Thief of Stars (Final Dawn, Book 2)

by T W M Ashford

  “Situation report,” said Jack, spinning his chair around to face everyone else in the cockpit. “Anyone coming after us? Any radio chatter we can pick up?”

  Rogan tapped away at the computer terminal in front of her seat, frustrated that it wasn’t as snappy an experience as the hologram table to which she was accustomed.

  “It looks as if most of the reinforcements they sent to the tower were ground units,” she soon replied. “I can’t intercept any communications from the Mansa, but given their tech that’s hardly surprising… Hold on. Ships inbound.”

  “How long?” asked Tuner, gripping the arms of his seat.

  “Thirty seconds, perhaps. Maybe less.”

  “Are they armed?” was Klik’s follow-up question.

  “Impossible to tell from here. But I can’t imagine they’re coming to polish up our paintwork.”

  “Adeona.” Jack peered up at the cloudless blue sky. “How long will it take us to breach the planet’s atmosphere?”

  “About a minute. We can jump to subspace shortly after, presuming the Mansa fleet doesn’t try and block us. My skip drive is primed and ready.”

  “Good. Let’s presume they’re still scrambling to figure out what happened. Because if they aren’t…”

  “Then we’re as good as dead,” groaned Klik, tucking her knees under her chin and shrinking into her seat.

  “Erm, guys?” Tuner pressed a button and the view outside the windows changed from the sky to the city below. “What is that?”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” said Rogan.

  Thousands of tiny drones rose in a swarm from inside the ancient wall that ringed the city. They spread upwards and outwards, some hovering near the wall whilst others rocketed up towards the sky. Those closest to ground level began to link together, forming sparkling forcefields of gold.

  “It’s a miniature Ceros Gate,” Jack whispered, his mouth agape. “My God. They’re trying to trap us inside the city!”

  “The drones are assembling a dome towards a central point here.” Rogan tapped a rapid series of calculations into her terminal and the windows returned to normal. “Adi, can you get us—”

  “Way ahead of you. Hold onto your bolts, everyone.”

  The Adeona’s hull groaned as she pushed herself into an almost vertical ascent. Every panel in the cockpit shook. The pressure on Jack’s body grew so strong he could barely focus on the floating towers whizzing past either side of the windows. He gritted his teeth. It was like being back in Everett Reeves’ wormhole machine again.

  It didn’t seem to be having much effect on Tuner. He continued to monitor the drones around the city from the screen in front of him.

  “The pace with which the forcefield is connecting together is increasing,” he said. A moment later, their cascading rise became visible outside the cockpit windows.

  “I can make it,” the Adeona assured them as she rocketed upwards.

  “Attack ships are within firing range,” said Rogan. “I suggest we—”

  Rogan was interrupted by a spray of ballistics raining down the length of the Adeona’s flank. She jerked to the left but otherwise maintained her resolute trajectory.

  “Everyone all right?” asked Jack.

  “Seems like a warning shot to me.” Rogan scrolled through the ship’s vital signs. “I doubt they want our charred wreckage crashing down on their city.”

  The Adeona scoffed.

  “Another warning shot like that and my hull will be breached. Should I retaliate?”

  “No! Do not return fire!” Jack looked back over his shoulder at the crew and swept his arms out wide. “We can’t proclaim our innocence if we start blowing stuff up!”

  “But we’re not innocent!” yelled Rogan. “We haven’t been innocent since we broke into their supply ship and stole their Core, in case you forgot!”

  “And blew up one of their attack ships in the process!” snapped Jack. “All the more reason not to start killing anyone else.”

  Jack turned back to the ship’s dashboard before Rogan could argue any further… not that it really mattered. The Adeona was in charge of her own defence systems for the most part, anyway.

  The drones continued to climb outside the windows, locking together to form their immense forcefield like an ever-shifting jigsaw puzzle. They were assembling the dome faster than the ship could fly. Jack gripped the arm rests of his chair.

  “Adeona…”

  “My calculations show that we will make it.”

  They broke free of even the tallest of floating towers. Jack watched as the penultimate set of drones settled into position above them. This was going to be close. Too close.

  Another rattle of gunfire. Jack winced, expecting a sudden decompression which never came.

  “Shields are down,” yelled Rogan. “Next shot will…”

  “I know.”

  Only a small patch of sky remained open to them. The last few drones rose to fill it, their sensors already starting to flicker. The metalwork of the Adeona groaned even harder as she put all her fuel into one last push.

  “Here… we… go!”

  The ship broke through the gap half a second before the last hexagon of the forcefield ignited. The two attack ships tailing the Adeona were forced to make sharp banked turns to avoid crashing into it. The Adeona continued upwards towards the edge of Paryx’s atmosphere, though her thrusters quietened and her angle of ascent decreased… much to the relief of Jack’s ribcage.

  Rogan slumped forward in her seat. “Good work, Adi.”

  “You’re welcome, but it’s not over yet. Other attack ships will be on their way, and there’s still the Mansa fleet above us. Plus, my shields are offline.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Jack.

  “It means something down in the engine room needs fixing,” said Brackitt, unstrapping himself from the co-pilot chair. “And you’re coming with me.”

  Jack pointed pathetically at the controls. “But…”

  “Don’t worry about that.” Brackitt gestured irritably. “You said it earlier – she’s perfectly capable of flying herself. Besides, I need a second pair of hands. Or would you rather we all get sucked out into space the next time somebody shoots at us?”

  “Yeah, fair enough.” Jack unclipped his belts and hurried out of the cockpit after Brackitt. Rogan offered him a reassuring nod as he passed. Klik simply shrunk further into her seat, apparently determined to cower herself out of existence.

  “We’d better hurry,” said Brackitt as they rushed down the ship’s central corridor. “If our shields are still down when we bump into that armada in orbit…”

  “We’ll be toast.”

  “Yes. Though given the artillery those Mansa battlecruisers are kitted out with, I can’t imagine a shield will do us much good anyway. In here.”

  Jack followed Brackitt into the engine room. He hated it already. The sound of the ignited thrusters was deafening, and the intense heat they gave off practically unbearable. The whole room felt – and, thanks to the internal heat shields that glowed an angry red amongst the dark shadows, looked and smelled – like the inside of an enormous oven.

  As sweat began to pour from his forehead, Jack chastised himself for being stupid enough to leave his helmet back in the cockpit. He couldn’t use the climate control in his spacesuit without it.

  Brackitt sprinted over to the wall on the opposite side of the engine room. When Jack went to follow, Brackitt held up his hand.

  “You stay over there,” he yelled. “The couplings have all been knocked loose. See that cabinet next to you?”

  A small box was installed on the wall by Jack’s head. Jack nodded.

  “When I plug the power couplings back in and compensate the shield pressure, you’ll need to flick the purple switch back on. Think you can handle that?”

  Jack gave Brackitt a sarcastic smile.

  “I reckon I can manage.”

  He unclipped the cabinet door. The switchboard ins
ide resembled an incomprehensible fuse box. More than three dozen switches, dials and levers were at various stages of On, Off or Somewhere In Between. At least six of them were the exact same purple colour. Nothing was labelled. It had definitely been designed with an automata in mind.

  “Perfect,” Jack sighed. “Brac—”

  But Brackitt had already burrowed into the nest of wires and ratchets that pooled around the perimeter of the engine room. Jack guessed he probably wouldn’t have been able to hear him above the noise of the thrusters anyway.

  He shivered despite the scorching heat. He hated it down there. If the persistent sense that the whole ship might explode any second wasn’t enough, the lighting was terrible. There were too many nooks and shadows.

  Brackitt poked his head out from the tangle of cables.

  “On my mark, flick that switch.”

  “This one?”

  “Yeah, that’ll do. Three…”

  Jack stood on his toes and prepared to turn the shields back on.

  “Two…”

  A movement near the door caught Jack’s eye.

  “One!”

  For the second time in the space of a week, something in the engine room charged into him.

  The Adeona burned upwards through the atmosphere, the air thinning the further she went. Her heat shields were still online, even if her defensive ones weren’t.

  As blue sky gave way to black cosmos, Krett crept into view. It was a small and lonely moon, one that appeared a pale sea-green colour from inside Paryx’s atmosphere. But, small and lonely as the moon was, the encroaching darkness soon revealed Krett to be far from alone.

  The full might of the Mansa Empire’s Paryxian armada was waiting in orbit. And this time, it was pointed right at them.

  “Oh, that’s not good,” said Tuner, standing up on his chair.

  The Adeona reversed her thrusters. She came to a stop not far from where Paryx’s gravity would have naturally pulled her back towards the planet and waited, her skip drive ready to activate at a microsecond’s notice.

  Nothing happened.

  “Every battlecruiser out there has its thermonuclear cannons trained on our position.” Rogan frantically looked up from her monitor. “Why aren’t they firing at us?”

  “Maybe it’s because we’re in front of the Mansa home world,” said Klik. She started rocking back and forth in her chair at the rear of the cockpit. “If they miss even a single shot, the consequences would be catastrophic.”

  Rogan considered this.

  “You might be right. And we are out of range for most of their arsenal.”

  “Speaking of which…” Tuner tapped at his keyboard and all the screens changed to show dozens of attack ships streaming out from the battlecruisers’ hangers.

  “Bolts. Adi, are you able to jump to subspace?”

  “Technically, yes. I just need to find us a clean path past this blockade. But…”

  Rogan paused.

  “But what?”

  “But my defensive shields are still offline.”

  “How? Jack and Brackitt should have easily had that fixed by now. Is something wrong?”

  “I can’t tell. Jack’s heat signature is masked by the heat given off by my engines.”

  “Get down there and find out what’s keeping them,” Rogan told Tuner. “We could make the jump without shields, but…”

  “I’ll go with him.” Klik hopped down from her seat and followed Tuner out of the cockpit.

  Rogan turned back to the windows and watched as the fleet of Mansa attack ships hurtled towards them. Attack ships fitted with accurate, short-range weaponry.

  This didn’t look good.

  “Careful, now,” said Brackitt. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  The creature holding a makeshift knife to Jack’s throat was dishevelled and heavily salivating. Jack kept as still as a corpse in the hope he wouldn’t soon become one.

  “What do you want?” he croaked through gritted teeth.

  “You give me meat.” The desert dweller’s voice was as dry and cracked as the environment from which he’d escaped. He presumably hadn’t spoken aloud to another person in quite some time. “You fly me home.”

  “We can do that,” said Brackitt, nodding. “The galley is fully stocked. Where is it you want to go?”

  “No cans, no tins.” The creature tapped the flat side of his blade against Jack’s exposed neck. “Fresh meat.”

  “Not sure that’s on the menu, buddy.” Jack swallowed hard. “How do you feel about kwagua berries?”

  The sharp-toothed stowaway flinched as Tuner and Klik barrelled into the engine room. His knife made a small cut on Jack’s neck, and a dribble of blood ran down into his suit. Jack winced. The newcomers came to an abrupt stop.

  “Nobody move!” The creature snarled at Klik. “Specially you. Seen your kind. Crunchy city dwellers.”

  Klik shivered at his words but said nothing.

  “You can’t eat Jack,” said Brackitt, carrying on with their previous conversation. “We need him to fly the ship.”

  “Eat Jack?” Tuner wrung his mechanical hands together. “Oh dear.”

  “Lies.” The creature vehemently shook his head. “You lie! Ship flew into city to pick Jack up. Ship flies without Jack just fine.”

  “The ship won’t fly fine much longer if we don’t get her shields back online,” said Klik. She stepped forward and the stowaway pressed the flat of his knife further into Jack’s neck. A fresh trickle of blood weeped out.

  “Honestly, I don’t even think I’d be very tasty…”

  “Shut up! All of you, shut up!”

  The Adeona suddenly lurched upwards. Evasive manoeuvres, Jack guessed. Though the ship’s artificial gravity generator kept everyone grounded to the floor, there was only so much it could compensate for the sudden burst of acceleration. Everybody lost their balance and staggered towards the rear of the ship.

  Jack almost missed his opportunity. He activated his mag boots and elbowed his distracted captor hard in the ribs. Winded and caught off guard, the nomad pinwheeled backwards into the red-hot heat sinks that lined the Adeona’s thrusters.

  He howled as his skin welted and the rags wrapped around his torso set alight. The smell of burning flesh quickly filled the engine room. Jack gagged. The creature tore himself from the wall and flailed towards him, a deranged expression on his carnivorous face.

  Klik stepped between them.

  Jack went to scream at her to get out of its way, but the words never got the chance to leave his mouth. Klik ducked under the desert dweller’s outstretched arms and spun around. Something on her arm glinted in the dim red light. The creature stopped dead immediately after, his face scrunched up in confusion.

  He looked down slowly. Blood bucketed out from a gash across his abdomen. He looked back up at Jack, went as if to snarl something, and then collapsed in a quivering heap on the floor.

  Klik gave his body a kick to make sure he was dead. From each of her forearms protruded a white, slender blade about nine inches in length. Blood dripped off their ends. The bony growths had sliced clean through the folds of her cloak as well as the stowaway’s flesh.

  It hadn’t been so long ago she’d been the one hiding in the engine room. He shivered. Thank goodness she hadn’t used those blades on him.

  “Any other defence mechanisms you want to tell me about?” he asked, putting his hand over the cut on his neck.

  Klik smiled without much humour. The protrusions on her arms retracted slowly.

  “I’m not cleaning that up,” grumbled Brackitt, his arms crossed.

  The ship made a hard right turn. Everyone fought to keep their balance again. Tuner pointed up at the open cabinet.

  “The shields are still offline!”

  Brackitt and Jack rushed back to their positions, Jack leaping over the body still gushing on the floor. After a couple of seconds spent re-compensating the power couplings, Brackitt stuck his head out from the throng
of cables and nodded.

  Jack flicked the switch.

  Shields or no shields, the Adeona needed to flee.

  At least three dozen Mansa attack ships were closing in on her. They were faster than she was, more nimble than she was, and, if she strayed too far out from the planet beneath them, one of the battlecruisers in the blockade might try and take a shot.

  Despite the vastness of space, there was almost nowhere left for her to run.

  “Attack ships will be in firing distance in twenty-nine, no, twenty-eight seconds,” said Rogan, alone in the cockpit.

  “Calculating a subspace route out of the system,” replied the Adeona. “Nope. Not that way, I guess.”

  She’d been headed towards an empty patch of space just south – relatively speaking – of the blockade. But no soon had she turned to face it than another battlecruiser filled the gap, blinking into existence as it subspace-jumped into the system to assist.

  The Adeona made a hard U-turn and rocketed back towards Paryx. The incoming attack ships appeared as a glittering shower of golden rain on her starboard side.

  “Twenty-one seconds,” Rogan reminded her. “Oh, and half a minute at best before we’re intercepted by the ships sent from the planet’s surface. Just so you know.”

  “Do you want to fly me, Rogan?”

  Suddenly the defensive shields around the ship activated. They shimmered a serene blue for a split second before vanishing.

  “Well at least that’s something,” said Rogan.

  The rest of the crew came sprinting into the cockpit a second later. Everyone was out of breath. Blood was smeared across Jack’s neck.

  “What in the galaxy happened to you?” she asked.

  “Later.” Jack waved the topic away, then caught sight of the approaching attack ships on the monitor screens. “Er… why haven’t we left yet?”

  “I can’t get past the Mansa blockade,” the Adeona replied. “Every time I zero in on a possible route, another battleship blocks my way out.”