, and we also have another dark ship following the Wizards. Are those the pirates?”
“Who else would be daring enough to engage the Galaxy Wizards?” Solaris asked.
“How did they find us?” Rance asked. “We have a different registration.”
“Must be those images from Doxor 5, and they’re scanning all ships that leave Cronus L-58c.”
The Wizards’ ship was gaining on the St
reaker. A light flashed on the console, indicating they were requesting a ship-to-ship communication.
Rance glanced at Solaris, who shrugged. His face changed, hiding his bruises, the bandage, and changing his hair color. Rance stared. That was the second time she had seen him morph like that, and she still couldn’t quite believe it was possible.
Once he finished, Rance opened the comm to audio only. “This is Captain Cooper. What can I do for you?”
“Captain Cooper,” said a woman’s voice, “this is Unity ship UHG-571. Requesting video contact.”
“I don’t know you, Unity. What is the reason for this harassment?”
“You didn’t submit to an inspection before taking off. That means I can ‘harass’ you in any way I please. Let’s see your bridge cameras.”
Rance nodded to Solaris, who pressed a button. Her video feed switched on—in front of her chair, only.
“I’m sorry about the inspection,” Rance said innocently. “I saw all that smoke, and the barricades, and I panicked. This is my first trip to the system.”
The feed connected, and a young-looking woman appeared. A man stood in the background with graying temples but a young face. He wore a slightly different uniform, and Rance guessed he was in charge. Was he a Wizard?
“It doesn’t matter why you didn’t stop for inspection,” the woman said, “you’re required to have one now. Disengage those thrusters and prepare for boarding.”
“Is it typical for Unity to stop transgressors, rather than planet police?”
“This entire system is run by the Empire. And don’t play coy—let me see your bridge.”
Rance swung the screen around so it panned the cockpit. She didn’t care if the Unity official got dizzy from her moving it too quickly. Maybe she would get sick. “As you can see, we’re small.”
James nodded, then Solaris.
“Are any of you under duress?” the woman asked.
“Not in the slightest, except I’m sorry about that inspection,” Rance said. She swung the screen back to herself, along with the camera. “We landed hoping to trade and take on a couple of jobs, but the nature of the planet made us decide this isn’t the system for our little operation. If you’re worried about me paying taxes, my accounting logs are easily transfer—”
