The Star Pirate's Folly

by James Hanlon

  She continued down the wide hallway to Temporary Holding, where salvagers took their cargo to be cleared before sending it to Receiving. Several short-range gates inside airlocked storerooms connected Holding to other areas of the asteroid base, so it served as a hub for moving things all over the place.

  Montez waited at the end of the hallway and peeked inside to see the guard pushing the floating pod toward a private storeroom. Once inside he’d be able to use a short-range gate to move it into Receiving when they were ready for it.

  “Almost there,” Crane said in her ear. “You still got him?”

  “I see him. He’s going into a private room.”

  “Wait for me.”

  “It’s gone if he goes in there.”

  “Don’t follow him,” Crane warned.

  “He’s getting away.”

  “Montez. Stop. What exactly is your plan here? A shootout with security in the middle of Temp Holding is not going to end well for us.”

  Montez clenched her fists. “That’s our payday.”

  “It’s not worth dying over.”

  “Better than living with this bullshit,” Montez snapped. Her voice shook with anger. “Aren’t you tired of scraping by? We go out into the belt afraid. We come back home afraid. I’m sick of it. It’s all I can feel anymore.”

  A hot flush of rage spurred Montez to action. She entered Temporary Holding at a brisk walk and spotted the HomeSec guard at the entrance to a private room with the cryo pod at his back. As the guard cranked the wheel on the door to the storeroom, Montez approached, crouched behind the pod, and glanced around to see if anyone was watching her. The few other people in Holding seemed too absorbed in their own business to notice.

  Careful not to shift the pod, Montez felt for the control panel on the base and opened its cover, exposing the switches beneath. She remembered the labels taped over some of them and touched what she thought was the switch to open the pod. That would force the pod to activate and wake the occupant before it opened. The noise from the waking process might cause a distraction, buy Crane time to get to her. Anything to keep the guard busy. But before she could flip the switch, the guard began to pull the cryo pod into the storeroom.

  Without missing a beat Montez darted forward into the doorway, reached underneath the pod, activated the switch, then scrambled to cover behind the wall outside. She stood up, leaning against the wall as she surveyed the area again. No one saw her as far as she could tell, and the guard still hadn’t shut the door. Montez spotted Crane searching for her as he entered Holding, fully armored and moving fast.

  She gave a little half wave, feigned a yawn. “Here.”

  “What now?” Crane asked, his voice clear in her earbud.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Looking at the pod. What did you do?”

  “Come in after me. I’ll get him to turn his back,” Montez said. She took a deep breath to steel her hammering heart. There would be no turning back from this. “We’ll have to kill him, you know. We’re on the run after this."

  “I figured. Quiet and fast. Go.”

  Montez rounded the corner and stepped inside the storeroom but made no effort to sneak in. The black-armored HomeSec guard was frozen in panic, watching the pod as it opened up.

  “I’ve been wondering who was in there,” Montez said.

  The guard turned to her immediately. His modulated voice blasted from the suit’s speakers as he brought his rifle up. “The fuck are you doing? Get out of here.”

  Feigning surprise, Montez put her hands up and backed into the nearest corner of the room. “Whoa, hey. Sorry, I wasn’t—don’t shoot!”

  The guard kept his rifle trained on her, jerked its barrel to the doorway. “Out. You’re about two seconds from—”

  A blur of dark metal rushed into the room and a laser from Crane’s pistol hit the guard’s throat, silencing him. As he did this, Crane pulled the door shut behind him with the gravity node on his other hand. The attack took only a moment, and Montez wasted no time rerouting the short-range gate in the room to connect them with the hangar. As she activated the gate, the HomeSec guard fell to the ground with a muffled gurgle.

  “They’ll be after us now,” Crane said. After locking the storeroom door, he went to close the cryo pod and did a double take when he saw the occupant. “Holy shit, Montez.”

  “Gate’s opening. Let’s go.”

  “No, wait. We don’t need to go to the Core. You know who this is?”

  Montez looked inside the cryo pod to see an unconscious bald man with tattoos all over his body. The markings seemed to cover every inch of him, even his face. She didn’t recognize him. Confused, frustrated, and painfully aware of each squandered second, Montez gestured for him to hurry up and explain. “No, I don’t.”

  “That’s Dreadstar.” Crane shook his head. “The pirate. That’s him.”

  “Bullshit. I’m not chasing after some fairytale treasure. Let’s get out of here. Stick to the plan.”

  Crane shut the lid and pushed the pod over to the inactive gate. “I trusted you enough to kill a man just now.”

  “We can’t—”

  “This is him.”

  “And even if it is, what makes you think he’d tell us?”

  “We don’t need him to. Just need to sell him to someone who thinks he would. That’s worth a damn lot more than this thing.” Crane waved Montez over to the floating cryo pod. “Get underneath here. They could be waiting for us in the hangar, it’ll give you some cover.”

  Crouched under the pod, Montez watched as the gate’s doors slid open to reveal the hangar on the other side. “Let’s go.”