Rebel Stars 1: Outlaw

by Edward W. Robertson

  The acceleration-induced gravity dropped to 2 Gs, then one, then half.

  "Oh f—" Jons interrupted himself by vomiting into his hood.

  On screen, all the missiles had vanished. The Specter was slightly closer, but the field of stars had changed. The blunt nose of the enemy vessel was burning, shedding debris into the vacuum.

  "Report!" Gomes yelled through comms.

  Lara's voice was ragged. "Engine banks B and D are down. As in dead. Multiple punctures on port side. Already sealed off. Missile batteries five and six are toast. Lucky they didn't go off."

  "Probably because they were nearly empty. Hold, you all right down there?"

  "Jons just showed his dinner to the inside of his faceplate," Webber said. "But we're intact. How about the Fourth?"

  "Limping. Lost a few eyes. Fortunately, it looks like the Specter's no better off. Lara, give them another poke."

  "We don't have much left," Lara said.

  "After that last round, they won't, either. It's do or die."

  "Confirm. Launching three."

  Three new rockets left the Fourth, spearing toward the flagging enemy. It launched counters and swerved to draw the rockets into a trap, but the Specter didn't have half the zip it had shown previously. The outbound missiles winked off: one, two, three.

  "Incoming," Lara said. Lights popped up from the Specter, first a handful, then a score. "Shit. Shit!"

  "Give it whatever you've got left." Gomes' voice was growing resigned. "One way or another, this is the end."

  A cannonade of rockets departed the Fourth. With both ships slowed, the missiles seemed to zip across the space with terrible speed. On each side, a subset of rockets leapt ahead, exploding in empty space to create a barrier to the others. The remainders adjusted course, struggling to track the burst-walls and the reactions of the rockets on the other side, whipping crazily through constantly shifting vectors. A wave of counters followed both sides in, darting toward any missile that grew too confused by the chaotic flocking. Explosions strung the sky.

  Six of their missiles cleared the scrum, continuing toward the Specter. Five of the enemy's carried through.

  "Full evasion," Gomes said. "Launch flares. Dump the airlock. Put everything we've got between us and those missiles."

  The ship rolled and swung. On the screen, pinpricks of light blooped from the Fourth and expanded in spheres of white-hot light. Across the bay, the airlock rumbled, venting its debris into the darkness. Two of the incoming missiles vanished in a spray of dumb energy.

  "Not how I saw this going," MacAdams said.

  Jons was muttering, talking to himself. After a moment, Webber recognized it as prayers. Were they about to die? The others seemed to think so, and yet he felt oddly light. He had established a new life insurance policy, and though it was modest—spacers had outrageous rates—it should pay off the remainder of Dinah's house. That would still leave her care, of course, but their mother ought to be able to handle that much. Dinah would be okay.

  Even if she'd be left in the lurch, returned to the road to the poorhouse, he would have been satisfied by the fact he had tried. Given his all. More than most could say. His dad would have been proud.

  More important than his concrete effort to make Dinah's life less of an ongoing hell, he was proud of himself in the abstract. He had taken a shot. Lived outside of rules. Outside of law. Tasted freedom and potential and what it felt like when you left worry behind.

  His only regret was that he hadn't lived long enough to see what more he could have become.

  The counters knocked out one of the two remaining missiles. The other headed straight toward the Fourth.

  The ship jolted to the side, ringing like a gong. Webber gasped.

  Everything became nothing.

  15

  He was less than six hours from rendezvous with the Specter when the message came in. He knew at once that it was an emergency, and not only because of the wrapper the message came inside. Rather, if it hadn't been an emergency, he would never have gotten a message at all.

  As expected, it was from Finn. A video message along with attached files. Yon called up the message.

  Thor Finn's young, confident face materialized on the device. "Heyo. I think you can guess what this is about, so I'll cut right to it: the Specter has been attacked. Single vessel. No definite ID, but our initial searches indicate it isn't one of the heavy hitters. In fact, judging by the sloppiness of its look—not to mention its methods—we're guessing pirates. C'est la vie, right? You do everything right, and then some idiot bumbles in and smashes it to pieces.

  "We lost comms during the brouhaha. At this moment, we can't be certain the Specter continues to exist. Your mission is to extract it at all costs. If that proves impossible, to destroy it. And, if you have the opportunity, to negate any witnesses."

  Finn grimaced, raising his eyebrows in sympathy. "There's no getting around it: this is a mess. One that I could have avoided, if I hadn't been so damn sure our office was leak-proof. Needless to say, while you're cleaning up this mess, I'll be cleaning up the one on my end. Oh—and this may be my fault. I'm aware of that.

  "But I'm also self-aware enough to know that, if you can't handle this, I'll blame you as much as myself. As always, Yon, your value to me is beyond my ability to express."

  That was the end. Yon called up the attached videos and reports. It was even sloppier than Finn had implied. Yon knew he should be giving his ship new orders, but hot, terrible panic shot through his limbs, followed by the pure and senseless wrath that was the chief reason he traveled alone.

  As if aware of his mood, the rat in the clear plastic box to the left of the dash began to scrabble at its walls.

  Yon stared at it with raw hate. Of its own accord, his arm lifted. His hand pushed the red button on the top of the box. With a whoosh, the atmosphere was sucked from the box. The rat's mouth fell open. It clawed harder and harder at the wall, eyes bulging, reddening with popped capillaries. It dashed across the box and slammed into the opposite wall. It hopped, frenzied, then crashed to a corner and stayed there, limbs twitching. Very soon, it was at rest.

  Yon's pulse slowed, as did his breathing. He punched the second button. The box of the floor collapsed, sucking the carcass away. Nothing brought more clarity than witnessing the death of another being. You couldn't help but understand your own fragility, how brittle the tether that connected you to the universe of physical things.

  He closed his eyes and gestured the ship to maximum acceleration. It didn't seem to move at all. In fact, during his first trip out with it, he had assumed that it wasn't moving—that it was, perhaps, an elaborate practical joke played on him by Finn, hoping to see him rattled. The instruments had confirmed his motion, however, as had the view of the station receding behind him. It was true: it was real. It was a miracle. The dawn of a new day of human history.

  He loved the ship as much as he'd loved anything. As befitting an object of its stature, it had held many names in its brief existence. When it had been nothing more than a dream, Finn had called it the Amelia. When it had been a prototype, they had called it the Protean, as much for its versatility as for its ability to change its profile. After it passed to active duty, a few called it by its official designation of C4R-898, but most referred to it as the Ghost in the Machine or simply the Ghost. Some, to his deep confusion and deeper anger, called it Tim.

  To Yon, however, it had a single name: Mine.

  It cut through the void like no vessel before it. Now that the initial panic was behind him, he looked forward to seeing what Mine would do to whatever remained of the offenders.

  16

  The hiss of the vents. That was the first and only thing he could hear. Odd, that. Even when the engines were "off," they vibrated lightly, humming through the ship, helping to power the other systems.

  No gravity, either. They'd stopped cold. He checked the screen, but that was currently a black wall. Either they'd been knocked into another
dimension, or they'd lost sensors.

  Beside him, Jons was nowhere to be seen. MacAdams slumped in his restraints, but the man's wristband indicated he was okay. Webber's suit claimed that atmospheric pressure was low, but within the survival band. He didn't take down his hood.

  "Bridge?" Webber said. "Captain?"

  No response. He unbuckled himself. Every square inch of skin that had been in restraints ached fiercely, as did his head. He felt woozy enough to fear he'd been concussed. He planted his feet on the floor, engaged his magnets, and climbed the steps up from the hold.

  The bridge was quiet, but his eye was arrested by the largest functional screen. On it, the Specter hung in the void, rotating slowly. A large bite had been removed from its side. A cloud of debris floated around it. As did something far too large to be debris—dark, squat, shaped like a blunt-nosed bullet.

  Another ship.

  As he wandered forward, Gomes whirled to look at him. She was seated at the controls but had been so motionless he hadn't noticed.

  "You're up," she said dully.

  "Who the hell is that?"

  She rotated to gaze up at the screen. "That is the Opportunity Cost. The flagship of Ikita's personal fleet."

  The idea was already in Webber's head, but he couldn't get a grip on it for several seconds. "He's here to claim his prize, isn't he?"

  "He must have been following us. Saved our asses, though. After that last missile strike, the Specter was closing on us. The Opportunity Cost zipped past, pulsed 'em dead in their tracks, then swung about."

  "That explains why we're not dead." He'd no sooner spoken the words than he noticed Vincent lolling against his restraints, little red drops floating from his eyes and ears. He gaped. "Is anyone else..?"

  "Jons is outside working on the comms. Lara's pretty banged up, but Taz is tending to her in medical. MacAdams?"

  "KO'd, but in one piece."

  One of the smaller screens detected motion and zoomed in. Gomes pushed the camera further. From an airlock on the side of the Specter, oblong objects spewed into the vacuum, tiny beside the bulk of the ship. The scanners were on the verge of being served with butter and jelly, but Webber didn't need help to recognize the flailing arms and legs.

  "I don't suppose you've heard from Ikita," Webber said.

  "Until Jons gets those comms up, we're deaf."

  He guided himself to a seat and belted himself in. Along with the drops of blood, loose bits of splintered plastic were tumbling lazily around the bridge. In case they were able to get the Fourth moving again, he busied himself with collecting these and stuffing them in the waste tube, which bore them away for safekeeping.

  He tried not to look up at the Opportunity Cost too often. Something worried him, though. The ship wasn't monstrous, but it was at least twice as big as the Fourth Down. A vessel like that would have at least one shuttle, possibly two or three. Yet none had been sent to see how the Fourth was doing.

  Hopefully, they were too busy salvaging the Specter. And spacing her crew.

  A half hour later, MacAdams clumped into the bridge, scowling, his pale skin lighter than ever, except where it was mottled and ruddy.

  He took one look at the screen and his annoyance shifted to something far more serious. "Who is that?"

  "Ikita," Gomes said. "Jons, how are the comms coming? Or are you too busy enjoying the view?"

  Jons' voice crackled with static. "Almost there. Would go faster if you'd quit harping on me."

  MacAdams guided himself to a chair, strapped in, and rubbed the angry red welts on his skin. "Should I be worried about the engines' unapproved vacation?"

  Gomes called up a status report. "Reactor's got power. Life support's fine. We lost some atmo, but the holes are closed up or sealed off. Ikita could tow us all the way back to the Locker and we wouldn't know anything was wrong."

  "How's the shuttle?" Webber said.

  "Fine, somehow." Gomes laughed. "But if we're counting on that to get us back to the Locker, we'll have to convert it into a generation ship."

  "I got first dibs on the baby-making," Jons said. "And I won't brook arguments. Not when I'm the hero who just got the comms back up."

  "Dibs granted. Now shut up while I find out what the hell's going on out there." She pulled up a second channel. "Opportunity Cost, this is the Fourth Down. You out there?"

  "This is Opportunity Cost," a woman's voice replied. "We've got you loud and proud."

  Gomes laughed in relief. "You got here in the nick of time, Opportunity Cost. I owe you a drink. Maybe a whole bar."

  "Don't repeat that, Fourth. Not unless you want someone to take you up on it."

  "Advised. Is Captain Ikita onboard?"

  "Indeed," the man replied in his smooth tones. "I am most impressed by your work today, Captain Gomes. I only regret we didn't arrive sooner."

  Gomes smiled wryly. "Would have been nice to know you were coming."

  "I hope you don't begrudge my secrecy. I had no intention of getting involved until it became clear that my intel regarding the target's abilities was incomplete. Are you all right?"

  "We lost one. Another's in medical. The rest of us are banged up, but I think we'll make it. Same for my boat—engines are down, but we've got just about everything else."

  "Excellent. Transmit me your status and I will take it from here."

  "You got it." Gomes called up the Fourth's readouts and sent them over. "And please tell me we didn't beat the Specter up too bad."

  There was no response. Three seconds became five, then ten.

  "I don't like this," Webber said.

  "Opportunity Cost, come in," Gomes said. "Do you copy?"

  Another pause. As Gomes opened her mouth, Ikita's voice came through the line. "The goods are intact, yes. Despite what the future may hold, my gratitude for your work here remains genuine."

  "The future? I'm not following, Captain Ikita."

  "I'm sure you're not. That is what has made you so useful. You see, a heist of this nature—the device's owners will come for it. Along with those who attempted to take it. The only way to turn them away is to convince them the item is lost and the thieves are dead."

  "You set us up," Gomes murmured. "It was all leading to this. From the very first gig."

  "Sometimes—not often, but sometimes—a clever mind is provided its just rewards."

  "I get it, Ikita. Whoever you took this from is as big as it gets. Valiant. FinnTech. United Mars. But you don't need to kill us. We can leave the Fourth here. Hull it. Make it look like we've been flushed into space. Meanwhile, you drop us off at a backwater rock to live quiet little lives."

  Ikita chuckled sadly. "No, you do not 'get it.' If you 'got it,' you would understand that your pleas have no chance of success. The forces in play are too great. More importantly, human emotions and egos are too feeble to trust. One of you would betray me, be it for a reward, or simply to pretend that revenge is the same thing as victory." He clucked his tongue. "I like the idea of hulling you, however. Maximize the evidence for FinnTech to pore over."

  "Ikita—"

  "Goodbye, Captain Gomes. My regards to your worthy crew."

  The channel shut off.

  "This is my fault," Webber said. "I pissed him off in that first meeting. He's held a grudge ever since."

  Gomes laughed, harsh and hopeless. "We were doomed the second I signed on with him. The worst part is I could have seen the signs. I was blinded by my own greed."

  Something detached from the side of the Opportunity Cost. Webber flinched, assuming it was an inbound missile, but it was larger, slower to accelerate. A shuttle.

  "Is that a boarding party?" he said.

  MacAdams nodded, arms folded. "They'll blow us open, let the vacuum do the rest. Leaving plenty of evidence for the Specter's friends to pin on us."

  "Ikita said it was FinnTech," Gomes said. "I can believe it. The Specter has some kind of anti-inertia generator. Something like that could be more revolutionary than artifici
al gravity."

  "Wonderful," Webber said. "Fantastically rich people are about to get marginally richer. In the meantime, what are we going to do to prevent Ikita from making us deader?"

  "There's nothing can do. These suits won't last us more than a few hours."

  "The shuttle. It's got its own systems, right?"

  Gomes gazed at the incoming longboat. "Won't work. They'll pick up your bio-sigs and paste you."

  Webber went still. An idea was scrounging around the fringes of his mind. Ready to announce itself. But if he made any sudden moves, it would dash away. "Then we hide by the engines. Their radiation, it overwhelms bio-scans. They'll never see us."

  She swiveled in her chair. "How do you know about that?"

  "Ten thousand hours in the sims," he laughed. "So long as we load up on radiation meds first, we should be fine. Until we run out of air, anyway."

  Gomes swiped at her device, glancing between it and the incoming shuttle. "Webber. Strip."

  "Hey, I know it's a good idea, but it isn't that good. You can thank me later."

  "They'll be here in minutes. You'll never have time to get everyone suited, prepped, and out the door. I'm heading outside. I stand a much better chance against those marines in your fancy suit than I do in my skivvies."

  They gazed at each other. Webber nodded and stood. MacAdams unbuckled to help him shuck his pants. Gomes called medical, told Taz and Lara to suit up and grab every anti-rad on the ship.

  "Sounds great," Jons cut in. "Bring me a rifle, will you?"

  "No way," Gomes said. "This is my fault. It's my job to get you out of here. It's your job to get out."

  "You won't last three seconds alone. Besides, I'm already out here. What are you going to do, take away my grog privileges?"

  "God damn it, this isn't your fight!"

  "It never is, is it? The way I see it, the reaper's knocking at the door. Time to do a jig and hope he's laughing too hard to notice when the rest of you sneak out the back."

  As Webber had shed pieces of his suit, Gomes had been pulling them on. MacAdams jogged toward the rear of the bridge, magnets sticking him to the floor, and got a standard-issue emergency suit from one of the compartments. He flung the package back toward Webber, who snagged it with one hand, holding fast to a chair to prevent himself from being dragged off by the suit's momentum. He tore open the package and dived into the suit. MacAdams returned and helped the both of them seal up.