by T. M. Catron
“I don’t care about your taxes, Cooper. Why hasn’t your pilot shut down? And did he just activate your shields?”
Rance hit a button, ending the call. “She’s very single-minded, isn’t she? Let’s get out of here, James.”
The first blast from the EMP cannon rocked the Star Streaker, causing it to shudder and knocking it off course.
“Holy Triton’s baby!” James yelled. “How did they do that?”
“They’re just getting started,” Solaris said grimly. “You heard the captain, let’s get out of here. Hang on, everybody.”
James blasted away from the planet at full thrust. With all the ships around, he didn’t dare jump to hyperspace, not even for a trick like the one he had executed near Doxor 5. The Star Streaker shook with another impact, and this time it wasn’t an EMP cannon.
“Any bright ideas?” Rance asked nobody in particular. “Solaris? Can you change the ship?”
He shook his head. “Too drained. And they’re close enough it won’t make them lose us. They’ll just confirm who is on board.”
“Captain,” Harper called, “I can’t get hyperspace coordinates that are any good at the moment. Too much space debris and too many ships.”
The red planet loomed in front of them. Beyond, the green, starry Typhon nebula beckoned even from this distance. “If only we could take cover there.”
Solaris snapped his fingers, startling Rance. He reached into his jacket pocket. Rance almost fell out of her chair when he produced the Caducean Drive.
“How?”
He winked. “I grabbed it after you left the room. Of course, I fell over doing it.”
Rance smiled. “Even in a drug-induced haze, you recognized it?”
“I couldn’t remember much, but I also thought if the mercs killed Kai lu over for it, their reasons couldn’t be good. It’s safer with us.”
“Yeah, but are we safer with it?”
“Hope so.” Solaris unbuckled his harness and stood. Rance followed him down the ladder, not wanting to miss anything.
“Drug-induced haze?” James called after them.
The ship shuddered as they made their way to the control room. Harper was surprised to see them. Solaris held out the drive for Rance. “Would you like to do the honors, Captain?”
“Better hurry!” James called. “Shields at fifteen percent.”
Rance sighed. Just what they needed—more people hunting them. She made a mental list: her father, Unity, mercenaries, Galaxy Wizards. If only she knew what in Triton was going on. They didn’t, though. They knew absolutely—
Rance grabbed the drive from Solaris.
“Captain?” Harper asked.
Before Rance could talk herself out of it, she climbed up into the control room, handling the drive like a baby.
“You’re going to keep it?” Harper asked.
“Borrow it.” Rance reached over Harper. With a deep breath, she inserted the Caduceus Drive into an open port.
It glowed brighter, illuminating everything in the cramped room, casting shadows from the levers and buttons. The screen in front of the chair glowed white, and lines of code spun across it too fast for Rance to read. The winged staff popped up with its intertwining snakes, which were made of code, too. Then it finished, and the screen returned to its prior state like nothing had happened.
“What do we do?” Rance asked.
“Ask it a question, Captain,” Harper said.
That made sense. Rance’s father’s house had an AI she could speak with.
“Hello?” she asked.
Words popped up on the screen in front of her, then scrolled through her optic lens.
My name is Deliverance. How may I assist, Captain?
The Star Streaker could talk.
“Uh, we need hyperspace coordinates to the nearest safe location. At the moment, doesn’t matter where. We need to avoid pirates, Unity, Galaxy Wizards, and mercenaries. And we need a perfect shot through the mess of ships in front of us.”
Yes, Captain.
“That’s it?” Rance asked. “What happens now?”
The ship shook again, and this time a blaring klaxon followed.
“Shields are gone, Captain!” James yelled. His voice sounded panicked, and Rance knew he was doing everything he could to evade the Galaxy Wizards.
He was going to lose.
Rance and Solaris sprinted back to the bridge as fast as their tired bodies could get there. Rance glanced at Abel strapped down in the cargo bay. His face was white with fear, but he was breathing calmly. Rance hoped it wasn’t the last time she saw him. Tally would be in engineering, ready to fix anything that broke down.
Once back in the cockpit, Rance and Solaris strapped down. She had just secured herself into her chair when James and Harper yelled at the same time, “Got them!”
“Then use them!” Rance yelled.
The window in front of them turned into a wash of blue.
Five seconds later, the wash of hyperspace departed with a shallow thump, and the Star Streaker was engulfed in something green. It almost looked like smoke. Patches of black space were punctured by bright stars.
Rance’s first thought was that Unity had damaged their hyperdrive. But then Deliverance scrolled across her screen:
The Typhon Nebular Region is the birthplace of over a million stars and planets. Navigating the nebula is dangerous. Any further flight is not advised.
Rance looked over at Solaris. “Now what?”
Hide here, Deliverance continued, until the threats have departed. Then exit the same way we came in.
“Looks like we’re in the outer region only,” Harper called. “But I can’t tell much because my star maps don’t cover this region at all. I’m not sure that any do.”
Mine do, Deliverance said.
Rance’s mouth dropped. “We can traverse the Typhon nebula? Which idiot ventured in here to chart it?”
I’m not privy to that information, Deliverance said. However, despite the ability to load the chart information into the Star Streaker, using it to wander the nebula is inadvisable. If you encounter danger, no one would be here to help us. And communications are unreliable due to increased radiation and disturbances.
Rance noticed Deliverance’s use of the word us. It unnerved her slightly. Since everyone needed rest, they decided to follow the AI’s advice for the time being. As soon as they had eaten and caught a few winks, they would get out of there.
After two days, the crew had rested, and Rance was eager to get back to known territory. Still, she had snuck up to the bridge many times over the last few hours to get a view of the nebula. The captain envied whoever had charted it. Since the charts should have been news-worthy public knowledge, likely they were a result of a secret government operation. Regardless of who hired them, the men and women who had journeyed through the nebula must have been brave and daring. Rance preferred this romanticized view of their explorations rather than thinking of a stodgy captain and unimaginative crew who cared little about their job beyond the paycheck.
Other than being difficult to navigate, she wondered why the nebula was considered dangerous. Wheeler had said those who flew in never flew out again.
It was likely a myth; the nebula was large enough that it would be impossible to monitor entrances and exits.
The situation on Cronus L-58c was as bad as Rance had heard, though. She felt sorry for the average citizens who were doomed to live and die on the planet. Crooks and thieves and murderers generally preyed on those who didn’t have other options.
She wondered what business had brought her father to the Cronus system, but she would probably never know.
Their next destination was back to Ares. Although Deliverance had saved their lives, Rance felt guilty about keeping it. She didn’t run her business through theft. The crew had never stolen cargo, and she wasn’t about to start, no matter how convenient it might be.
And maybe it would provide some consolation to Kaau li, who
m Rance had grown to respect.
Solaris didn’t feel the same way. He figured the Caducean Drive had been stolen to begin with—it wasn’t something that had innocuously fallen into civilian hands. And he didn’t like the idea of pirates getting their “grubby hands on it.”
Rance insisted, however, and they finally landed on Ares, only to discover that their argument was moot. The smugglers’ house was empty, the door unlocked. Everything inside had disappeared. They searched the bare rooms. Nothing. No signs of Kaau li or her friends.
Rance was so sick of the whole thing she wanted to drop the drive in the middle of the room and abandon it to its fate.
“Maybe its fate is with you, Captain,” Solaris said.
When they returned to the ship, the crew gathered in the galley. The atmosphere was optimistic. Rance was beginning to feel a sense of accomplishment and pride: they had accomplished their mission, Solaris was back, they had evaded danger, and some murderous mercenaries had been stopped, even if it was by pirates. Rance had tried to do the right thing by returning the drive. Harper had practically shouted with glee when Rance handed Deliverance back to her.
After piecing together information, they concluded that Calliope had been part of a larger plot, although no one knew what. Kaau li had inadvertently stopped it by asking the pirates to exact revenge for her brother. Whether she knew about Calliope or not, they would never know. From the news they were able to gather, the warehouse had disintegrated into rubble. Rance wondered if Calliope had gotten out, or if she had died after Rance stunned her.
Solaris sat across from Rance in what was becoming his customary seat. She regarded him a moment as he opened a ration of chocolate mousse and dug in with a spoon.
“Something the matter, Captain?” he asked without looking up.
“Just thinking—we never made your job official.”
Solaris looked up, an eyebrow raised. “Am I being fired?”
The rest of the crew looked at Rance.
“You did get us into a significant amount of trouble.”
“And you got us out of it.” He smiled. “If you hadn’t gone to Kaau li when you did, she couldn’t have told those pirates where to find the mercs. And I have a feeling that whatever plan Calliope was hatching couldn’t have been good for anybody.”
Rance smiled too. “Flattery is only slightly helpful to your case. I’m afraid, though, after serious deliberation, I have decided to end your trial period.”
Solaris pushed his chocolate mousse away. He folded his hands on the table in a serious manner. “And?”
Rance stood. “Do you want to stay?”
Solaris stood, too. “Yes, Captain.”
Rance stuck out a hand for him to shake. “Then you have a permanent position on the Star Streaker.”
The crew gave out little whoops. Tally actually smiled, showing his short fangs.
Solaris took Rance’s hand and shook it in his firm grip.
She grinned. “Welcome aboard, Solaris.”
Prometheus Rescue
Star Streaker Book 2
For Dad
who made me a lifelong reader
Chapter One
A narrow street meandered through the eastern portion of the city, branching off like the limbs of a gnarled tree. Bright green ivy from Old Earth thrived in the yellow sunlight that glowed with the brilliance of liquid gold. It was midday for the planet Ares. A large merchant ship drifted across the sun, casting a momentary shadow over the street before fading away on its journey into space.
Captain Rance Cooper watched the ship with a twinge of jealousy. At least the large, clunky freighter had cargo—cargo it was being paid to carry. Rance and her crew had spent the last two months in hiding without a job, and without the money that came with it. They’d already spent more time on Ares than she’d planned, and Rance was becoming impatient at their self-imposed seclusion.
She sighed and focused on the marketplace around her. Vendors’ stalls made of poles and brightly colored fabrics crowded both sides of the road, leaving a narrow walkway down the center. The flags didn’t flutter in the close, still air, but the warm smell of yeast bread floated along the street, causing Rance’s mouth to water. It wasn’t the kind of bread that had to be rehydrated, either, but freshly baked goodness straight from an oven.
Rance’s stomach grumbled, and she paused to look at the purple and yellow water vegetables Ares was famous for growing—vagrappes. They looked like squids with no heads, with long roots protruding out of both ends like long, squishy tentacles. At the back of the stall, older, slightly rotten vegetables were heaped together for bargain prices. What would the crew say if she came back to the ship with wilted vegetables?
Irritated that she had such limited options for feeding her crew, Rance wound her long braid around her hand. Realizing what she was doing, she dropped her braid and sighed.
On the opposite side of the stall, a dark-haired boy of about eight ran a dirty hand over the vegetables. The merchant shooed him away. The boy scampered off down the street, revealing torn, dirty clothes, skinny arms, and bony knees sticking out from his too-short tunic.
As Rance watched him go, she spotted something that made her stomach growl even louder. Two stalls down, a merchant sold lantess from the deep river nearby. The monster fish had four fins, a long tail, and beautiful silver scales covering its body. Lantess were delicacies across the galaxy. Rance had grown up eating them on Xanthes, but only on special occasions. The sight of the fish made her drool in vain. Even here, lantess were ridiculously expensive. With only fifty credits to split between a crew of six, the captain had to spend her money wisely. And fifty credits wasn’t enough money to purchase an eyeball, let alone a whole fish.
Two months on Ares had forced the crew to tighten their belts. Rance had taken local jobs, transporting goods back and forth between the planets of the system. But they hadn’t ventured further beyond it—her father, Davos, would still be looking for her.
And Unity, the military arm of the Empire Triton, would still be looking for Solaris. But Triton couldn’t police the entire Galaxy—not yet. Since arriving on Ares, Solaris had stood directly beneath a large picture of his face projected onto the city’s holograms.
No one had noticed. The planets of the Outer Colonies had a more relaxed military presence than the Core Worlds.
Eventually, Unity had even stopped broadcasting Solaris’ face all over official channels. He insisted that they hadn’t given up and were merely rethinking their strategy. He could change his face at will, after all. How would they catch a man like that?
Rance stared at the lantess. The last time she’d eaten it, she’d been sitting in her home on Xanthes, listening to her father drone on about her betrothal to Harrison McConnell. Seeing the fish should have made her gag from the memory, but she was hungry enough to forget that particular unpleasantness associated with the fish.
Then, she had an idea.
“Excuse me, sir,” Rance asked the merchant.
He turned. The merchant was a skinny, weathered-looking man with leathery skin and squinty eyes—the appearance of one who spent days out on the river, catching a food source he couldn’t afford to eat himself.
“Ah,” he said, gesturing to his fish. “Does the captain wish to buy today?”
“No, thank you, but I have a question. Do you need to send any lantess out of the system? I have a ship.”
“Ah. Alas, I wish to know if your ship is big?”
Rance tried to hide the sigh that threatened to slip through her lips. “It’s small, but maybe you need a special delivery somewhere?”
“Ah.” He shook his head and smiled. “I only make big deliveries.”
The merchant spread his arms wide and smiled.
Oh well. Rance hadn’t been eager to stink up the cargo bay of the Star Streaker with fish, anyway. But she was hungry enough to do it.
“Ah. Do you wish to buy?” he asked again.
Rance shook her he
ad. “Not today.”
She moved on down the street, trying to forget about the sweet, salty taste of lantess or the ache in her stomach.
Whether Unity was still looking for them or not, the crew didn’t have a choice but to find a job soon—a good job. They’d starve to death otherwise, or be forced to sell the ship, and Rance would sooner cut off her own arm and eat it for breakfast than lose the Streaker.
Ahead of her, Solaris walked down the street from the opposite direction. His face and hair were dark—different from his customary pale skin and shaggy brown hair. To blend in with the local population, he wore a brown shirt and loose slacks instead of the crew’s navy flight suit. Rance recognized him, anyway. Since meeting the Galaxy Wizard two months earlier, she had learned to recognize Solaris’ tall, lean body and confident bearing whether she knew his face or not.
He was empty-handed. Apparently, the food didn’t get any cheaper farther down. Solaris saw her and nodded to the fish.
“Maybe we can rent a boat with our credits and catch some lantess for ourselves.”
Rance frowned. “James would probably fall into the water, and we’d have to pluck him from the jaws of a man-eating lantess.”
Lantess were famously dangerous. If provoked, one live fish could shred a man to the bone with its wide mouth and razor-sharp teeth.
“Really? James?” Solaris asked in surprise. “He’s not a bumbling idiot.”
“You’ve never seen him try to swim. James is a great pilot—skillful, confident—”
“A bit over-confident.”
“—fearless. Great qualities when we’re running from Unity Dark Fighters or angry pirates. In water, he sinks like a star being sucked into a black hole.”
“It’s just as well,” Solaris said ruefully. “Ares’ fishing industry is protected by local thugs who are paid by big fishing corporations. They brutally guard their territories with heavy weaponry, armored mercenaries, and a tendency to throw would-be fishermen to the lantess.”
