“Yes?” Kira asked, then the Sulac’s name came to her. “Private Dekaa?”
“You’re leaving us? On that?”
“I am,” Kira responded, twisting her neck around to espy the ship she was entering while trying not to acknowledge the nervousness that carried on Dekaa’s words. “A mission.”
“A mission? A mission where?”
Kira gazed at the crowd, the expectant eyes that, like Dekaa’s, were filled with fear and uncertainty. They were losing not only their leader but their inspiration; Kira was the heart and soul of their will to resist, and everyone—Kira included—knew it. To remove that now was potentially a loss too many. Which meant Kira had to tell them. She had to leave them with something big, bold, and inspiring. Something to see them through.
“Praxis,” Kira said, and the entire canyon went silent. “I’m going to Praxis, and I’m going to take the entire planet out from right underneath the kingdom’s nose.”
4-Qel and Kobe joined Kira in the ship—a Praxian cargo vessel that Percival had somehow gotten his hands on—and just as the boarding ramp started to rise and close, the silence was broken.
The entire Renegade forces broke into a holler that shook the canyon walls. The sting of her very personal defeat at the hands of Ebik was starting to wear off, and Kira felt readier than ever for what was ahead.
* * *
In the belly of the cargo ship, the dual engines hummed rhythmically as they pushed the vessel closer and closer toward Praxian space. It was white noise to Kira, a cocoon of sound that helped ease her racing mind. She had to come down to the engine room to give herself a mental break. Up top, she was double- and triple-checking the ship’s signature, making sure it remained authentic to Praxis’s most current landing codes. She was running the weight scanner, ensuring that their forged mass—forged to maintain their guise of coming to the surface with cargo to deliver—stayed consistent. There were dozens of things to keep a watchful eye on, all of which had to be totally perfect for the ship to clear Praxis’s rigid landing standards. They’d only get one shot at this, and if they failed, not only would it mean mission failure but also life failure. A Praxian patrol likely wouldn’t think twice about shooting down a ship trying to deceive its way to the surface. And while Kira was a great pilot—the best, she contended—she wasn’t a miracle worker. Should a squad of Intruders press an attack, there was little she’d be able to do; the ship had the maneuverability of a botho stuck in a swamp, and if that wasn’t enough, its weapons array was maybe capable of shooting a model starcruiser out of a child’s hand. Maybe.
It was best that they didn’t fail their authentication.
If it were up to her, Kira would spend the entire trip monitoring the ship’s carefully manipulated signature. But it wasn’t. Not with Mig and 4-Qel in her ears, forcing her to do trivial things like eat, sleep, and take breaks. Visiting the engine room was more to appease them than satisfy anything she needed. Because Kira didn’t need breaks. And she especially didn’t need the quiet that allowed her mind to dwell on how she hadn’t set foot on Praxis in years.
Luckily, the quiet was short-lived. Between the cycles of the engine’s shifting rotations, she heard the soft, almost imperceptible sound of something pressing against the metal floor.
Kira wasn’t alone.
Hand pressed against the butt of her sidewinder, Kira stalked the length of the starboard engine, expecting something, or someone, to jump out at her. She was ready to shoot first and ask questions later if whatever she shot was alive to talk.
Kira reached the back end of the engine, and she was about to unholster her weapon and let it lead her way around the turn when she heard a sigh coming from the other side. Then, a voice.
“You’ve scanned this ship to the ounce how many times? And you still think there’s a stowaway on it?”
Kira rolled her eyes as Kobe walked out from behind the engine. He was down to his tank top and sweaty from head to toe.
“You’re truly a glutton for punishment to make yourself exercise in the hottest spot in the ship,” Kira said, feeling beads of sweat starting to form along her own hairline.
“I suppose I want to be extra cautious for this kind of mission.”
Kira cocked an eyebrow, detecting just how loaded Kobe intended his response to be. “And what kind of mission would that be?” she asked, stressing a tone of authority in her voice as a reminder to Kobe.
“A foolish one,” Kobe said, then he took a long drink from his water bottle.
Kira, fighting the urge to slap the bottle right out of Kobe’s hand, attempted a more diplomatic approach. After all, Kobe technically wasn’t under her command; he was Percival’s right hand, out on loan to Kira while Percival and Cade were off on their mystical journey. Speaking of foolish missions, Kira mused, but she quickly shoved that thought out of her mind. She couldn’t bring herself to think about Cade. The mission required nothing less than her total focus, which in turn allowed her to stifle how she was really feeling—
Afraid.
Kira was afraid that the Rokura would force Cade to betray her, just like her father had; either that or she’d lose Cade, just like she lost her mother.
Kira cleared her throat and focused. “You want to tell me why our mission is foolish, Kobe?” she asked.
Kobe smirked. “I don’t know if your friends didn’t read your briefing. Or it could be that they’re too close to you to confront you on it, but have you considered that personal ties to this situation might be clouding your judgment?”
“No,” Kira said without hesitation. “This is our only chance—our only chance—to cripple Praxis in a way they can tangibly feel. It’s our only chance to keep our fight going.”
“Maybe it’s our only chance this week,” Kobe replied. “Maybe if we waited a little bit instead of rushing into enemy territory to—”
“You expect our battered, demoralized forces to sit around and wait while we hope for some kind of opportunity to present itself? Waiting for opportunities doesn’t win wars, Kobe. Making them does.”
Kobe huffed a deep breath and looked away from Kira briefly, then turned his attention back to her. “You might be right. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re taking us into the enemy’s lair on a mission to rescue your mother.”
Kira took a step forward, bringing herself right into Kobe’s face. “We’re rescuing the last living Baron, the one person who can legitimately take control of Praxis and destabilize its military forces from within. That is our objective, and don’t you ever think twice about it.”
“If you say so,” Kobe said as he brushed past her.
“And what about you, Kobe?” Kira asked to his back. “From what I understand, you were so eager to volunteer for this mission. Why? You’re going to tell me it has nothing to do with revenge for what Praxis did to you, to your entire planet?”
Kobe turned and shot Kira a look that could freeze the entire bottom half of the ship. “It doesn’t,” he said.
Kira shook her head. “You might have convinced yourself of that, but I don’t buy it.”
Kobe walked back toward Kira, his expression still cold as ice. But Kira couldn’t detect any of the rage or pain she’d expected to find pushing just beneath the surface of his controlled veneer.
“When my planet was dying after Praxis robbed us of the light from our star, my family did everything it could to escape. But we were poor. Had no transport, nothing to trade or barter for a way out of our own graves.
“My father was the first one to go. My mother followed soon after. That left just me and my little sister, alone, terrified, freezing, and starving. I had to tell her that everything was going to be okay. That help was going to come for us. I knew it probably wasn’t true, but I figured, if nothing else, hope would keep her going. And it did, for a while. But only for a while. She died with her hand in mine, believing a lie I’d told her.”
Kira felt a pang of regret. She’d heard plenty of stories li
ke Kobe’s before, but something about the rawness in Kobe’s words—like this had just happened to him—unnerved her. Most of the stories she heard were about guerrilla squadrons shot down over a Praxian base, or people who’d lost their lives in one of Praxis’s bombing strikes. She could digest those tragedies because they were so big and, sadly, so common. But Kobe’s experience wasn’t an abstraction, it was intimate. Kira tried to steel herself with the reminder that what happened to Kobe’s sister was exactly why she was fighting, but it was cold comfort. Nothing she could do—no amount of victories, no amount of systems liberated—would give Kobe back what he lost.
“I don’t know what to say,” Kira whispered, choking down her feelings of shame and sadness. “I … I’m sorry. Sorry that happened to you.”
“Don’t be. My point isn’t to share my grief. See, I nearly died, too. I was just about there, and I was ready. But then a ship came. Out of nowhere, here was this ship dropping from the sky. Percival had intercepted our distress message. He’d come when no one else had. He got me on board, and I was … out of my mind. Delirious, in shock, barely conscious. But I remember one thing about that moment, and it was the vow I made to myself, and it wasn’t for revenge. Revenge is a selfish journey of darkness, and it was meaningless compared to the magnitude of what my people and I suffered. The vow I made was simple:
“Never let this happen again. To anyone, ever. And I’ve been living that vow since.”
Kira gripped Kobe’s story close. She held it inside of herself like so many other similar stories that cataloged the anguish and terror Praxis had inflicted on the galaxy.
She looked Kobe dead in his eyes, pressing forth the conviction of her words with every fiber of her being.
“I swear to you, I haven’t put us on this mission for personal reasons. All the doubts you have about my motivations, I’ve had them as well, except multiplied by a million. I’ve thought about the strategy behind what we’re doing so many times I can barely stand it. But every time, every single time, I come back to the same conclusion:
“This is the right move. Praxis will never see this coming, and if we pull this off, we can turn the tide of this whole damn war. This isn’t about revenge; it isn’t about all the misery Praxis has caused us. It’s about ending their reign. Period.”
Kobe turned up his chin at Kira and glared down at her. He studied her for a few tense seconds before extending his hand toward her.
“I’ve always liked you,” he said. “Now I trust you.”
Kira accepted Kobe’s handshake and wanted to expel a giant sigh of relief. She always knew Kobe would fight for her as duty demanded. Now, he was going to fight with her. Kira strove to earn that distinction with each and every person in her command.
And now, with Kobe truly in her ranks, they were stronger than ever.
Kira was eager to bring this war to Praxis’s doorstep.
* * *
Except war, it would seem, was already there.
Kira raced to the cockpit and found 4-Qel frantically working the control panel and Mig running diagnostics from beneath the dashboard. The alarm wailed a sharp pitch that only succeeded in pissing Kira off. She was about to order Mig to slice the cord that powered the warning system when the ship was hit hard on its port side; Kira was thrown off-balance and would have been knocked off her feet if Kobe wasn’t behind her to break her fall. Something was wrong, Kira thought with a shudder. More than wrong, intuition screamed within her. In a mission simmering with the potential for catastrophe, calamity found them quicker than it should have.
“Somebody tell me what’s happening now!” Kira yelled as she reestablished her footing. “Who’s shooting at us?!”
“I have no idea,” 4-Qel said. “We plotted our mass jump to come out just beyond Praxian airspace, and our coordinates say we’re at the exact jump location.”
Kira gritted her teeth. She didn’t want explanations. She wanted answers to two points of concern: Who was shooting at them, and how could they kill it?
“That doesn’t answer my question, Four-Qel,” Kira barked. Just then, the ship was rocked again. Kira didn’t break stride, though, as she hopped into the pilot’s seat and brought the weapons online. “Who’s out there? I want to know so I can personalize the protons I’m about to send up their as—”
“Diagnostics must be shot, because the radar isn’t picking up any other ships,” Mig said from underneath the dash. “I’m not seeing a single problem down here, though.”
“So, let me get this straight,” Kira said, trying to stifle her anger before she released it on the wrong people. “We jumped exactly where we were supposed to, and that dropped us right in the crosshairs of an enemy that doesn’t exist on our scans?”
“Consider yourself fully briefed on our current situation,” 4-Qel said, still trying to manipulate the ship’s dusty and dated equipment into not sucking.
Kira exhaled sharply, waiting for another blast to pound their woefully unprotected cargo vessel. But the strike didn’t happen. Nothing happened. Kira knew Praxis enough to know they didn’t waste time shredding enemy fighters—or ships they assumed, guessed, or just had a feeling were enemy fighters—to pieces. Meaning: The ship should be destroyed, and they should all be dead. But they weren’t.
“Open the cockpit shielding,” Kira ordered.
Mig rolled out from beneath the dashboard and cocked an eyebrow at Kira. “You do realize any Praxian fighter will be able to establish visual recognition then, right? Like, they’ll see us.”
“Just open it,” Kira affirmed.
“If you say so.” 4-Qel shrugged as he activated the mechanism that rolled up the viewport’s shielding. “At least we’ll be able to flip off whoever’s out there before this ship gets compacted into a cube. With us in it.”
Everyone in the ship anxiously waited, in total silence, for the viewport to reveal an enemy fleet waiting to finish off their ship. They expected a squadron hovering on the edge of their view, biding its time before it fired enough torpedoes to torch the cargo ship into a pile of smoldering space dust. Kira wasn’t buying that scenario, and her gut feeling was right. Because when the shielding pulled back, there were no enemy fighters anywhere.
“Did we know the coordinates we set the mass jump to were for an asteroid field?” Kobe asked.
Kira knew that the floating bits of debris swirling around them, seemingly for miles in either direction, weren’t asteroids. She’d seen this before, and so had 4-Qel and Mig.
“That’s no asteroid field,” Kira said. “That’s debris.”
“Just like when the War Hammer blew up,” Mig added, dumbstruck. “But—huh?”
“It’s a Praxian vessel,” 4-Qel said, having run a scan of the floating parts while everyone else gaped at the wreckage. A small chunk ricocheted off the port side, and Kira took the controls, navigating the ship slowly through the field. “But how,” 4-Qel continued, “does a Praxian ship—presumably a warship, judging by the size of the wreckage—get destroyed over its own planet?”
Kira was delightfully puzzled. “That is a damn fine question,” she said. “There’s only one way to find out.”
“And what way is that?” Mig asked, his voice conveying how unenthusiastic he was about the answer.
“The careful way,” Kira replied.
Kira angled the ship down, putting it back on its designated landing vector. They were heading toward the central landing terminal, just outside the capital’s metro center. The idea was to land the ship in the most populated area and assimilate into the bustling urban crowd as quickly as possible. Kira, Mig, and Kobe were provided with fashionable Praxian clothing, fake IDs, and enough coin to bribe their way to wherever they needed to be. 4-Qel would just have to do his best to blend in as a service companion. Kira didn’t expect that cover to last long, but if they found themselves on the surface long enough for 4-Qel to be identified by the wrong people, they were probably burned anyway. This mission relied on their ability to mov
e quickly and efficiently; they had to find Kira’s mother, Akima, free her, and somehow get her in position to assume the power that was by law hers. It was a binary mission—succeed or fail. There was no middle ground and, therefore, no half measures to be taken. They all knew there was one rule and one rule only: Don’t get caught. Everything else was fair game.
As she smoothly cruised the cargo ship toward the landing checkpoint, Kira hoped they’d gotten their one surprise out of the way. But she knew that was wishful thinking. She knew, down deep, that the pulverized warship wasn’t a mission aberration; it was the first sign of what was to come.
The second sign was no one responding at the checkpoint station.
Intel was clear: Two alpha drones operated the station that floated just beyond Praxis’s atmosphere. They scanned every ship that came in, verified their codes, and, at times, performed random searches just to keep the crews of all incoming vessels on their toes. Alphas were the most efficient, thorough, and lifeless creation the galaxy could ever conjure and a true mark of the Praxian spirit. For them to abandon their post or be in dereliction of duty was inconceivable.
Unless something had gone terribly wrong.
“Why aren’t they answering?” Mig asked, his voice cracking with panic. “Alphas answer. It’s what they do.”
“Well, they certainly didn’t go for a coffee break,” Kira said. “So, my guess is—”
“They’re dead,” 4-Qel interrupted. “Unlike me, alphas aren’t equipped with technology that shields their signatures from ship scans. I’m reading nothing on that ship, so either they left, which we all know is impossible, or they no longer have a signature to emit because they are no longer beings of energy, artificial or otherwise.”
We Are Mayhem--A Black Star Renegades Novel Page 9
