by Susan Grant
“You’ll come around,” Ayl murmured as she pushed past him.
She felt his smug, sideways gaze on her all the way to the bridge. There, Grizz’s broad-shouldered form blocked the view of the departing skiffs. The tenseness in his back told her he was scowling. Val felt as small and unnoticeable as a skiff in the Channels as she waited to be acknowledged by her captain. Where was the protective shadow of one of those crater-pitted asteroids when she needed one? She was about to apologize for dallying with Ayl when instinct told her to just be quiet.
Grizz folded his arms over his chest as he faced them. Val wanted to squirm under the lens of his scrutiny, but didn’t. That, too, would be a mistake. His menacing glare landed on Ayl first. “You’re stayin’ behind, boy.”
Ayl started to protest, but seemed to think better of it. “Aye, Cap’n,” he mumbled.
“I could use your help on the bridge, coordinating,” Grizz said, softening the blow a bit. “Stow your gear and be back in five.”
“Aye, Cap’n.” Gone was Ayl’s swagger; in its place were sagging shoulders.
Grizz then turned to Val. The man’s jaw muscles twitched, a sure sign he was gritting his teeth. Dread gripped her. A dozen possible fates came to mind, from latrine cleaning to having to serve bridge duty with Ayl. She wasn’t sure which would be worse.
“Skiff Six is yours,” he told her.
“Cap’n?” Her pulse lurched, pounding hard under her armor, as she blinked at the unexpected good news. If it were true, it would be her first time in command, something she’d dreamed of, trained for. Lusted after.
“Aye, you heard me right. I’m puttin’ you in charge of your own skiff.”
“But Six? That’s Malta’s skiff.”
“It was my skiff, girl.” Malta leaned a shoulder against the nav console, arms folded over her ample bosom as she listened in. Val could hardly look her in the eye. The last thing she wanted was to usurp the pirate elder under her very nose.
“Malta’s staying,” Grizz said. “I need an extra set of experienced eyes here on the mother ship, with those greedy, no-good, raid-crashin’ Sureblood thugs in the area. We’ve got ourselves a prime prize, and I ain’t givin’ it over to them. So, Malta’s staying and you’re going. Even though I’ve got half a mind to keep you here after seeing your lack of discipline.” His eyes narrowed at her embarrassment. “You didn’t initiate the conversation with Ayl, I’ll give you that, but you let yourself be distracted by it. Hells, socializing during a briefing—” he shook his head “—I expect more of you than that, Valeeya. Your father does, too.”
Her face burned. “I know he does.” Worse than her embarrassment and disappointment in herself was imagining what her father would think. Her brother Sethen was supposed to be the family screwup, not her. She wanted to be the raider her father could depend on. “I’ll prove myself worthy if you send me out. I know I will. You won’t regret it.”
“I blasted well better not. You’re gonna shine, girl. I know it. I wouldn’t be sending you out if I thought otherwise.” At that, he soaked in her excitement. “Now quit wasting time and get your ass in that skiff.”
“You heard your captain—go,” Malta said. There was a smile behind her sternness.
“Aye, ma’am. Aye, aye, Cap’n.” Number Six. Six! Malta’s skiff. No, hers.
Then they all noticed Ayl lingering within earshot. He’d heard the entire conversation, she thought, seeing his sullen eyes and mulish pout. “Congratulations,” he muttered.
It’s your own fault, Ayl. But she kept her opinion to herself to soften the blow. Maybe he’d leave her alone from now on.
Grizz scowled at both of them. “About time you two newbies carried your weight around this ship. Get to work.” Then he turned back to the displays.
It wasn’t finished between them: Ayl’s glare told her that.
Reeve called out to the other raiders. “Val’s takin’ Six out!”
“About freepin’ time!” someone shouted.
“Six is gonna kick some ore-stealin’ ass!” yelled another.
“Freepin’ right,” Val called back, grinning, feeling her confidence return.
Raiders congratulated her as she pushed through the crowd preceded by the news. Flashing what everyone called her father’s grin, slanted and cocky, Val hurried belowdecks. She flew down the ladder to the bottom, landing in the cavernous lower bay. Leaky air locks hissed. It sounded like the Varagon could use some rest and relaxation—and repair—just like the rest of them once they returned home to Artoom. It had been a long hunt. They’d been out raiding and away from the clan for weeks. As much as she loved it out here, it was time to go home. And she’d return as a skiff commander, she thought with no small amount of pride.
She’d make Grizz glad of his decision to send her out.
They joined Hervor, their third skiff mate, who was already on board Six. Val dropped into her seat, bending her comm over her mouth. The band crushed her hair to her scalp. The scent of shampoo mingled with fuel and the faint, acrid odor of onboard components. “I’m leading us out today.”
Hervor grinned. “Good on you, girl!”
“You got that right, skiff commander,” Reeve said and pulled the hatch closed.
Val’s ears stuffed up, then cleared as the craft pressurized. She took the controls, just as she’d practiced—and imagined—so many times, and forced herself to run through all the preflight checks despite her mounting excitement.
“Six is ready,” she told the Varagon. The docking hooks retracted and the skiff floated free. “Woo! Let’s go, boys.”
Others echoed her call over the private comm between the skiffs. The beginning of a raid never failed to make her heart pound with excitement. The adrenaline rush was almost addictive. She’d experienced nothing else like it back on Artoom. Pushing the throttles to max, she swung the skiff in the direction of the Channels, regretting only that she’d miss seeing the disappointment on Dake Sureblood’s face when he found out the Blues had beat his gangsters to the treasure.
DAKE SUREBLOOD LAUNCHED his big frame into his skiff and yanked the restraints over his shoulders, his focus never leaving the day’s prize. Ah, she was as sweet as they came: an aging Drakken cargo ship bursting at the seams with pilfered zelfen. That old ore-cartin’ crate is practically beggin’ to be plundered. Aye, and he’d be happy to oblige.
Dake pushed the comm mic over his devilish grin. “Are you ready to take her down, Surebloods?” he said, expecting no less than the enthusiastic roars that answered his call to action. With the fly-stick gripped in a gloved hand, he soared away from the Tomark’s Pride with the rest of his skiffs in trail.
“The Channels are dead ahead, boss,” Yarmouth said.
Dake nodded at his first mate’s alert. Dead wasn’t a term used lightly in these parts. Some of the asteroids were as big as moons, others the size of starships. The tiniest of the asteroids, mere grains, hissed and sizzled where they collided with the skiff’s hardened fuselage. If anything much larger hit, he’d not have a chance to ponder his demise before he landed at the gates of the Ever After. If there was one good thing to be said about death-by-asteroid, it was quick.
A tumbling boulder streaked past the skiffs. Then another. Dake didn’t back off his breakneck speed. Many would consider it suicide maintaining such high velocity in one of the densest areas of the Channels. Dake was no exception. But this time he’d managed to flight-test a launch route and even more importantly an escape route thanks to an early heads-up on the freighter’s course given by Nezerihm.
The wily mine owner had promised Dake a big haul today, and a larger-than-usual percentage of what they’d normally earn returning stolen ore for a bounty. It reeked a bit of privateer work, but, hells, Dake had a clan to feed. He anticipated spending the windfall on much-needed supplies, and maybe even a few luxuries for his cash-strapped clan. They’d suffered their share of hard times of late. His aim was to shove those dark days into the past and keep them there.
Even if it meant making deals with Nez, the slimy little creep. The man made his skin crawl.
“We ought to have an easy time of it today,” Yarmouth remarked. “If those Blues don’t show up and try to steal what’s ours. Nezzie says they want to take it all for themselves. Not just from us, but from all the clans, squeezing everyone out but them. You heard him—those greedy muckers will undercut us all if we let ’em.”
“I know what he says.” As a rule Dake dismissed most of what Nezerihm babbled on about, but the man had a point about the Blue clan. Used to be, pirate honor meant something. Not to the Blues apparently. They thought they could take what they wanted, when they wanted. It threatened the very way of life in these Channels. Potentially, the Blues’ aggression could cause other, weaker clans to go hungry. Yet Dake recalled his father admiring the Blue clan leader, Conn. The way the story went, the two met once as young men and discovered they shared similar hopes of uniting the clans. As leaders they followed through in keeping their clans from tearing out each other’s throats. Then tensions began to rise, and the two called a meeting to address healing the rift between the clans once and for all. His father, Tomark, was killed in a starship crash before the meeting could happen, cut down in the prime of life in a senseless tragedy.
The Surebloods lost their leader. Dake lost his hero.
He locked his jaw. The twinge of grief he felt at the memory he could hardly grasp, much less accept, was a familiar spike in a constant undercurrent of sadness. Not even distraction in the form of women and drink or raiding quite erased it.
A tail thumped against his pilot seat. Merkury pushed his muzzle into Dake’s hand. Intelligent brown eyes gazed up at Dake almost too perceptively. He often wondered what his dog could figure out, suspecting it was more than he or anyone could guess. It had been that way ever since he’d freed Merkury as a pup during a raid on a military scientific vessel. An intelligence augmentation lab it was, apparently. Well, Merkury may have had his education interrupted, but his natural canine abilities were put to good use on raids.
Dake ruffled the herding beast’s black-and-white fur. “Women,” he muttered to Merkury’s laser-like stare. As if I could remember what it’s like sharing the bed with anyone but you. He’d been living an out-and-out monk’s life since taking over the clan, little to drink and no women. His youth had been wild all right, like any young raider’s, but it had met an untimely end, coming head to head with responsibility. Not that he’d been reckless, but he’d had his fun. At his age he should have been looking forward to more of the same for a good many years to come. Tomark’s passing had changed all that.
The responsibility of the clan weighed heavily, taking all of Dake’s attention. Duty was his focus now. He’d do right by the Surebloods. He had to. He was all they had.
And they’re all you have now as well. It had been just him and Tomark after losing his mother and sisters in a firestorm during one of Parramanta’s annual wild-fires when he was a boy. Although his father eventually remarried and started a new, young family, Dake considered himself the last of his line. The Surebloods did, too. He wouldn’t relax today no matter how easy of a raid it seemed. Not for one nanosecond. The clan’s survival depended on being able to raid ships.
The clan’s survival depended on him.
Yarmouth persisted, “But, boss, if those greedy bastards have their way, we’ll be turning to farming to make a living.”
Dake practically shuddered with the thought. “They ain’t here. This freighter wasn’t being tracked. The chance of the Blue clan knowing about it is remote.”
Malizarr popped his head up from where he lay on his belly manning the plasma cannon. The gunner looked worried. “What about Kormanna Hollows last month? We didn’t think they’d know about that one, either, but somehow they did.”
Dake scrubbed a weary hand over his face, exposing his frustration with the situation. He hadn’t stopped wondering about the events at Kormanna either, but he’d held his own counsel, not sharing his worries. Out of respect for his father’s views he refrained from stirring up animosity for the other clans, even for the Blues. Deep down, he agreed with Tomark that the pirates, all of them, were in this together. United, they were a force to be reckoned with; separate, they were weak. Still, the Blue clan was starting to irritate him.
Dake frowned at the scope in front of him. Several swipes of his fingers across the forward display screen paraded views of the flight path ahead. He flipped through the images, cross-checking with what he could see out front until he’d assured himself the data were accurate. “Nothing but rocks out there. No Blues.”
“Better not be. I’m itchin’ for a fight.” Yarmouth unbent from a crouched position and hunted around for a more comfortable place to store his long legs. Dake at least had the extra room afforded by the pilot’s seat. The skiff was blasted cramped but the small size was necessary for stealth. The breadth of his shoulders nearly spanned the inner walls of the craft. Squib, Dake’s third skiff mate, was no better off, hunched over as he peered out the starboard portholes waiting for a clear view of the freighter.
The Surebloods’ physical size didn’t exactly work in their favor when it came to this stage of a raid. But once inside the target ship, it served them well. More often the merchants they raided were too frightened by the sight of boarding Surebloods dressed to the chin in leathers and tattooed armor and carrying every portable weapon known to man to put up much resistance. The few times it came down to fighting in hand-to-hand combat, the clansmen’s sheer size aided their victory.
Only Merkury seemed comfortable in the cramped skiff. Ears erect, shiny cold nose twitching, the dog’s attention appeared riveted on Dake, waiting for every blasted word he uttered. “You keep me on the right path, Merk,” Dake murmured. “Keep me doing the right thing.”
It was difficult, at times, to know what the right thing was. Dake bore all the responsibility of leading the clan without any of the experience. If only Tomark was still around to advise him.
The asteroids thinned out, becoming farther and farther apart until they petered out altogether.
“There she is, boss.” Squib peered down the sights of the cannon at the vessel. “She’s far worse in person than she was onscreen.”
“Why, it’s a bloody museum piece,” Yarmouth coughed out.
“So much for holding it for ransom,” Malizarr added. “We’ll be lucky to find someone willing to scrap the thing. How the hells did this piece of flarg think they’d get away?”
With zelfen. Madness it was. The region was as notorious for its piracy as it was for its mines. Either these illegal ore harvesters were lying to themselves about their chances of success, or they’d been driven to desperation by a war seemingly without end. For a thousand years the Drakken had battled the Coalition. There’d be times of relative calm, aye, but it was only to regroup and keep on going. How could there be peace when neither side was willing to accept anything less than absolute domination and utter annihilation of the other?
“Listen up, Surebloods.” Dake briefed the skiff teams over the group comm. “First thing once we’re aboard is to take the bridge. Even monsters of this size won’t have more than twenty-five crewmen. About a third will be snoring in their bunks. A duty officer will be on the bridge along with a pilot. The engineer belowdecks won’t be much use for helping protect the bridge. Same with the galley crew. That leaves only a few people to defend. Tokotay, you’ll lead your teams forward, defuse the crew and take the bridge. I want this ship under our control as fast as possible!”
The answering thunder of the raiders blasted in his ear comm. He grinned. “All right, raiders. Here we go.”
Gripping the fly-stick in his gloved hand, Dake spiraled down toward the freighter.
At last, the freedom of open space, he thought. None too soon. He didn’t like tightly enclosed spaces for long, but what pirate did, no matter what their size? The stars were their seas, the skies their muse. They we
re a freedom-loving people. Clan was everything. Stories had come back of pirates caught by one side or the other to fight in the war against their will. They never survived for long without their freedom and their clan. A living death, he imagined, a chill washing over him despite sweating in his armor and leathers.
Merkury’s chin landed on the top of his thigh. The dog sensed the turn in his thoughts. Who knew what the military’s goal had been with their research, but times like this Dake swore the animal could read his mind. “It’s all right, boy. That isn’t ever going to happen to us.” The short shelf life of pirate conscripts was known well enough. Likely it was why so few ships came to the Channels looking for recruits. That, or the freepin’ cowards remembered the consequences of venturing into the Channels in the first place: their valuables confiscated, their ships and their own pitiful selves ransomed.
Then Merkury sat up straight and growled.
Dake narrowed his eyes outside, trying to figure out Merkury’s cause of alarm. The gigantic, glinting mass of metal blotted out the stars ahead like an eclipse, growing in size as they neared it until it seemed the ship was all there in front of them. Few of the freighter’s running lights were on. Of course, they were trying to sneak out of the system. Darkened like that, the massive ship was an eerie sight.
Merkury growled again, low and deep, then made a small whine. The hair on the back of Dake’s neck prickled. What was out there? Or what else?
Yarmouth and Squib must have shared his unease: they were silent, peering out from their stations, looking for the trouble.
Then Squib broke the silence. “There, boss. See that?”
A couple of beats of Dake’s heart later, he saw what his third mate did: lights falling around the freighter from the stern, as if the stars themselves had dropped out of the sky to float free.
Dake strained against the seat harnesses. He blinked, then, disbelieving of the sight. “Those are bloody skiffs!”
