by G J Ogden
“I’m not backing down,” Alexis snapped back, matching fire with fire. “We’ll get Knight eventually, but right now, he’s not a threat. Doyle is the one who is actually gunning for us, and it’s only a matter of time before he flips and comes after us again.”
Alexis took a deep breath, clearly trying to douse the flames inside her, though Cad knew that nothing but the death of Hallam Knight and Dakota Wulfrun would calm his own rage. And even if he could let it go, he didn’t want to. He wanted to stay angry. It didn’t matter what Alexis said, or how reasonable, or correct her arguments were. Despite her eccentricity and her outwardly frivolous behavior, Alexis wasn’t rash. Draga was the one to walk headfirst into danger, Cad was the strategist, and Alexis was the glue that made it all work. With Draga’s death, the balance of the Backfire Squadron and had been knocked out of kilter, and Cad knew it. However, to find that balance again, he had to remove the weight that was dragging him down. Cad accepted that Damien Doyle was the real threat. Alexis was right about that, as she always was. However, the difference was that Doyle had taken a shot at them and missed. Hallam Knight, on the other hand, had continued to make a fool out of him. And it was tearing him apart.
“If you want to leave, then I won’t stop you,” said Cad, coming across like a sulky teenager. Part of him almost wanted Alexis to leave so that he didn’t drag her down with him.
Alexis drew away from Cad and her eyes sharpened. If it wasn’t for Cad’s armor, the look might have even cut through his flesh. “Don’t insult me, Cad,” spat Alexis, who looked ready to tear Cad’s eyes out. “I go where you go, you know that. Or at least you should. If you want to keep going after Knight, then we go after Knight. If you want to raze Damien Doyle’s tower on Earth to the ground, then we nuke the hell out of the entire sight, and damn the consequences.” Then Alexis sat forward again, still locked on to Cad’s eyes. “And I couldn’t give a damn if the bridge worlds all crumbled to dust, so long as I’m with you. The real you. The Cad Rikkard that’s smart, as well as strong. The man I love.”
Cad cursed under his breath, and looked away. He didn’t hate it that Alexis was right. He hated that he was wrong. Cad didn’t need to prove anything to anyone, least of all himself. Hallam Knight would get what’s coming to him, one way or another. That was a vow he’d never break. Yet he had to do it the right way. The Blackfire Squadron way. He swiped the bottle of whiskey and the empty glass off the table with a swift stroke of his arm. Both sailed across the dusty outdoor seating area and smashed on the stony soil, covering the boots and socks of a man at the table to Cad’s left. The man cursed loudly into the air, then turned to Cad, red-faced and furious.
“We focus on taking down Doyle first,” said Cad, finally managing to meet Alexis’ eyes again, which remained as sharp as ever. “And we get back to work. The work we’re good at. Falken will let us know when Knight and Wulfrun crawl out from the rock they’re hiding under. And when they do, we’ll take them out, the smart way.” Cad then paused before adding with more emphasis. “We do it your way.”
It was as close to an apology as Cad could ever manage, not that Alexis would care for an apology anyway. Only the weak apologized, Cad told himself. The strong acted. The strong did what was necessary. And to be strong, he knew he needed Alexis Black more than ever.
Cad was about to stand up to leave when the man who he’d soaked with whiskey stood over him, holding a large bottle of local beer in his hand.
“Are you deaf, mate?” the man barked, showering Cad in spittle.
Cad glared up at the man, teeth and fists clenched. The stranger was wearing a scuffed, DPM tactical vest and well-worn tactical clothing, with reinforced knee and elbow pads. It was the classic outfit of a private military security contractor, one of dozens that operated on Pomona to protect the mining operations from criminal gangs.
“I’m talking to you, asshole,” the man growled again. Then the man’s three buddies, all dressed in the same style of gear, pushed their seats back and stood beside Cad’s table.
Cad shifted his gaze to Alexis, who had already slid her chair back to give her more space to move. Her subtle raising of an eyebrow was all the confirmation Cad needed that Alexis was ready to fight.
“Walk away, and maybe I only break your legs,” said Cad, glaring back up at the man. However, Cad hoped that the man would be stupid enough to ignore the warning and provoke him further. Cad needed an outlet for his frustrations and was pleased that one had conveniently presented himself. Still, Cad always liked to offer his enemies the chance to back down, and to show deference, even if ultimately they had already signed their own death warrants by disrespecting him.
The man snorted then glanced back at his buddies, “Did you hear that, lads?” the man said, laughing loudly, as if Cad had just told him a hilarious joke. “He’s only going to break my legs. That’s nice of him, ain’t it?” Then the man turned back to Cad and tipped his beer bottle upside-down, letting the frothy, tepid contents flow out over his iridescent black armor. “Oh dear, it looks like I need another beer,” the man went out. Then he gestured to his gang. “In fact, asshole, why don’t you buy us all another round, to say sorry?” The man suddenly turned his attention to Alexis and let out a shrill wolf-whistle. “And get one for the lady too. It might cheer her up a bit.”
Alexis sighed and rolled her eyes. Then she stood up slowly, hand still gripping the back of her rusted metal chair. “Let me get you something instead,” she said, smiling at the man, who beamed back at her, baring crooked, yellow teeth. However, the smirk soon left the man’s face as Alexis launched her chair at the group standing to the man’s rear. The speed and ferocity of the throw was dizzying. Before the merc had even managed to turn around, his three buddies lay scattered across the dusty soil. Two of them were merely dazed, while the third, who had the misfortune to bear the brunt of the attack, lay dead. A leg of the rusted metal chair had impaled him through the mouth and burst out of the back of his neck. It looked like a circus sword-swallowing act gone badly.
“What the f…” the merc began, but Cad had already grabbed him by the throat before he could complete the sentence. Standing up, Cad lifted the man off the ground then marched him back to his own table, slamming him down onto it. Meanwhile, Alexis began to stalk the other two mercs, who were scrambling away from their fallen comrade, staring down at the macabre scene with horrorstruck faces.
“You wanted me to get you a drink, right?” said Cad, picking up one of the other beer bottles on the table and pouring the contents into the man’s mouth. The merc spluttered and gargled as he choked on the dark brown liquid. Cad tossed away the empty bottle then repeated the act with the remaining two bottles on the table, by which time the man was already half-drowned. “There you go, is that better?” Cad said, peering into the man’s terrified eyes and smiling down at him. The merc simply nodded hysterically while coughing the frothing brown liquid out of his lungs. However, Cad was not done with the man yet. He drew his Black Prince sword and swung it down across the table with a force that could have felled a mighty redwood. The table, along with the merc, collapsed inward, both cut clean in half by the razor-sharp alien-alloy blade.
The remaining two mercs scrambled to their feet, still backing away from Alexis while begging her to spare their lives. However, their pleas fell on deaf ears. Alexis launched herself at them, flashing kicks and punches with ferocious speed and clinical efficiency. Cad turned around just in time to enjoy the spectacle of Alexis at work. Within seconds, the two remaining mercs lay motionless on the soil, their bodies twisted, broken, and bleeding. A stunned hush had fallen across the outdoor bar. None of the other patrons had dared to move. Some had not even taken a breath since Cad’s sword had been drawn.
“Are you ready to go?” asked Alexis.
Cad cleaned the blade of the unique sword on the pants of one of the fallen mercs, then sheathed it. “I’m ready,” he said, drawing in a deep, calming breath of the evening air. “Let’s ge
t back to work.”
8
Hallam staggered clumsily into the cockpit of Alexis Black’s stolen fighter wearing one of the mercenary’s sets of the iridescent black power armor. It was one of several such suits that he’d found in the cargo hold of the ship, along with enough firearms to hold up a small town. It had taken Hallam longer to don the advanced armor than Dakota or Dr. Rand, on account of the suits being pre-sized for Alexis Black’s lithe frame. Remarkably, and also fortunately, the armor was able to modulate its fit to match its wearer, and with the help of their resident genius, Dr. Rand, Hallam’s suit now fitted properly. However, wearing the armor was one thing, but being able to control it was another entirely.
“This feels really weird,” said Hallam, flexing various limbs and joints. “It’s like it’s not even my body anymore.”
As usual, Dr. Rand was busy working on her palm computer, which was now interfaced with the stolen fighter’s navigation systems. “You will adapt to it quickly,” the scientist said without looking up from her screens. “In fact, the suit will adapt to you by monitoring your brainwaves, learning how you move, and making thousands of micro-adjustments per second. Soon, you won’t even notice that you have it on.”
Hallam dropped into the auxiliary seat a little harder than he’d intended and felt the backrest crack and the stem bend. Dakota and Dr. Rand both turned to him, eyebrows raised.
“I’ll get the hang of it,” said Hallam, feeling his cheeks flush hot.
“This armor will offer excellent protection from the alien planet’s harsh and changeable conditions,” Dr. Rand went on. She then glanced at Hallam. “It will not, however, protect these chairs against clumsy renegades,” she added in a teacherly tone.
Dakota had already turned back to the controls and was now peering out at the bright blue alien world shining in the darkness. “First, we actually have to get to this damn planet,” she said, running a hand through her tousled hair in an effort to straighten it out.
Using the navigational data gathered from Dr. Rand’s probes, Dakota had managed to pilot the fighter to a stable area of space near the alien planet. The scientist had explained that there were a number of these “gravitational oases,” as she had called them, in the star system. The trick, and also the current cause of Dakota’s unease, was charting a course between them, without getting caught in one of the millions of powerful gravitational eddies. Dr. Rand had likened this to leaping from stepping stone to stepping stone across a fast-flowing river. Get it right, and you’d reach the other side without even getting your feet wet. Get it wrong, and you’d be swept away downstream and smashed against the rocks. Unfortunately, in the case of the alien thirteenth bridge world, there were plenty of rocks and relatively few stepping stones.
During their long journey through bridge space to reach the system, Dr. Rand had regaled Hallam and Dakota with stories of her expeditions. The scientist had explained that many of the system’s planets and moons had been completely obliterated tens of thousands of years ago. The debris had created dozens of additional chaotic, swirling asteroid fields that moved unpredictably around the system’s orange sun. There had apparently also once been an abundance of space-based installations, all of which had also been destroyed. Dr. Rand had speculated that this had either been a result of collisions with other stellar bodies or from being torn apart by the gravitational eddies. The remains of these massive space stations also littered the system, turning the space around the alien world into a high-tech graveyard. And, like the asteroids and fragmentary remains of the planets, many of these alien stations littered the path they had to navigate to reach the planet.
“I have uploaded the waypoints to the navigation computer,” said Dr. Rand, attempting to slip the palm computer back into her jacket pocket before remembering that she was no longer wearing her renegade clothing. “So long as you do not deviate substantially from this course, we will be fine,” she continued, placing the palm computer into a storage compartment instead.
Dakota studied the waypoints then added in the live scan data of the alien star system. She watched as the waypoints and spaceborne hazards appeared overlaid on the cockpit glass, then blew out a long, low whistle, shaking her head. “This is going to be like flying through a hailstorm while trying not to get hit by hailstones,” she said, anxiously combing a hand through her hair again.
Hallam also examined the data, noting the dozens of obstacles that intersected the route Dr. Rand had laid out. “Come on, Doc, don’t make this too easy for her,” said Hallam, turning to dark humor to mask his own unease. “I’m sure you can pick a more challenging route.”
“Hey, you’re welcome to do the flying,” said Dakota, glancing back at him. “Except that you’d probably just rip the control column out of the console first. Or break the seat off its mountings.”
“At least Mr. Knight proved somewhat useful by determining the correct operation of this vessel’s armor shields,” Dr. Rand cut in, though it was something of a backhanded compliment. Then she turned to Dakota and added, “Assuming you are fine to pilot this vessel using the virtual view?”
Dakota shrugged and picked up a helmet that had been resting on the deck by her boots. “This tech is new to me, but at least I’ll see everything in our way,” she said, slipping on the helmet and flipping open the visor. “Whether I can avoid smashing into any of them is another matter, though...”
Hallam snorted a laugh then activated the armor shields. However, this time, he also enabled the virtual cockpit view so that they weren’t flying blind. “I wish this ship had a gun turret, like the old Randenite tankers we use to fly,” he said, nervously tightening his harness in readiness for what he assumed would be a hair-raising ride. “Those flak cannons would come in pretty handy right now to clear away some of this debris.”
Dr. Rand also tightened her harness and locked her seat dead ahead. “I’m afraid flak cannons would be of little use against fragments of metal and rock weighing millions of tons,” the scientist said. She then turned to Dakota. “So I’m afraid this falls on your piloting skill alone, Miss Wulfrun.”
Dakota laughed. “No pressure then…” she said, taking hold of the controls and puffing out her cheeks. “Here goes nothing…” she added, blowing out the breath she’d been holding and accelerating the fighter toward the planet.
Despite each of them having built up the task ahead of them to be harrowing and difficult, the first part of the journey had actually been plain sailing. On a few occasions, Dakota had been forced to detour around the wreck of an alien space station or larger asteroid, causing shrill alarms to set Hallam’s teeth on edge. However, Dakota had so far managed to stay inside the safe zone that Dr. Rand had defined. This had kept them safely away from the powerful gravitational tides that ebbed and flowed throughout the star system. Hallam had likened it to a giant buzzwire game, where the player had to navigate a metal ring through a chaotic, electrified wire maze, without touching the sides. Except the stakes in the game Dakota was playing were much more severe should she make a mistake. Should they get caught in one of the eddies, Hallam knew that the stresses could tear the ship apart. And even if they survived, they’d be pulled so far off course that they’d have to bridge back out of the system and start the whole journey again.
Dakota continued on course, sweat beading on her brow, as she was forced to constantly compensate for the variable gravity in the system. Each bump that rocked the fighter sent a flutter racing through Hallam’s gut, and each minute that ticked by felt like an hour. Eventually, the alien planet was so close that Hallam felt he could reach out and touch it. The unusual s-shaped continent was visible directly ahead, but otherwise, it looked like any other habitable world that Hallam had seen.
“You’re doing well, Miss Wulfrun,” said Dr. Rand, who had been monitoring from the second seat for the entire journey with a look of Zen-like focus on her face. “I have sent updated course details to your console to account for recent variances in the gra
vitational map of the system.”
Dakota acknowledged the scientist and adjusted her course, but almost immediately, the ship began to shudder, like a car driving over a cattle guard. Then alerts rang out, and Hallam saw the hull stress indicator rise sharply.
“Hold your course, Miss Wulfrun,” said Dr. Rand, with a firmness that was much needed at that moment. “This region has become more volatile since my last probe readings, but I will feed you the new data in real-time.”
A few seconds later, the alarms silenced and the ship stopped shuddering. Hallam let out the breath he realized he’d been holding and glanced at the new course on his auxiliary console. However, where their previous course neatly avoided an enormous chunk of space station, now they appeared to be heading directly for it.
“Are you seeing this too?” said Hallam, directing the question to no one in particular, though it was Dakota that answered.
“If you mean do I see the giant mass of metal totally blocking our path, then yes, I see it…” said Dakota. Then she turned to Dr. Rand. “I don’t suppose there’s any way we can go around it?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Dr. Rand. Then she met Dakota’s eyes. “But you can go through it.”
Hallam snort-laughed, drawing a dagger-like stare from Dr. Rand. He had thought she was joking, but the expression on her face suggested otherwise.
“You want to fly through the remains of an alien space station?” said Hallam, making doubly sure he had heard the scientist correctly.
“It is either that or turn back, Mr. Knight,” Dr. Rand said plainly.
Dakota and Hallam looked at each other, and both puffed out their cheeks in perfect synchronicity. Then Dakota turned back to the virtualized view of the space station fragment in front of them and pushed the throttle control forward. As they got closer, Hallam could see that the space station fragment had been compressed into an oval shape where the boundaries of the safe zone gave way to areas of intense gravitational instability. However, the cross-section seemed to be constantly shifting shape, growing wider on one axis one moment before contracting again. Occasionally, parts of the space station would be torn away and violently cast out into space as they were subjected to the powerful gravitational eddies outside the safe conduit.
