Star Scavenger: The Complete Series Books 1-5

by G J Ogden

  “I think it’s time we left,” said Tory Bellona. Considering what they’d all just seen, her voice was remarkably composed.

  “I think you’re right…” Hudson answered, with considerably less poise. He grabbed the controls, and spun the Orion away from the carnage behind them. He saw that their deceleration burn had completed, but the enormity of the events that had just unfolded had caused him to take his eyes off the navigation scanner. There were six seed ships directly on their tail, the portal was still a minute away, and there was now also a fleet of ten RGF Patrol Craft heading straight for them.

  “I sure hope those cops are gunning for the seed ships, and not us,” said Tobin, who was now gripping the back of Liberty’s seat tightly.

  “You’d hope so, but with the RGF you never can tell,” replied Hudson. Then he glanced back at Tobin and Tory. “I’d sit down and strap in, this might get a little sporty.”

  Tory activated the second auxiliary seat and Hudson heard the harnesses click into place behind him. He then adjusted his grip on the controls and took a deep breath. He was about to play chicken with ten RGF patrol craft, but there was no question of him backing down first. He knew the seed ships were even deadlier than a fleet of armed RGF vessels.

  Hudson glanced at the scanner and noted that the first of the seed ships was about to overtake them, but none of the alien vessels appeared to be targeting the Orion. Suddenly, two of the black arrowheads raced past the cockpit window and ripped straight through three RGF Patrol Craft, as easily as if they were egg crates.

  “Hang on!” cried Hudson, as he veered hard to avoid the fiery debris. The seed ships banked and turned back towards them, displaying impossible agility. Another two RGF patrol craft were pulverized. Debris showered the cockpit, rattling off the glass like hailstones. Hudson banked hard again, setting them back on course for the portal, and pushed the throttle forward.

  “You can’t transit at this speed!” yelled Tobin, “The stress could tear us apart.”

  Hudson held his course, “Those damn seed ships will smash us to pieces if I don’t!” he yelled back. “We don’t have a choice.”

  The navigation scanner flashed a warning, and Hudson checked it quickly, seeing that a seed ship was now on their tail. He noted the distance to the portal, and pushed the throttle a notch further forward. “Clench up, people, this is going to be rough!” he called out.

  The seed ship veered in, but Hudson pulsed the thrusters just in time, rotating the Orion in a desperate attempt to avoid a collision. Alarms rang out as the alien ship clipped their starboard wing, sending the Orion into a spin. Screams and cries filled the cockpit as they tumbled towards the portal, completely out of control. Hudson could see that several damage warning lights had lit up on his panel, likely from the impact with the seed ship. Yet, incredibly, they were still intact, and still breathing. Hudson silently thanked Morphus’ retrofitted alien enhancements for saving their skins.

  “Ten seconds!” yelled Hudson, though his cries were lost in the chaos of other shouts. The controls had become unresponsive, so that even if Hudson wanted to stop their transit, he couldn’t. All they could do now was wait, and roll the dice.

  The Orion continued to hurtle towards the portal, tumbling chaotically, end-over-end. Then they hit the threshold hard, like a diver belly-flopping into a swimming pool. They were all jolted brutally, then the cockpit was consumed by purple light. The vortex outside swirled around them like a storm, as they tumbled through the fold in space.

  Hudson could hear the hull of the ship creak and groan under the immense pressures. Any ordinary ship would have been torn apart from the stress, but the Orion was no ordinary VCX-110. Infused with alien DNA, Hudson knew it could take the strain. Or, at least he hoped it could - because they had to survive. The great ship, Goliath, was coming for Earth, and he had to stop it.

  CHAPTER 14

  The Orion emerged on the Sapphire-Alpha side of the portal, still tumbling out of control. Hudson’s instruments were all down, and warning lights and indicators were flashing across every console. Yet, despite their uncontrolled spin, he could still use the one instrument that was working – his eyes. Through the cockpit glass, he could see the imposing outlines of three Martian heavy cruisers. And the Orion was heading straight for them, like a cannonball.

  “You need to level us off,” Liberty cried out. “The main drives will be down; I need to get to the engine room!”

  Hudson wrestled with the controls, pulsing the thrusters in a desperate attempt to rectify their spin, but the ship wasn’t responding. “The drives are still online,” he shouted back to Liberty, “but the flight controls are not answering and the main computer is offline. You have to reinitialize the system!”

  “How can the drive systems still be online?” Liberty called back. “We just transitioned through a portal!”

  “How about we talk about that some other time?” Hudson answered, trying to focus Liberty on more pressing matters. His eyes grew wide as the heavy cruisers began to dominate the view outside. The MP ships were already taking evasive action, but they were slow and cumbersome. Unless Hudson could regain control, the Orion would smash straight into them. Or, more likely, Hudson realized, be blasted into dust before that happened. “You have to get the flight systems back online, or we’re dead!”

  Liberty sprang into action, pulling open the primary service panel and practically diving inside. Anxious seconds slipped by, with every tick of the clock bringing them closer to destruction. “Any time now, Liberty!” Hudson cried out, as the turrets on the MP ships began to draw down on them.

  “Damn it, the main power breaker is fried,” Liberty answered, poking her head back out of the panel, “I need to replace it.”

  “There’s no time,” cried Hudson, “We have five or ten seconds before they start shooting!”

  Suddenly, Tory unclipped her harness and practically fell to Liberty’s side, before pulling a knife from her boot. “Get back,” she cried.

  Liberty immediately pulled her head out of the compartment and grabbed her chair to steady herself. “What are you going to do?” she said, staring at the metal blade glinting in Tory’s hand. A few days ago, Hudson would have half-expected Tory to plunge it into Liberty’s gut, but instead, she thrust it inside the compartment.

  “Something that I hope works,” Tory answered, through gritted teeth. Levering the damaged breaker out of its housing, she then rammed the blade between the contacts. There was a loud crack and a flash of light, and Tory was sent hurtling backwards.

  “Tory!” cried Hudson, seeing the mercenary laid out on the deck, smoke rising from her body. He reached for the buckle to release his harness, but then the flight deck suddenly kicked back into life. He was desperate to check on Tory, but if he didn’t maneuver the ship to safety, she was dead anyway.

  “I’ll go!” shouted Liberty, scrambling to Tory’s side.

  Hudson forced himself to look away, grabbing the controls again. This time the thrusters and main engines responded. Flying on gut feeling alone, he tried to counteract the Orion’s spin, pulsing the thrusters little and often. Soon he’d leveled off the ship, but they were still careering towards an MP cruiser. An alarm rang out, and Hudson glanced at his panel. “Target lock, they’re firing!” he shouted, before spinning the ship away from the cruiser and pushing the throttle hard forward. “Hang on!”

  The kick of the engines was brutal, but the sudden change in velocity was enough to push them away from the cruiser. Hudson had no idea if the MP ship had fired and missed, but he had no intention of giving them another opportunity to blow them away. He grabbed his headset and pulled it on, before opening a channel on the distress frequency.

  “MP cruiser, MP cruiser, do not fire!” he yelled into the mic. “I have regained control. I say again, do not fire!”

  Hudson throttled back and then spun the engine pods around to kill their forward momentum. He watched as the three MP Heavy Cruisers returned to their prev
ious formation. The open channel crackled with static, until the lead cruiser finally responded.

  “VCX-110 K2000-Shadow, this is MP Heavy Cruiser Acheron,” a voice replied on the open channel. “Hold your position and prepare to be boarded.”

  “Prepare to be boarded?” Hudson repeated, “For what reason?”

  “You are under arrest, by the command of Admiral Shelby. The charges are illegal ID registry reprogramming and collusion with enemy agents. Do not attempt to run, or you will be fired upon.”

  “Shelby again…” said Hudson, shaking his head. “We just can’t seem to catch a break at the moment.”

  Suddenly, another voice crackled over the speaker. “MP Cruiser Acheron, this is Commodore Trent of the Coalition of Earth Territories.” Hudson checked the navigation scanner, which had finished reinitializing, and saw that three more ships were rapidly closing in. Their IDs read as CET Super Frigates – more than a match for the MP cruisers. “We also wish to speak with Captain Powell. I suggest a rendezvous and parlay at Rapture Base, on Sapphire Alpha.”

  Silence filled the cabin of the Orion, punctuated only by the occasional crackle and hiss of the open communications channel.

  “Commodore Trent, this is Admiral Shelby,” came the stern female voice, which Hudson immediately recognized. “You have no jurisdiction here. Powell is wanted by the MP military for crimes committed in MP space. This is none of your concern.”

  “Admiral, you have no jurisdiction here either,” Trent replied, smoothly. “So, unless you intend for our two fleets to fight it out over who gets custody of Captain Powell, I suggest we pursue a more equitable course of action.”

  There was another anxious wait, before Shelby eventually answered. “Very well, I agree to meet at Rapture Base,” she said, sounding vexed. Then in the haughty manner that typified the MP military, Shelby added, “But if Powell attempts to run, or you attempt to take custody of him first, we will see whose fleet is the more powerful.”

  The channel went dead. Hudson threw down the headset and slumped back in his chair, letting out a long, exasperated sigh. Then he remembered about Tory being shocked and thrown back, and he spun around, his heart racing. Tory was sitting up, aided by Liberty, and was rubbing the back of her head. Her right hand was badly burned, and she was clearly in pain, but Tory did not appear concerned.

  “I’m beginning to think I was safer back on that shitty little moon,” she said dryly, standing up and cradling her injured hand in front of her body.

  Tobin laughed, then noticed that no-one else was joining in. “What? That was pretty funny!” he said, frowning at the others.

  Tory glowered at him, and raised her burned hand in front of his face. “Do you find this amusing?” she said, fixing him with an icy stare.

  The blood flushed from Tobin’s cheeks, and he just stammered a response, “Erm… well… no?”

  “Good,” replied Tory. Then she turned to Hudson, and said, “I’ll be in the medical bay. Again.” She opened the door and walked through it, without another word.

  Hudson got up and threw his arm around Tobin, who was still looking shell-shocked. “Pro-tip number two, kid…” he said, in a mentorlike manner. “Tory Bellona doesn’t do jokes…”

  CHAPTER 15

  Rapture Base was the name of the scavenger town on the surface of Sapphire Alpha. Like most scavenger towns in the outer portal worlds, it was a treacherous, ramshackle place that any sane person consciously avoided. However, the wreck on the surface of the planet still attracted enough hunters to ensure the various seedy establishments saw plenty of trade.

  The arrival of six powerful military cruisers in orbit would normally be enough to spook most hunters into fleeing the surface. Though as Hudson descended towards their designated meeting spot, on a plain a kilometer outside the town’s borders, he realized that most had already fled. News of the alien attack and the destruction of the moon had already begun to spread like wildfire. Very soon it would be all over the wire services and epapers; then, there would be panic.

  Hudson set the Orion down, then opened the rear cargo ramp. The MP and CET cruisers were all too large to land, but Hudson could see two shuttles approaching – one from each lead ship. Both shuttles had two accompanying patrol craft escorts. To Hudson this seemed like an excessive and unnecessary precaution, considering most of the hunters had already left. However, it served to highlight the deep level of mistrust between Shelby and Trent.

  Hudson shut down the engines then met the others outside. Sapphire Alpha was a lush, green world, but it was late autumn on the continent where they had landed. The skies were blanketed with swirling gray clouds, and the air was wet and cold. It was a suitably miserable setting for what would inevitably be a gloomy discussion.

  “How do we play this?” asked Liberty, as the two shuttles set down a hundred meters apart. The escort ships continued to circle above the meeting site. “I mean, how much do we tell them?”

  Hudson sucked in a lungful of the chilly air and let it out with a shrug. “I really don’t think there’s any point in holding back now,” he said, watching Shelby and Trent start to walk towards them. Each of them had two armed guards. “They’ll know what just happened, and I already told Trent about Morphus. Hopefully, now they can trust their own eyes too.”

  “And what about Cutler and Griff?” Liberty added. This perked the interest of Tory, who was now paying close attention to the conversation.

  “We tell them that they have the crystal,” said Hudson. “We tell them it’s imperative we get it back, and why. Hell, we could really use their help to find those assholes.”

  “They won’t be able to find Cutler,” interrupted Tory, as she observed the two military parties approaching. “But I can.”

  Tory’s interjections remained as intriguing as ever, but Hudson didn’t get a chance to dig deeper before Shelby and Trent arrived.

  “Hudson Powell and Liberty Devan,” said Commodore Trent, nodding respectfully to each in turn. “It’s good to see you again. Much has happened since our last encounter, as I’m sure you are both aware.”

  “You can say that again,” replied Hudson, shaking the hand that Trent offered him.

  “I see that your troop has expanded,” Trent continued, smiling at Tobin and then Tory.

  “Tobin Rand,” said Tobin, brightly, extending a hand to Trent, who accepted it, gladly.

  “Ah, young Master Rand, I know your mother,” said Trent. Hudson noticed that Liberty and Admiral Shelby both rolled their eyes in almost perfect unison.

  “Why does that not surprise me?” replied Tobin, though he was still smiling.

  Then with considerably more reticence, Trent offered his hand to Tory. “And you are?”

  Tory rested her thumbs through her gun belt, “Someone who you should stop talking to,” she replied, coolly. Hudson could see Trent’s two guards tense up as Tory’s freshly-bandaged hand approached her holstered revolver.

  Trent nodded, and withdrew his outstretched hand. “As you wish,” he said, though his manner was still pleasant and diplomatic.

  “Are you quite finished with the pointless and unnecessary introductions now?” Shelby cut in, rudely. Her expression was almost the exact opposite of Trent’s gregarious openness. “And, in case you were interested, the ill-mannered mercenary is Tory Bellona,” Shelby added, pointing to Tory. Shelby seemed to enjoy the fact she knew something that Trent did not. “The number of crimes and misdemeanors that she is connected with would fill an entire data pad twice over.”

  “Such a shame you can’t prove any of it,” said Tory, shooting Shelby a provoking smile.

  Shelby glowered back at Tory, but Trent was quick to steer the subject of the discussion back on topic. “I think the current situation is more serious than a single mercenary’s petty misdemeanors,” said Trent, turning to Shelby. “And it is much larger than this one ship and crew.”

  Shelby took a step forward, “I disagree,” she said, before aiming a perfectl
y manicured finger at Hudson. “Captain Powell was seen accompanying a hostile alien vessel, and refused commands to stop. Now we have another alien vessel at our borders; one that wields unimaginable power. And Powell is again at the center of events. He has much to explain, and I intend to get answers.”

  Hudson held up his hands, trying to placate a clearly incensed Admiral Shelby. “Look, I’ll explain everything, or at least what I can,” he began. “But it’s going to require a leap of faith on your part, because what I have to say is going to sound crazy.”

  “Admiral, if I may,” Trent interjected, clearly eager to get Shelby on-side. “We have an alien vessel the size of a city advancing on the core systems. And our reports confirm that it is capable of destroying entire planets. I think very little faith is required at this point.”

  “Speak for yourself, Commodore,” Shelby cut-in. “There is no confirmed evidence that this vessel was responsible for the destruction of the moon.”

  This time it was Trent who held up a hand in an attempt to calm the inflaming tensions. “Look, Admiral, the specific details are unimportant right now,” he said. “I think we can all agree that this alien vessel is a threat, and that it’s in our shared interests to work together?” He waited to see how Shelby reacted to this suggestion. The Admiral simply folded her arms, and nodded, allowing Trent to continue. The Commodore turned back to Hudson, and said, “Now, what can you tell us, Captain Powell?”

  Hudson spent the next few minutes detailing the story of how he and Liberty came across the crystal, and later, the alien AI, Morphus. He explained to an open-minded Trent, but still heavily skeptical Shelby, how Morphus had implanted memories into his brain. He detailed the history of the race Morphus called the Corporeals, and their role in spreading life throughout the galaxy, including to Earth. And he revealed how the crystal was the only weapon that could defeat Goliath, and how it had been stolen by Cutler Wendell and Logan Griff. Both senior military commanders listened without interruptions, but while Trent was introspective, Hudson could see that Shelby’s frustrations were deepening.