by Susan Grant
The next few moments were a burst of quiet, intense activity as they assigned raiders to provide cover for the two hatch busters, Squib from his clan and Reeve from hers.
“The rest of you will move through as soon as we’ve cracked her open, using hostile entry tactics,” Dake said. He wouldn’t waste time fighting with the crew. They had but one chance to cooperate. “Yarmouth, your team will round up the civvies and keep them out of the way.”
“Aye, boss.”
The hatch busters ran to the doors. Light flickered in the dim corridor as they set to work cutting the metal with zelfen-edged blades. Dake waited it out crouched by the wall, his blaster rifle cradled in the crook of his arm as he rubbed a panting Merkury between the ears. The thin air had affected the dog as it did him. Val hunkered down next to the dog, careful to keep ol’ Merk between them, her focus intent on her skiff mate Reeve as he and Squib toiled. He, on the other hand, was too aware of the scent of her soap or perfume or whatever it was she’d used on her skin or hair. No raider that capable should smell that good. Well, if the plot to break into the bridge failed and all looked grim, he just might try Merkury’s technique and steal his own kiss. A taste of those sweet lips, aye.
He scrutinized the unfinished design on her arm plate. As in his clan, Blue raiders used armor etchings to define themselves. “What’s your design to be?” he asked, seeming to surprise her with his interest.
“I’m etching the wind.”
“What does wind look like?”
She traced a finger around one of the swirls, then shrugged and dropped her hand. “I’ve got a long way to go until it’s finished. When it’s done, it’ll look like wind.”
“An unusual subject for a raider’s armor.”
“Not so a snake?” She gestured to his design.
“A sea snake. Graceful, quick, deadly,” he said, patting an arm plate.
“And slimy, too,” she pointed out.
“Caught in a net, aye, maybe, but not in the water. See, to appreciate a sea snake’s true nature you have to risk meeting it in its element.”
“The wind is an element. It’s wild and free and can’t be captured.”
“That sounds like a challenge,” he murmured.
Her golden-brown eyes rose to his, then one corner of her mouth lifted. “Take it how you like, Sureblood.” Then she was back to checking on the progress of the hatch busters.
He couldn’t pull his eyes from her. No woman had caught his interest in the year since his father had died. He’d thought his new immunity was a by-product of focusing on running his clan, but maybe there just wasn’t anyone at home like this Blue girl in her armor. Wind had the power to destroy, or it could be as soft as a caress. Did he take it as a sign to stay away, or as a siren’s call to do exactly the opposite?
“We’re in!” The call went around the group.
The hatch busters had drilled through.
Curled like a gar-gar peel, the steaming edges of the new opening glowed. Through the clearing mist, twinkled the lights of a starship bridge. A man sitting in the pilot seat grabbed hold of a gun as he started to stand.
Dake hefted his blaster rifle and gave the silent signal to attack. Pirates stormed the bridge. “Weapon down!” he ordered.
The civvie froze. His uniform was soiled, faded black, the collar too tight. His eyes were half bugged out of his head with fear. “This ship is property of Rekkure Mining,” he said, the gun still in his hand, his hand still on the nav table.
“The ship may be,” Dake agreed, his focus never leaving that weapon. “The cargo’s ours.”
The civvie’s arm tensed. That was all the invitation Dake needed. He squinted, fired and lasered the gun out of his grip. The man yelped, more from shock than pain, and the raiders took the bridge.
“We call that the Sureblood switch,” Dake told the Blues. He touched Merkury’s head next and pointed. “Go hunt.” The dog streaked ahead as Yarmouth tackled the civvie. Dake swapped his rifle for a dozer handgun and grabbed the man by the collar, wrenching him to his knees as Yarmouth secured his arms behind him.
The civvie cargo hauler was Drakken and smelled like it. Tattooed with black ink, jewelry punched in all along the rims of both ears. Dake pressed the dozer to his stubbled jawbone. “Well, well. Looks like you’re on the wrong end of my gun. You don’t have to die. Answer my questions—and no lying. What’s your position on the ship?”
“Security officer.” The civvie swallowed. “Bridge officer, pilot, galley hand and cargo supervisor.”
“Where is everyone else?” He held his gun against the sweating flesh under the man’s jaw. His pulse looked ready to jump out of his skin. “You got thirty seconds to tell me everything you know, cargo hauler, or this dozer’s going to scramble your brains.”
“We’re a skeleton crew.” He stopped, realizing his mistake using the word we.
Merkury exploded into barking. He’d found someone. Then a dozer blast boomed in the confines of the bridge. The Drakken ducked as Dake jolted, spinning toward the noise as he swung his gun around.
Val stood with both gloves wrapped around her dozer. A thin stream of vapor floated above the muzzle. A second Drakken lay on the floor, Merk sniffing and snarling at him.
“I meant it’s just him, the other pilot, and me,” the civvie tried, panicked.
“Merkury found him behind those boxes—there,” Val said. “He thought he could get a shot off.” Her eyes were wild, though her voice was calm. “Stunned him, I did, but he won’t be getting up anytime soon.” As Squib secured the man’s wrists and ankles, she cocked her lips into a smile Dake wouldn’t soon forget. “I figured he might be worth more alive, depending on how much his company’s willing to pay for ransom.”
“Found another one!” Malizarr warned as the Blue raider Reeve bent over to talk to someone hidden beneath a table.
“We got civvies popping up like yar weeds after the rains!” Dake gave the Drakken a rough shake. “You said there was two.”
“Cargo doesn’t count.”
Reeve helped an emaciated-looking woman up from where she’d been cowering under a navigation table. Long, black, unkempt hair, bare feet that looked practically blue, she trembled as he wrapped a thin blanket found on the floor around her overbony shoulders. Dake judged her to be as young as Squib, fifteen or so, perhaps once beautiful, now a walking skeleton with hollow, haunted eyes.
“Slave traders,” Yarmouth said with contempt.
Lower than low. Scum of the galaxy. It was known that Drakken traded in human flesh, but he’d never run across the evidence himself. Slavers normally didn’t traverse the Channels.
Merkury had lost that frantic, focused look, now sniffing here and there looking for tasty crumbs. Two civvies and a slave: the hostage was telling the truth about there being no more at least.
In two intense minutes, his cobbled-together team had taken over the ship. Light-headed from the lack of oxygen, Dake wanted to suck in what little air there was. He had no time to waste with uncooperative hostages. “My raider there—she kept your pilot alive for the ransom. Me, I’m thinking you’re more trouble than you’re worth. What do you say to that? Going to convince me I’m wrong?”
The Drakken was drenched in sweat, his superheated breath expelled as bursts of vapor. The black ink of his facial tattoos glistened as if freshly stamped.
“Any more slaves on this ship?”
“No! None.”
“Why this one, then? What’s so valuable about her?”
“I don’t know. We get paid to haul what needs to be hauled, slaves or ore, it doesn’t matter.”
“Paid to steal, you mean.”
The Drakken shook his head. “Stuff is uploaded onto our ship. We take it, the manifests and goods. No one asks where it’s from, and I frankly don’t care. It’s not my job to care. It’s my responsibility to get it where it needs to go.”
By now Val was speaking gently with the slave girl who cast terrified glances at
the Sureblood males, all of whom towered over her. “You okay? Are you hurt anywhere?”
The girl hid behind a veil of hair and shook her head.
“No one here will hurt you,” Reeve assured her, the only male she seemed not to want to flee from. She even let him adjust the scrap of a blanket he’d draped over her thin shoulders. “I won’t let them put a hand on you. You got my word on that.”
All efforts to get her name or where she was from failed. The girl was mute. Some slaves’ vocal cords were cut to silence them, Dake had heard. Or maybe she was unwilling to talk. Her arms were covered in bruises, some old, some newer. Where her wrist cuffs chafed, the skin was scabbed. Gods knew what else had been done to her. And they called pirates barbarians? Drakken animals. “Take him.” Dake pushed the civvie toward Yarmouth, disgust filling his chest. “Tie him up somewhere out of my freepin’ way.”
“We got trouble, boss!”
A pair of fighters streaked across the bow. Silver, wedge-shaped. “Coalition,” Dake said with a snarl. So that was who had shot off the skiffs. Coalition and Horde trading blows over control of zelfen that was neither of theirs to claim—with the clans caught in the middle. Did Nezerihm know of the risk of an attack today? It was one thing, hiring pirates to chase down his property, but it was entirely another doing it with no regard for their lives. The clans were not disposable. “Seal the door,” he ordered.
“Wait!” Val pushed through the crowd to the busted-open door and slipped through it. Merkury raced after her. Dake was there in seconds, grabbing her by the shoulder.
She whirled around, her fist cocked to smash in his nose, then froze mid-punch, seeing it was him. Her instincts were quick—and good; he’d give her that. “Where the hells are you going?” he said.
“What if the Blues are on the way? What if we shut them out?” She shook him off, taking a few steps away to peer down the deserted corridor, her expression intense as if she were willing her clansmen to appear out of the shadows. “I’ve been calling, but I don’t know if they can hear anything with all that jamming. They’re probably hunkered down somewhere to wait it out. Warrybrook’s wife just gave birth—right before the raid. He’s got to get home. What if we close the door too soon?” She dragged an arm over her forehead, looking as if she bore full responsibility for what had happened. “I can’t screw this up. It’s my first time out,” she said. “As skiff commander.”
Her first time out. Talk about a trial by fire. “Then I’ll tell you something, leader to leader. There’s no easing the pressure of feeling like you failed your fellow raiders when things go wrong. But you did all you could. It’s all we can ever do.”
Hells, he could be talking about himself. Grateful, she pondered him, as if she’d already figured that out. One last glance behind her, then she started back to the bridge—and stopped. Her gloves opened and closed, but she kept staring down the dark, foggy corridor. “I was told you Surebloods were no more than big brutes. That you couldn’t string together a sentence let alone plan out a raid. And it’s why you’re always wanting to elbow in on ours.” He felt he was seeing her for the first time when she lifted an unguarded, brown-eyed gaze to his. “I was told wrong.”
Then, ducking her shoulder to pass by, she left him savoring the remains of her sweet scent and wondering if her words were an apology or a thank-you, or something in between.
“You heard him, raiders,” she cried out. “Seal ’er up!”
The team went to work sealing up the door. Dake slid into the pilot seat and faced an array of antique controls. Grabbing the fly-stick, he pushed the throttles forward. Oxygen deprived, it was a struggle to stay sharp. Leaving masks behind on the skiffs was Sureblood tradition; it had always been that way, something about not being soft and not having to rely on nitrox, but they’d never raided a ship as large as this one. Never been trapped on a city-size vessel with someone deliberately aiming for their skiffs. He needed to get this bridge closed up, and soon. “How’s that seal coming?” he bellowed to Squib.
“Workin’ on it, boss. You gonna keep it smooth?”
Merkury whined and vocalized frantically. “What, boy, what?” Dake jerked his gaze higher. A fighter was diving in to attack. Freep me.
“Buckle up!” With a more immediate threat to his life to worry about than suffocation, Dake shoved the throttles forward and banked hard, nearly spilling everyone on the bridge. A powerful hit shook the freighter, knocking a chunk of insulation from the ceiling and making the control panel flicker. “That answer your question, Squib?”
“Here comes another one!” Yarmouth warned, taking his place by Dake and Merkury as if they were back in their skiff.
Blinding light, then a resounding thud. Squib called out, “Door’s sealed, boss!” Oxygenated air, cool and sweet, flooded the bridge. The colors went from dull, almost black and white, to bright.
Dake filled his lungs with it. “Four fighters onscreen,” he said.
“And those are only the four we can see,” Val confirmed.
With each desperate maneuver, the freighter groaned and shuddered. “This old crate can hardly fly straight and level, let alone survive a dogfight.”
Several more missiles hit, all at once. The impact was crushing. Dake grimly noted the alarms and flashing lights warning of pressure loss and catastrophic hull damage. It seemed the Coalition bastards were done playing target practice with the skiffs. Now they were shooting to kill.
CHAPTER SIX
“THEY WON’T FOLLOW US into the Channels,” the Sureblood told them.
Raid and vanish, Val thought, nodding. But at high speed in a pathetic, broken-down monster of a ship? She cinched her seat harness extratight as the Sureblood set course for the Channels with fighters in pursuit, missiles pounding, and the old freighter barely holding together.
“Buckle up,” he said. “We’re going in.”
The freighter soared into the field of broken worlds. Warning alarms rang out and lights appeared on the antique scopes. Yarmouth warned, “Fighters in our Six!”
“They followed us?” Reeve said. The slave girl sidled closer to him, her hands knotted in two white-knuckled fists.
“These are our Channels,” Dake said firmly. “Our lands. If they come after us, they’ll die.”
The fighters screamed in pursuit as rocks whirled by in all quarters. The Sureblood wove through the canyons and caves—the Channels—as if he knew exactly where to go.
“Missiles unlocked!” Yarmouth yelled, then he swore. “They fired, boss, they fired!”
“Aye…”
So calm he was, Val thought, only the tendons in his jaw showing any tension as the missiles closed on them. They could do a lot of damage now, the impact sending them crashing into the rocks. She was sweating, gripping her harnesses, fighting the fear that wanted to blow apart her crumbling composure.
The nerve-racking seconds from missile launch to impact were almost physically painful. The Sureblood waited until the last possible second…then jinked hard left. The missiles sheered past. Ahead, an asteroid exploded in a show of celestial pyrotechnics, hurling a million pieces in all directions.
“Blast it, they’re still on our ass,” she said and swore.
The Sureblood was grim. “We’ve got to lose them before we’re out of the Channels or we’ll put the mother ships in danger,” he said. “I’ll not bring the enemy home.”
Nothing was worse than bringing the danger home. She thought of Grizz and Malta. Aye, and even Ayl. They’d have to take a crazy chance to lose the fighters. She knew just the one. “Do to the fighters what you did with their missiles,” she cried. “You have the Sureblood switch. We Blues have something just like it—except with ships.”
“You mean, make them eat rocks, Val?” Hervor stared at her as if she were crazy, then he shook his head. “Aye, why not? We’re out of options.”
Val hoped the Sureblood had the resolve she saw in him. “It isn’t for the faint-hearted,” she warned.
“You’ve done this before, then.”
“In skiffs.”
Would it work with a ship this large? She saw the question in his face. “Brief me,” he said.
“While the outsiders are aiming for us, we aim for one of those rocks. You wait, wait until you’re real close, then keep going until you can’t stand it. That’ll happen before the time’s right, so you’ll have to force yourself to keep going. Then, when you absolutely can’t stand it anymore, when everything inside you is screaming to pull up, you count to three and yank up and out of the way. Their fighters won’t be able to follow in time. Instead of eating us for lunch, our Coalition friends are going to eat rocks.”
“Aye.” His smile turned to a scowl, and his laugh was just as cold. “I hope they like the taste.”
He banked toward an asteroid that looked like a huge, moldy melon, then set his course and locked it. “Buckle up.” The sounds of tightening straps and everyone grabbing hold and anchoring their bodies to something sturdy filled the silence.
“All four fighters on our ass, boss,” Yarmouth confirmed.
Val grinned. “Right where we want them.”
The asteroid loomed large. Details began to appear on the bleak, cratered surface. Keep going. The Sureblood held the stick with both hands, his jeweled eyes intense. His senses would start screaming for him to pull back on the stick.
“Keep going,” she said. “Until you can’t stand it.”
Onward he flew, the asteroid centered in the view screen. Every cell in his body and soul was roaring, Pull the hells up!
“Boss?” Yarmouth ventured, sounding nervous.
A few of the raiders called out to the gods, even though pirates were notoriously lax in their beliefs. But the leader’s concentration was on that asteroid.
“Not yet,” she murmured.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to hold off.
“Keep going until you can’t stand it. Don’t stop.” Val clenched her fists, tightened her thigh muscles, almost unable to watch the plummeting scene in front of them.
