Thief of Stars (Final Dawn, Book 2)

by T W M Ashford

  One glance at the streaking stars told Jack the ship was spinning.

  “Are you okay, Jack?” came Tuner’s worried voice over the comms. Jack could hear Rogan and Klik arguing in the background.

  “Okay? No! Alive? Yes!” screamed Jack. “But I’m about one more rotation away from throwing up inside my helmet. What the hell is happening out there?”

  “They torpedoed your supply ship. You’re spiralling off course,” said Rogan. “The other two are still headed across the system, guarded by one of the attack ships.”

  “What about the second one?”

  “It seems to be looping around for another pass.”

  “Get out of there!” yelled Tuner.

  Jack attempted to walk forwards, but the chaotic movement of the ship was too disorienting. A small case ricocheted off his foot as he lifted it, making him pinwheel his arms for balance. He felt his face turn a sickly shade of green.

  He looked up at the hole and the stars blurring in rings outside.

  “I have a very bad plan,” he said.

  “A very bad plan will have to do! Go! Now!”

  Jack tried his best to aim… and then switched off his mag-boots.

  It wasn’t a straight shot. As soon as Jack’s feet lost their grip on the floor he was launched both upwards and sideways, carried by centrifugal force towards the top of the empty shelving unit in front of him, the contents of which had already been scattered across the cosmos. If he hadn’t been wearing his impact-absorbing spacesuit, his chest would have probably caved in.

  Winded, he climbed onto the uppermost shelf. The stack was shaking itself loose from whatever fastened it to the floor. The hole in the hull was now only metres away. Jack gripped the sides of the shelf tight and crawled along on his knees, trying to ignore all the construction material rocketing past him.

  Something big smashed against the gnarly ruins of the ceiling. Jack ducked as the metal pieces whooshed out of sight. He suspected it had been the drone.

  “Jack!”

  He grit his teeth, closed his eyes, and let go.

  Rogan slammed her fist against the console.

  “He isn’t responding,” she said, her eyes wide and scared. “I can’t reach him.”

  Brackitt and Tuner looked at each other. Klik shrank into her seat, her knees pushed right up against her chin. Whether she was scared for Jack’s life or terrified of going back to her father empty-handed, Rogan couldn’t tell.

  “What do we do?” asked Tuner.

  “Setting a course now,” said the Adeona, turning.

  Jack opened his eyes and, much to his surprise, discovered he wasn’t dead.

  His stomach turned in sync with the rest of his body. He quickly and haphazardly used his custom air thrusters to bring himself to what amounted – in space – to a stop.

  Far off in the distance, the rest of the convoy continued on its journey across the system. It was barely more than a reddish-gold twinkle now. Jack guessed whichever Penin planet or asteroid the convoy was headed towards would find itself one ship short.

  Speaking of which…

  Jack turned around just in time to witness the second Mansa fighter jet fire a final barrage of torpedoes at the tumbling supply ship. The resulting explosion erupted like a tiny star, obliterating the supply ship before quickly dissipating into a cloud of orange nothing. The attack ship rocketed through the fiery dust without slowing.

  Despite his racing heart, Jack let out a long sigh. If they thought their thief had died in the explosion, the Mansa wouldn’t come looking for him. They might not even think one of their Solar Cores had gone missing. Perhaps being discovered had been a good thing, after all.

  His hand darted to his hip. He relaxed again. The two Cores were still floating weightlessly in their pouch. If he’d lost them, this all would have been for nothing.

  But even as the danger seemed to recede, his sense of unease grew. Before, there had at least been the dying supply ship and its nuclear grave to orient himself against. Now there was only an empty, black, star-pricked nothingness… just like the cosmic void into which he’d first been thrown from the wormhole. He was tiny, immobile, and alone.

  A shiver ran down his spine.

  Scratch that last one. He wasn’t quite alone.

  There was something in the distance. It had started as a dim sparkle no bigger than the plethora of stars around it. But with each passing second it grew ever so slightly bigger, until Jack had no choice but to believe that the something was headed towards him.

  It was time to break radio silence.

  “Adeona? Is that you?”

  No response. Jack squinted. Was that glint of light he’d seen bronze, or gold? He tried his comms again, knowing that each transmission risked alerting the Mansa to his continued survival.

  “Tuner? Talk to me, buddy.”

  Still nothing.

  He caught another flash of colour as starlight danced off the hull of the approaching ship. Yep. Definitely gold.

  No doubt about it. The Mansa attack ship was coming back around to finish the job.

  Jack instinctively kicked his legs out as if to flee, but of course they met nothing. He switched to using the air jets in his suit… but he knew their limited power was no match for even the most measly set of ship thrusters. He was delaying the inevitable by nanoseconds, if that.

  Clutching the pouch of Solar Cores to his chest, he let himself drift back around to face the attack ship.

  It came to an abrupt stop only a couple dozen metres from his position. Jack winced as he waited for it to fire, but it only hovered there, silent and expressionless, savouring the moment like a predator preparing to savage its prey.

  The Mansa attack ships had no discernible windows. Jack couldn’t see the pilot, couldn’t figure out what they were thinking. Were they worried about detonating the Solar Cores, perhaps? Or did they have orders to capture the thief for interrogation instead?

  Bolted beside the missile launchers beneath the ship’s arrowhead wings were a pair of precision rotary cannons. They began to spin, growing a hot shade of red as their velocity increased.

  Well, he guessed he had the answer to that question.

  He closed his eyes and hoped his death would be painless.

  But before the attack ship could rattle off a single shot, a heavy downpour of ballistic rounds slashed across its bow. It listed to the right, spraying its own rounds out into empty space. Jack watched as the pilot attempted a strafing manoeuvre, only for the ship’s midsection to be dissected by a second bout of cannon fire before it could turn. The attack ship drifted slowly away from Jack, sparking and lifeless. Small fires broke out amongst its engine cores.

  Jack raised his head and broke into an exhausted smile.

  The Adeona floated above him, her starboard kinetic turrets still spinning as if she expected the attack ship to spring back into action. He caught sight of Rogan and Brackitt peering down from the cockpit windows.

  “Fancy giving me a hand?”

  The underside of the Adeona opened up, and her old mining claw came rattling down. Jack decided to hold the chain as it rose back up rather than be gripped by the claw itself. It brought back bad memories of the first time he and the ship met.

  By the time he hopped off the claw into the ship’s cargo bay, Jack was in an altogether different mood. He pulled off his helmet as soon as the atmospheric simulator made it safe to do so.

  “Where is she?” Jack slammed his helmet into its storage locker on his way towards Tuner, who was waiting for him by the stairs. “Where’s Klik?”

  “She’s up in front,” said Tuner, stepping aside. “Boy, was that a close—”

  But Jack was almost at the cockpit already.

  “What the hell was that?” he snapped as he stepped inside. “Did you know it was a trap? Did your father?”

  Klik, who’d been standing by the door, hurried away from him with her forearms raised.

  “Of course not! Do you rea
lly think I would have agreed to come here if we had?”

  “Well how else did the Mansa know I was in there? They only attacked the supply ship once the Adeona came back!”

  Rogan stepped forward, her expression one of deep concern.

  “Surely you don’t think any of us…”

  “No!” Jack caught himself shouting. Guiltily, he lowered his voice. “No. I would never think that. But who else does that leave, eh?”

  Klik stared at everyone in turn, her black eyes glistening with fear. In her tattered robe, she looked even more young and hopeless than ever before.

  “Please,” she whimpered, “you have to believe me…”

  “Jack.” Tuner had climbed up the stairs after him. “I think Klik’s telling us the truth.”

  “Yeah?” Undeterred, Jack continued to stare at the frightened insectoid. “Why’s that?”

  “Because we’re still alive, for one thing. If the Mansa had known we were coming, do you really think they would have sent just the two attack ships? Do you think they’d have even let you sneak on board the convoy in the first place? The Mansa might be immensely wealthy, but even they try to avoid blowing up their own cargo whenever possible.”

  “That…” Jack’s posture softened. “That is a good point.”

  “See!” Klik stomped over to a chair and threw herself into it. Jack forgot she was the Krettelian equivalent of a teenager. “I told you, didn’t I?”

  “The schematics Sek gave us are very old,” agreed Rogan. “It could be that they don’t reflect every single security system on board those supply ships today.”

  “And you couldn’t have mentioned that before I went?”

  Rogan shrugged.

  “You didn’t listen when I told you it was a stupid plan. Would more of my suspicions have really changed your mind?”

  “Maybe you set off a secret alarm when you nabbed the Solar Core,” said Tuner. “You did manage to get it, right?”

  Jack had almost forgotten about the pouch hanging off his hip. He reached in and pulled out one of the Cores.

  “Incredible,” said Klik, getting up from her chair. But as she reached for it, Jack pulled it away.

  “I think I’ll keep hold of this until we get back to Ankhir, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Seriously? There wasn’t even a trap for me to know about!” She threw her hands in the air. “We need that Core much more than you do, you know. Do you really think the resistance would give away its plans just to get you blown up? Really?”

  “Probably not,” said Jack, dropping the Core back into the pouch, “but this is my ticket home. Nobody else so much as touches it until your people fulfil their end of the bargain.”

  Brackitt spoke up from his chair over at the dashboard.

  “If you’re all done bickering, you might want to come take a look at this.”

  Everybody headed for the windows… everybody save for Klik, who slumped back into one of the chairs in a huff.

  Outside, the crippled Mansa attack ship continued to drift away from the Adeona. The electric-blue sparks from its thrusters were growing faster and more violent.

  Jack furrowed his eyebrows.

  “Is that—”

  Something inside the ship’s engines caught alight. The whole craft tore apart from the inside, engulfed by a small, short-lived supernova. Chunks of shrapnel bounced off the Adeona’s hull.

  Jack turned away from the window. Watching the wreckage made him feel sick.

  “Please tell me those attack ships are pilotless,” said Tuner, hopping from one foot to the other.

  “I wish I could,” replied Rogan, crestfallen.

  “I did what I had to,” said the Adeona. If there was remorse in her voice, Jack couldn’t hear it. “It was them or Jack, and I couldn’t let the captain die.”

  Everybody fell silent, unsure of what to say next.

  There was nothing they could say. There was no point in trying to rationalise their actions as self-defence – they were in the wrong for stealing the Cores, not the Mansa pilot for trying to protect them. Nobody was ever supposed to get hurt, and yet the mission had cost someone their life.

  Somewhere there had been a line, and they’d crossed it.

  Jack hoped the Cores were worth the price.

  8

  Lockdown

  They skipped out of the Penin system without hesitation, taking a winding subspace path that passed through quiet, backwater systems. Rogan had set that route specially. The Mansa were surely aware of their downed supply ship by now, and nobody aboard the Adeona fancied running into them on their way back.

  She worried for the crew. Their return journey to Paryx was a grey and solemn one. Though the momentary animosity between Jack and Klik had passed, their insectoid passenger had gone back to spending most of her time alone in her quarters. Jack was a little more talkative, but it was as if a heavy weight hung around his shoulders. He too seemed to prefer his own company, visiting only the pantry when he needed food.

  Even Tuner seemed more glum than usual.

  Rogan, on the other hand, felt less concern for the Mansa pilot they’d killed than she did for the Adeona and everyone she carried, herself included. If the Mansa Empire had any idea it was they who had stolen the Cores, there would be nowhere in the galaxy they could hide.

  And yes – Cores. Rogan was no idiot. She knew there were two of them. When Jack had pulled one out to show Klik, his pouch had remained weighed down by another. Everyone else may have been too impressed by the device in Jack’s hand to notice, but not Rogan.

  What did he intend to do with the other? Sell it? Bargain with it? Or, as she suspected, was he just making it all up as he went along?

  Rogan shook her head and went back to studying the holograms.

  She guessed she’d find out soon enough.

  Jack strolled into the cockpit just as the Adeona finished her two-day trip through subspace. The yellow planet of Paryx snapped into existence outside her windows.

  As did her gold armada.

  “Is it just me, or does it look bigger to you?”

  There had been a great many razor-edged battleships guarding Paryx before – now, their number had grown tenfold. No wonder the other empires and civilisations of the galaxy were afraid to go to war with the Mansa. This fleet alone looked sharp enough to gut an entire star system.

  “Looks like they’re stepping up their planetary defences,” said Rogan, enlarging their scans of the planet on the hologram table. “The bad news is that the Mansa almost certainly know about the heist we pulled off. Want to hear the good news?”

  “Please.”

  “They probably don’t think it was us. That’s the sort of force you bring out against another planet, not a lone refurbished mining vessel.”

  “Not unless they really want to teach us a lesson,” said Tuner.

  Jack looked at each of them in turn.

  “Are you telling me we got away with it?”

  “For now,” said Rogan. “But honestly, I wouldn’t count on that for long. Clearly the supply ships had better security than we thought. Who says the Mansa don’t put tracking chips in each of their Cores, too?”

  Jack’s hand instinctively went for the pouch still hanging from his hip. It hadn’t left his side since he got back on board the Adeona. He didn’t think Klik would run off with it after they landed, but it wasn’t worth the risk.

  “Too late to do anything about that, I suppose.” Jack shrugged. “Unless we chuck it out the airlock, but that seems like a waste. Guess we’ll have to take our chances.”

  “Hmm. That brings me to the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.”

  Rogan swiped the map away and brought up an official-looking document. Jack recognised the smug photograph in the top-right corner of the page. It was Scara Li Ka – the military commander responsible for the wellbeing of Paryx and its people.

  “This is an alert that went out across the Mansa home world sometime
yesterday. Every ship that docks must undergo screening before its crew is allowed to disembark. If we land and they find Klik, we’re screwed. If they catch you with the Core…”

  “Yeah.” Jack groaned. “I think I get the picture. So what do we do, then? Float out here until everyone down there chills out?”

  “I’m sure Sek and the rest of the Krettelian resistance won’t mind waiting,” said Tuner, tilting his head sarcastically. “Especially with all those extra security measures put in place.”

  “You could always land outside the city, you know.”

  Everyone turned to see Klik leaning against the cockpit doorway. Her hood hung so low, Jack could barely make out her face.

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “Is there a smaller port or something?”

  Klik shook her head.

  “I told you – there’s nothing outside Ankhir except death and sand. But there’s no security out there, either. You’ll be able to land without being inspected. The people who smuggle us food and intel do it all the time.”

  “How do they get to you?” asked Rogan.

  “There’s a sewer runoff at the base of the city’s exterior wall. They built over it centuries back, but we broke through.”

  “What?” Jack covered his face with his hands. It was all he could do to refrain from screaming. “Why didn’t you take us that way before?”

  “Are you kidding?” Klik laughed, but there was no humour in it. “Death. Sand. Which part don’t you understand? We’re talking about a day’s walk through a desert. Scorching heat. Blistering winds. It’s hardly the ideal way of getting inside.”

  “Sounds like it’s the best way of getting into the city unnoticed, though.” Rogan didn’t look too worried – Jack supposed this was the least dangerous part of the plan so far. “What do you say, Jack?”

  Jack felt himself turn red under their gaze. He wished they wouldn’t look to him for confirmation. But it was his fault they were in this mess, after all. It was only fair he took responsibility, however irresponsible his actions.