“If I stop running now, she’ll have us with her laser. We have to slow her down.” And Boyd knew exactly how to do it, the thought occurring to him suddenly. The words fell out of his mouth as if shaken loose by the violent vibration of his chair. “The black ice. Drop a few tons of that in her face and hit her with some spitz fire.”
“I’m not burning black ice,” Poledri said. “Head for the asteroids of the sphere and we’ll lose her in there.”
“We’ll never make it. Even if we throw everything into the drive, she’ll catch us before we get within a hundred thousand kilometers of the sphere.” Boyd flipped the Fist and pushed her back down toward the ecliptic, weaving wildly from side to side to evade the fire from the Union vessel hell bent on destroying this Faction pirate.
“We can make it to Extremis and hide in the clouds.” Noland sent his navigational analysis to the holo-stage and projected his proposed course and the planet Extremis onto the image, the large gas giant possibly the nearest place where the raider could hide.
“Can it be done?” Poledri asked, voice quivering as Boyd flipped the Fist again.
“We can make it, but—” Thresh was at the engineering station. “—with all the black ice in the hold, sailing around in Extremis’s clouds could be the last thing we ever do. The magnetic flux and a few stray particles of radiation could start a chain reaction in the ice and we won’t even know it is happening until it is too late.”
“Incoming message,” Noland said. “Sending it to your command chair now, Captain.”
“If it’s that kravin’ Union captain offering me surrender, I don’t want to hear it,” Poledri said.
“It’s not the Union ship.” Noland’s voice turned heavy, serious, excited. “It’s Kitzov. It’s the Faction. It’s for you personally, Captain.”
Boyd twisted the Fist to port in a last-ditch attempt to avoid the cruiser. He knew the Fist was not going to make it. They were going to take fire. The cruiser had limited her movement and cut off her escape. Boyd braced himself as the spitz guns’ pulse rounds raked the upper hull of the Fist, a flickering thumping salvo of rapid-fire rounds vaporizing sections of hull composite.
“Put Kitzov on the main holo-stage. Keep this ship steady, Boyd. We want to hear this.”
Boyd wondered how he was supposed to hold the Fist steady while he flung her through the most violent evasive maneuvers she had ever had to perform in her service history. But he agreed to do his best.
“Yes, Captain,” Boyd said, his voice shaking as he dropped the speed to make a sudden hairpin turn.
Kitzov appeared on the holo-stage. Boyd looked up briefly at the man, his ultimate target, the only reason why he was here with these Faction pirates.
“Captain Poledri. I expected you to be here already. Problems?”
“Union cruiser,” Poledri said.
“I was hoping you’d make it, Poledri. I wanted all my best captains here. I won’t wait for you. Good luck, Poledri.”
The image of Kitzov vanished.
“We must get to that meeting,” Poledri said, gripping his armrest.
“We can’t exactly go there with a cruiser on our tail,” Boyd said, twisting the Fist away from the Union ship and her streams of white pulse fire.
“Fine,” Poledri said, throwing his hands in the air. “Throw all that black ice out of the hold and make sure you get it right on that Union bastard’s nose.”
“Boyd, how close can you get me to that cruiser?” Thresh sounded excited as she prepared the hold for an emergency purge.
Boyd understood her plan—to drop the black ice in front of the cruiser so she had no chance to avoid the collision. It wouldn’t destroy the ship, but it would fry enough of her systems for long enough, Boyd hoped.
“Close enough. But I can’t give you long.” Boyd dropped an entire core to zero and let the cruiser catch up suddenly—so quick they couldn’t have a chance to bring the laser onto them.
“Cargo hold purge underway,” Thresh said. “And we’re empty.”
Boyd brought all reactors back to full and twisted away to the cruiser’s starboard flank. Thresh fired a salvo of high-density kinetic hail.
The image on the holo-stage showed the black ice colliding with the cruiser and then the hail rounds making contact.
The explosion dominated the holo-image as the blast filled the Fist’s sensor assembly with data, and then the blast wave struck. The ship was pitched forward, the holo-stage blinked off and then flickered back to life for a moment before losing power altogether. Flight deck lights flickered. A minor power conduit blew out, showering sparks gently across the dark flight deck.
Boyd hit a straight-line speed and threw the Fist across the system, leaving the Union cruiser in a boiling cloud of black ice energy.
“The cruiser has dropped out of pursuit,” Noland said from the sensor console. “She is dead in the void.” He looked up at Poledri. “A great chance to dive in for the kill. A single hail round in her drive assembly at point-blank and you could add a cruiser to your list of kills, Captain.”
Poledri stepped down from the command chair. “My priority is to meet Kitzov at the rendezvous. Besides, that cruiser’s drive assembly won’t be cold for long, and her weapons are still functional. She may be dead in the void for now, but she still has teeth. No,” Poledri concluded, “get us out of here, Boyd. Let’s not keep Kitzov waiting.”
“Deploying dummy buoys to cover our tracks,” Thresh said. “I’ll rig a high-explosive hail round to act like a space mine and detonate it with a blast geometry that looks like a Faction raider’s drive systems. That’ll give them a few ghosts to chase.”
Boyd pushed the Fist to her limit and then reduced power to run dark, avoiding detection from any and all ships that may be nearby.
“Good flying, Boyd,” Thresh said. “You let me shove that ice right down their throat.”
Boyd grinned. “Good shooting, Thresh.”
“Okay, enough of the back-patting. Don’t forget you threw a fortune of ice out the door.”
Boyd looked over at Thresh and the pair smiled a conspiratorial smile. They both knew there really had been no other way to escape.
Poledri marched off the deck. “I’ll go and work out what you two owe me for that ice.”
4
The Odium Fist crept across the outer system, running at low power to hide its drive trail from the cruiser she had narrowly avoided, and to avoid bringing herself to the attention of any other Union ships that may have been in the vicinity. But all was quiet. Vast as the Scorpio System was, it felt even more empty than usual. Only as they neared Kalis did they begin to detect other drive signatures. From the shape of the drive flares, all slightly off symmetry, Boyd could tell they were mostly Faction ships.
“What is Kitzov doing bringing everyone together like this,” Noland said. “We’ll be a sitting duck for the Union if they find us.”
Boyd had never seen so many Faction ships in one place. As he came closer to orbit, all the ships began to appear on the main holo-stage. As every new Faction ship appeared, the image flickered even more wildly, struggling to display the sudden influx of data.
“Can’t you fix that holo-stage?” Noland said to Thresh.
“Can’t you? You are the surveillance operator.” Thresh didn’t look up from the weapons console where she was absorbed in her task.
“You are the engineer.” Noland turned off the image. It flicked one last time and then vanished.
Boyd was grateful that the image was gone. The constant flickering was making his eyes sore. He could pilot the ship through a dense asteroid field using the flight console display alone. The holo-stage was a useful tool, but not essential for his job, at least not right now.
“What about you, Boyd?” Thresh said. “You got anything to say about the holo-stage functionality?”
“No point having a go at him,” Noland said. “He isn’t up for a fight. You should have seen him with the Union crew. He didn’t wa
nt anyone to touch a hair on their heads. He wanted to be their guardian protector or something.”
Thresh grinned down at him as she moved across to the engineering console. “Did you feel a bit of sympathy for the Union bastards, Boyd?”
“I didn’t see the need to knock them about. They were just a freighter crew, for krav sake. Workers like you and me.”
“A freighter crew for the Union is still Union.” Noland stepped around his console and leaned back against it, his arms folded across his chest and his feet crossed in front of him, stretched out like he owned the flight deck. “I remember a Union freighter once when I was heading through the belt with my father and uncle, must have been about twelve. I had a mini Curveball game with a drone defender. I smashed the krav out of that thing in the cargo hold for most of the outbound trip. It drove my father berserk. My uncle was okay about it and let me run about the ship like a lunatic. Then one night, after my father had sent me to my bunk with a thick ear for giving him back-chat about when is a good time for Curveball, the drive went down. I woke up with my father and uncle shouting from one end of the ship to the other. We were running heavy with some brown ice and it soaked up the sound, so all the shouting had that strange dull sound, you know. I heard my uncle shout that the ship was dead in the void and we were venting atmosphere.
“I held on to that drone defender for hours listening to them, then I felt safe when I heard them say a Union freighter was in transmission range. I went to the flight deck and watched quietly as my father sent an emergency assistance call. The Union crew replied, laughing, telling my father he was nothing but Faction scum and a lung full of vacuum would at least rid the system of one more kravin’ terrorist.”
Noland stood up and stepped forward. “My father reported they had a child on board. Me. The reply came, it’s a good idea to kill them young. Saves waiting. As the transmission died, we heard them laughing.
“I only just survived. My uncle lost the sight in both eyes because we lost that much atmosphere. My father didn’t make it. So don’t you tell me they are just workers like us. The Union is an evil, hateful bunch of bastards and the sooner we secure the Faction borders the better. And if Kitzov wants me to kill Union bastards, I will, smiling and laughing. So, just because you found a soft spot in your tender heart for those bastards, don’t expect me to.”
Boyd looked at Noland. Calm. Relaxed.
“I shot them all, didn’t I?”
Noland stopped.
Thresh stopped working and looked at Boyd.
Boyd stood up and squared off against Noland. “I’ve got no problem with killing, if it’s called for.”
“What is wrong with my holo-stage?” Poledri marched on to the flight deck and climbed up into the command chair. “Get my holo-stage running, now.” He tapped away at his armrest controls.
“Bringing it online now, Captain,” Thresh said.
Poledri looked down at Boyd and Noland. “Is there a problem?”
Boyd held Noland’s stare. He didn’t want to back down. Noland was the worst kind of Faction bully, a pumped-up, hateful idiot. But Boyd knew Poledri wouldn’t stand for this on his deck. And even though Noland had been with the captain for much longer than Boyd, he didn’t seem to realize that Poledri was losing his patience.
Boyd stepped back to his chair.
“No problem, Captain. Just a disagreement.” Boyd dropped into his chair.
The holo-stage flickered back to life. An image of a Faction captain was there, and he was huge—only his chest and shoulders in the view.
“Adjusting zoom now,” Noland said, moving quickly to his station.
The image shrunk down and the Faction captain on the holo-stage became actual size.
Poledri laughed. “Captain Bozilova. You’re still alive?”
Captain Bozilova of the Creeping Fate grinned. “Yes, still alive. I was only going to wait around long enough to outlive you, you old pirate.”
“Flattery is not your style, Boz.” Poledri reclined in his chair.
“Punctuality is not yours, but here you are, only half a day late. I’m here to lead you in. Sending flight coordinates to your navigation systems now.”
Noland worked the navigation console as the data streamed in before he finally threw it up onto the main holo-stage, Captain Bozilova’s image shrinking down to one side while the flight plan filled the image.
The flight plan took the Fist down to the surface of Kalis under the glow of the gas giant, Extremis. As the Fist moved in, the scale of the landing zone became clear. Hundreds of ships were there—transport ships, cargo hulks, personnel touring craft. The Fist’s flight plan took it to the edge of the landing zone, to the banks of a red lake.
“Do you have any idea what this is about?” Bozilova asked.
Poledri checked his ship’s systems on his armrest. “Not a clue. You?”
“Maybe it’s the combined offensive, at last. Should be interesting if nothing else.”
Offensive. Boyd’s ears pricked up, but he maintained a disinterested appearance. The Union had always thought Kitzov was plotting a major attack on the Union. But from what Boyd had seen during his operation amongst the Faction, they were little more than a few pirates and some planet-side gangsters that had little in the way of real military capabilities. All talk within the Union of the ‘offensive’ was just scaremongering or negative thinking.
The signal from the Creeping Fate cut off, but the image of Captain Bozilova remained, frozen and stuttering on the badly-functioning holo-stage.
Poledri stepped down from the command chair and stood behind Boyd.
“Put us down on the ground, Mr. Boyd,” Poledri said. “And, Noland, see what you can do to fix that holo-stage.”
Poledri left the flight deck. Boyd checked the ship’s heading, moving her slowly across the vast landing zone. He accessed the main scanner assembly while Noland was occupied at the front of the flight deck attempting to fix the holo-stage.
Boyd displayed the surface scans of Kalis on his display. There was one large ship at the center of the landing zone. Boyd zoomed in on the ship, but the image on his display was too unclear for him to make a definite identification. He knew this configuration, though. He had seen this ship before.
It was the Silence. Kitzov was here.
Boyd was closing in on his target.
5
The red lake on Kalis was made to appear even redder by the dull reflection of the gas giant that dominated the sky. The moon was largely composed of an iron-rich metal core with a rocky crust only a kilometer thick. Gravity was around seventy-five percent of standard but still very powerful for a sub-planet-sized body. The magnetic field of Extremis enveloped the moon, deflecting the fierce solar winds that poured off the blue giant and preventing its fine atmosphere from being stripped away.
Boyd put the Fist down in its allocated spot on the edge of the landing zone. The moment the Fist touched down, instructions came in from a channel identifying itself as Kalis Landing Zone Control. Boyd tracked the signal and found it was coming from the Silence.
“Isolate your ship and power down all weapons. All ships’ captains to report to given coordinates.”
The message ended with no further information.
Boyd deactivated the drive and powered down the main reactor. He turned to Thresh.
“Do we power down the cores or leave them warm and ready?”
Thresh looked to her console, but then Poledri entered and answered for her.
“Shut everything down. Lock down all exterior vents and access ports. I’ve posted a guard to the main boarding ramp. You are all free to go and check out the landing zone. I’ll call when I need you. Don’t get robbed, and don’t get killed. Krav knows when I’ll be able to find a new flight deck crew.”
“What about getting drunk, Captain?” Noland asked. “I haven’t had a glug of Amber for weeks.”
“Get stone-head drunk if you like,” Poledri said, “but if you are not ready t
o fly when I say so, then I will clear your head with a pulse round through your skull.”
Boyd stood up from his seat. Somewhere out there was Kitzov. All he needed to do was to make a positive identification and then he could call in the Union cruisers to come and smash the Faction once and for all.
Walking off the flight deck and heading directly for the boarding ramp, Boyd stepped aside to let Noland pass. He ignored Boyd and the trooper on guard as he ran out onto the surface. The next set of footsteps Boyd heard had a rhythm and a pace that he knew to be Thresh. Somehow, he could see her movements from the sound of her footsteps alone. Then he smelled her hair as she came alongside him.
“It’s great when a few ships get together.” Thresh fell in step with Boyd. “Want to check it out?”
“I don’t need an escort, thanks,” Boyd said. He stepped on to the boarding ramp and walked down to the gravel-strewn surface of Kalis. The dull white gravel, sharp fragments all about the size of a thumb, crunched under his boot with every step.
“Well, l do need an escort, and you are here so you’ll do.” Thresh slipped her arm through Boyd’s.
There was no doubt about it, Thresh was hard to resist, but Boyd was on a mission. He had to stay focused, so he pushed his thoughts, and possibly feelings, aside.
Boyd unwound his arm from hers. She simply grinned at him.
“For a coldblooded killer, you are a bit shy, Will Boyd,” she teased.
“I’m just happy to be alone.” Boyd needed to ditch Thresh, but she took his arm again.
“But maybe you’re not such a killer. I was scanning the command deck of the Union heavy the whole time. I didn’t detect any pulse rounds. Maybe you did let the crew go.”
Boyd looked down at Thresh, bobbing along at his side, smiling into the distance. It felt so good to have her near him, but he had to be cautious not to let his guard down. She was definitely the most interesting woman he had ever met. She was looking at the landing zone and the vast collection of tents standing between the ships, some held up with cords fastened to the hulls or landing struts of faction ships. A sea of fluttering material with hundreds of people milling around underneath. The sounds of distant music and the loud murmur of a busy crowd filled the air.
Blue Star Marine Boxed Set Page 16
