by K. D. Austin
The two panels whisked into the wall. Hanna stared into an almost-barren room. Five pirates stood around looking at a screen that covered one entire wall. They were looking at a view of empty space.
“Looks like a big emergency,” Hanna said and laughed more nervously than she’d expected.
One of the pirates, a young man who was a little taller than Hanna and probably a couple years older, turned toward Hanna and Arden as she spoke. His hair stood up on his head in nine distinct spikes all a different color.
“Salvor, I would like you to meet Hanna Seldon,” Arden said, waving his long, muscled hand at her. “Hanna, this is Salvor Mallow, my first mate.”
Hanna stuck out her hand in greeting. Salvor grabbed hers in his thick one and shook it, though he looked at her only fleetingly. His eyes were focused between Arden and the screen.
“Glad to meet you, Hanna.” Salvor spoke quickly and then let go of her hand and turned fully toward where his attention had been all along.
“Arden, you need to see this.” Salvor moved toward the screen, obviously expecting Arden to follow him.
Arden turned toward her. “Make yourself at home, Hanna. I’m sure this won’t last long.”
No matter what Arden said, Hanna could tell that the way Salvor was acting had begun to worry the pirate captain. This was also when Hanna noticed that for a pirate band, everyone here was extremely young. None of these people were much older than her. Most pirate bands were led by a guy years older than Arden and had at least one or two salty dogs that had been around the galaxy more than once.
This realization set off an alarm in Hanna’s head. There may be something more going on here. Possibly Arden’s story of how he came by this space station left out a few details, like a mutiny by the younger pirates. She couldn’t be sure, but she’d have to keep her eyes and ears open.
Hanna began looking around. The bridge of The Scourge of the Stars was rather simplistic, in keeping with typical Galactic Marine design, with four smaller screens, all with small ports to plug into, and a matching number of chairs. Currently, Arden and Salvor were linking into the system through the ports on their wrists. However, one piece on the bridge was an obvious recent addition and not original. Someone had added a large wooden wheel in the middle of the room. Hanna found its presence ludicrous, just the kind of thing young pirates love.
“Hi, I’m Venus,” a red-haired girl who Hanna thought possibly defined the idea of cute said as she popped up in front of her. Her face had enough roundness in her cheeks to prevent any harsh angles, and her nose was small without being flat.
Hanna stuck out her hand palm down in traditional pirate greeting. “I’m Hanna Seldon—”
“Oh, I know who you are. Who do you think treated those wounds you got? It sure wasn’t Arden or Salvor. And you can thank me for that, ‘cause they couldn’t quit ogling you long enough to put on a bandage, much less inject a nanobot restoration system. Can’t say I see what the fuss was all about, honestly. No offense, but you were one bruised and battered mess when Arden picked you up. You’re looking much better now.”
“Thank you,” Hanna said for both the woman’s help and her backhanded compliment.
“Don’t. I should’ve let you die or, better yet, jettisoned you into space with your Galactic Tracker turned on full power.”
“What?”
Hanna was shocked by the apparent shift in Venus’s attitude toward her. She opened her mouth to question what Venus meant, but the redhead spun on her heel and strode off toward Salvor just as Arden turned his attention back to Hanna.
“It seems some old friends of yours have come calling,” Arden said with a cold smile that made Hanna shiver involuntarily.
Chapter 7
“Not the GalMars,” Hanna said in a hoarse whisper that she wasn’t sure Arden could hear, but he nodded all the same.
“Battle stations!” Venus shouted from the front of the bridge. Her sudden scream, coming as it did right after Arden’s ominous announcement, made Hanna jump. The EXS she wore turned that jump into near flight, translating her fear and adrenaline into energy. Hanna barely managed to avoid smashing her still-wounded head against the bridge’s ceiling before crashing back to the floor. The EXS, though, did its job and absorbed the impact so that she didn’t further injure herself even with the bad landing.
“First time in an enhancement suit, I see.” Arden laughed lightly, helped her to her feet, and led her toward the front of the bridge, where the other pirates were plugging into the controls. On the massive view screen, an entire fleet of Galactic Marine attack cruisers dropped into view. Hanna’s stomach plummeted at the sight.
“Hanna! Go with Salvor! He’ll take you to a safe place,” Arden said matter-of-factly as he spun her around and shoved her toward Salvor.
Without turning to see if Hanna was obeying his orders, he began barking commands at Venus.
“Ion fans on full! Scramblers at max! That’ll keep ‘em from getting a lock on us. Good. Wait for it…Wait for it…Now! Release the Scourge!”
As Salvor jostled her out of the command center, Hanna saw something she couldn’t believe. In absolute silence and what felt like slow motion, the two lead Galactic Marine battle cruisers just split in half. There were brief flashes from each of them, and then they suddenly went dark. Before Hanna could see any more, Salvor propelled her back out into the bright-red corridor and pushed her off into a yellow side passage Hanna hadn’t seen earlier.
“What was that?” Hanna asked Salvor with awe in her voice.
“What was what? Oh, the Scourge? Arden’s real proud of that one. It’s a long chain of iron—just one atom thick for the whole length. We hold it in place with a magnetic field and run it around the circumference of the station. When we’re ready, we just launch it out in a big arc. It’s impossibly sharp, so it cuts through anything that gets in its way. It doesn’t hold together too long, though, and it pulls too much power to use it more than once. But those GalMar losers don’t know that,” he said with a wink.
“Didn’t they create the Scourge? This was their station.”
“It was their station, but the Scourge is all Arden and Venus’s doing. They worked up the idea on a smaller scale years ago. The station just gave them the power to make it into a kick-ass weapon.”
“Where are we going?” Hanna asked as they trotted down a sickly-brown-colored passage. Salvor moved through the station without hesitation.
“We’re going to fly this GM-6 Assault Fighter right out into those GalMars and give ‘em what for!” he said excitedly as a massive door whooshed open in front of them and revealed a hangar full of the sleek black military assault vehicles.
“Wait a minute. You’re fighting the GalMars with their own fighters? Is that even smart? And I thought Arden said you were taking me somewhere safe.”
“The best defense is a good offense. Always be prepared to shoot first. That’s my motto!” Salvor said, helping Hanna inside the two-man fighter. He sealed the hatch behind them and launched out into the middle of an epic space battle before Hanna even managed to sit down completely, much less secure the flight harness.
“Whoa!” Hanna said as the ship shot out from the side of The Scourge of the Stars right into the middle of a war zone. Flashes of rockets and lasers exploded all around. Bright streaks of heavy-duty weaponry flew past in all directions. The GM-6 bounced around like a cork in a wave pool as the propulsion field that surrounded it was buffeted by blasts from the Galactic Marine battle cruisers.
“What in the galaxy are we doing out here? This is a suicide mission! There’s too many of them.”
“Relax, Hanna. This little ship is the absolute safest place to be right now. Venus is pumping out massive ion clouds all over the battlefield for us, so none of the Galactic Marines’ automated targeting systems are working. Actually, nobody’s sensors are working at all, so no computer-assisted navigation or targeting is possible. Everything has to be done manually. And in this ship,
we’re way too fast and too well protected for anyone to even try to manually gun us down. Just take it easy.”
“Don’t these GalMars have the exact same ships?”
Salvor turned around and grinned at Hanna, and she noticed that his teeth had been dyed different colors matching his hair spikes. “Nope. We got ‘em all with the station. These are prototypes.”
“Nice,” Hanna said and then motioned for the quirky pirate to turn back around and fly.
“Look, Arden sent me a burst packet over the net while we were heading to this ship. He’s got a plan. All we need to do is concentrate on doing our part. Arden will take care of the rest. Besides, what are you complaining about? The only reason we’re in this mess is because you’re here.”
“You sure it’s not because you stole their space station? Anyway, I didn’t ask for you to rescue me and bring me here.”
“Would you have rather died on that back-system world?”
Hanna felt her face burning from anger. “What does it matter? Looks like I’m going to die anyway.”
Salvor turned toward her and flashed that multicolored smile again. “Not today.”
Hanna shook her head, trying to calm her warring emotions of anger, fear, and wonder at Salvor’s confidence.
“So what exactly is our part in the plan?” Hanna asked.
Salvor didn’t answer her. Instead he started calling out coordinates and code words, only some of which Hanna recognized—some things were shared among all pirate bands—as he began coordinating the three other GM-6s that had launched from the space station.
“Hanna! Can you hear me? Hanna!” The voice came from somewhere the middle of her head as Arden called to her through the net.
“Yeah.”
“We’re going to need your skills to stop the GalMars from killing us all. Seems between our stealing their space station and then stealing you, they don’t much care for us at the moment. But that’s okay. We don’t much care for them.”
“You got that right,” Hanna said.
“Salvor is going to fly you in very close to the Galactic Marines’ command cruiser while the rest of our crew serves as a diversion. Salvor will get close enough for you to connect with their communications array. You need to hack into the GalMar net and patch a connection through to me. I’ll take care of the rest. Can you do that?”
Hanna opened her mouth to answer in the affirmative when an awful chorus of beeps, chirps, and alarms blared from the control panel in front of Salvor. A flash blinded her from outside, and Hanna felt like the bottom dropped out of her stomach. Her vision squeezed down to a very narrow tunnel as the GM-6 spun into a tight barrel roll and suddenly corkscrewed off in a new direction to avoid being annihilated by the heavy cannons from one of the massive GalMar frigates.
“Hanna? You in?” Arden’s voice was now less clear. The massive gunfire was distorting the connection.
Struggling not to vomit as Salvor continued to juke and roll, Hanna confirmed that she was up to the task. Then all of her attention was focused forward as more GalMar assault fighters than she could count dropped out of the frigate’s bay and jetted toward them.
“Now we’re talking!” Salvor said, smiling. “It’s the 512.”
Hanna’s eyes almost popped out of her head. “The 512? The Dragon Squadron? We’re dead.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. So what if they’re the best of the best of GalMar attack fighter pilots?” Salvor flipped the ship straight up and then rolled around debris from a previously destroyed ship. Hanna wasn’t sure if it was a pirate or GalMar casualty. Then he turned around to her, and his grin filled his entire face, and his teeth glowed in the reflected light of the heads-up display of his helmet. “They ain’t me.”
As if they had been waiting for Salvor’s statement, streams of white-hot plasma filled the space outside the cockpit, revealing how the Galactic Marine Dragon Squadron earned its name. One hit from those beams, and the GM-6, along with Hanna and Salvor, would be reduced to slag.
Salvor crowed like a rooster, and Hanna wondered if the pirate was excited or just crazier than she’d already guessed. She had been part of a band once with a guy who had to be nearly two hundred years old who’d randomly call out “Llama.” She decided Salvor was in a similar category. However, he could fly like no one she’d ever encountered. He rolled, flipped, dropped, and zigged around the GalMar Dragon Squadron’s relentless assault.
“It might get a little warm in here,” Salvor said as he corkscrewed the ship around and shot back toward the GalMar Dragons he’d just spent so much energy avoiding.
“What are you doing? We’ve got to get to that command ship.”
“We’ve got to get rid of these GalMars now, or we’ll never get a shot at that command cruiser. They’re not going to just hang tight while you hack them, you know.”
Three of the Dragons filled the view, and streaks of fire blasted past the GM-6 fighter. The temperature rose as Salvor barely skirted each shot. Hanna opened her mouth to warn Salvor about a fourth Dragon closing in from above, but before Hanna could give it voice, Salvor yanked the GM-6 straight up and pulled a trigger on his controller, and the Galactic Marine ship vanished in a cloud of hot plasma. Salvor crowed even more loudly this time. He seemed to be really enjoying himself. Hanna concluded he was definitely one of the crazies that make up every pirate band. Of course, maybe all pirates were a bit crazy.
The GM-6 was being blasted around by the massive bursts of energy going off all around. Salvor crowed again and corkscrewed off in yet another sudden change of direction. The ruined hulk of a Galactic Marine cruiser completely filled the space in front of the ship. Hanna realized she was looking into the wide-open center section of one of the lead ships that had been sliced in half by the Scourge. Its interior cargo chambers and decks were now exposed to the cold void of empty space. Gases still sprayed out from it in a white cloud, and she noted a couple of frozen bodies floating weightlessly among the wreckage.
With the enemy fighters hot on their tail, Salvor dove straight through the icy cloud and right into the opened hull of the cruiser. The control panel started bleating desperate proximity warnings. Salvor crowed and somehow threaded the assault craft through the ruined passages of the GalMar ship. Hanna bit down on a curse. This crazy man seemed intent on killing them one way or another.
For a moment, Hanna could see nothing but cottony whiteness. Then the GM-6 broke through the cloud of ice crystals just in time for her to see a solid hull right in front of them. Salvor jigged his controller, and the ship narrowly skated along the edge of the wall with a squeal of metal on metal.
“You’ve dropped the propulsion field?” Hanna said, startled. The propulsion field acted as a minor-level shield for an assault fighter, blocking debris, low-powered weapons, and most importantly at this point, collisions.
“It would’ve bounced us right out of here if I had left it up. Anyway, it was down to six percent.”
Hanna felt her eyes pop. Some of the Dragon fire had been even closer than she’d realized, apparently.
“Bova!” Salvor said exultantly as two of the GalMar fighters that had followed them into the ruined hulk exploded behind them. Hanna’s mouth quirked into a slight smile. Salvor may be crazy, but he was an outstanding pilot. She was beginning to see why he was Arden’s first mate and why he had chosen the man for this mission.
He shot the GM-6 through a field of white again. Then Salvor squeezed the ship through a gap between decks that Hanna wouldn’t have thought you could fit a leg through—much less a whole fighter.
After that, no one was on their tail anymore, and things quieted down considerably. Salvor flipped a switch, and the entire ship, inside and out, went dark. Hanna nodded appreciatively. Now this was how she enjoyed operating. Some pirates relished the fighting. Hanna had always appreciated the stealth work of piracy, the behind-the-scenes action. Not because it was safer—it was just as dangerous—but because it was where her talents lay. There
wasn’t much for a hacker to do in a firefight, at least not on the front lines. She intended to show what one could do from the shadows, though.
After a few seconds of flying dark, the hull of the Galactic Marine command cruiser filled the view from their cockpit. Hanna stared at the massive ship, impressed how well Salvor had placed them alongside the communications array without attracting any attention.
“Well, we’re here. Can you get out there and do your stuff? There’s a suit underneath your seat that you can use.”
Hanna pulled the pressure suit out from under her seat and wondered if she’d have any trouble putting it on, but the EXS had diminished her pain to a negligible level, and apparently the nanobots had made considerable progress. She had no issues slipping into the loose-fitting suit even in the tight space of the two-seater ship.
“The seat lays down so you can slide back to the access hatch. There’s only one suit in here, and with the propulsion field at only six percent, I don’t want to risk opening the cockpit unless it’s an emergency,” Salvor said once Hanna had donned the space suit. “It should hold well enough to keep our atmosphere, though, when you open the access hatch. And I think you’re small enough to fit through it.”
“I hope so,” Hanna said dryly.
She searched the controls around her seat for the button to control the its position. Finally, she noted a metal lever on the right side of the seat. She pulled it hard, then flopped backward as the seat folded down completely. After pushing herself back, she found the access hatch. She stared at the circular outline, realizing how tight a fit it would be. Instinctually, she held her breath as she hit the button for the hatch. It spiraled open, revealing a perfect view of the Galactic Marines’ communications array below. The weakened propulsion field appeared to be holding for now.
Chapter 8
“Hurry, Hanna! The rest of the band can only keep the Galactic Marines distracted for so long. The Scourge of the Stars is done for if we don’t finish this quickly,” Salvor said over his shoulder, and for the first time, Hanna heard a tinge of worry in the brash pirate’s voice.
