by Rachel Aukes
While whoever was on the bridge pounded away on her panel, the other droms conversed with one another as they searched the ship, but they were too far away for her to make out anything. No one yelled out again for her. After interminably long minutes, the bridge crasher quit hitting keys, and the bridge grew silent. Several minutes later, what sounded like a squad of boot steps walked off the ship, down the ramp, and left the Gryphon in silence.
Absolute silence.
Throttle’s eyes widened. There was no constant hum of the ship’s bio systems. No air circulation. The ship was perfectly sealed. Even without systems, she’d have breathable air for days. The problem was she’d never heard the ship door close behind the droms. Every bit of breathable air would be lost to the oxygen-depleted Spaten atmosphere.
She sucked in a breath. Another minute passed, and she found it harder to breathe. She wasn’t claustrophobic, so she knew the urge to hyperventilate was coming from bad air.
In a rush, she thought through her only two options. She could close the door and restart the ship’s systems, but then the droms would be back as soon as they heard the ship come back online. She decided to go with the second and only practical option. She’d grab her breather mask and hide until she was confident the squad had left the dock.
Vertigo spun her in the small space as she became more and more lightheaded. She realized then that she had a third option: die of asphyxiation.
She clenched her jaw as she reached up and hit the button. There was no viggin’ way she’d die in a closet. The door opened, and she pushed herself forward to grab the breather.
Except it wasn’t where she’d flung it.
Blackness tunneled her vision. In the center, she could see a masked drom leaning against her panel. He held out her breather. “Looking for this?”
She lunged for it.
He lifted the mask higher, just out of her reach.
She swung out to hit him. Her fist weighed a ton, and she fell from her chair. “Viggin’ drom—” Her words slurred as she felt herself plummet into a cold black pit. She’d always figured she’d die at the hands of the CUF. She just didn’t think it’d happen so soon.
Four
Devil Town Business
Devil Town, Spate
Reyne
Boden rolled over for the fourth time in as many minutes. Reyne knew the internal battle the recovering addict had been fighting while they hid in the drug den. The basement stunk of sweet soy, and Boden was clearly not as “recovered” as he’d been letting on the past few months.
They’d already been here too long—five hours and counting—but Madame Grecklin had locked the door at the top of the stairs, leaving them imprisoned in the dank room.
“How’d they know it was us?”
Reyne turned to see Boden watching him with bloodshot eyes.
Boden continued. “We were wearing breather masks. We used a fake account. I don’t understand where we messed up.”
Reyne shrugged. “I was telling Grecklin the truth. I don’t think they have any idea who they’re chasing. If they had any idea we were coming, there would’ve been ten times as many droms waiting to grab us the moment we stopped. My guess is they have orders to take in anyone who stops at Gin’s.”
Boden thought for a moment and seemed to accept Reyne’s rationale, because he rolled over again. The thick haze in the room made Reyne groggy. He stood and paced to get his blood flowing.
After several minutes of pacing, he heard the door open, and Madame Grecklin emerged from upstairs. He turned back to Boden to see the man standing and alert.
“The streets cleared out about an hour ago,” the woman said. “You should be okay to leave. But be careful. The windows have eyes around here.”
Reyne nodded. “Thank you for your help, Madame.”
She brushed him off, and then waved to a man who was slipping on a jacket. “Mr. Fitzroy.”
“What?” the man asked before yawning.
“You’re heading back to work at the docks, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “Yeah, and I’m running late. You should’ve woken me thirty minutes ago.”
She smiled. “My apologies. These two gentlemen could use a lift. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind sharing company with two generous fellows.”
Fitzroy’s face perked up. “Generous, you say?”
“Mighty generous,” Reyne added.
“Then, the more the merrier. I’m parked right outside.” Fitzroy motioned to the stairs.
“Thank you, Madame,” Reyne said. “We owe you.”
She waved her hand in the air. “If your side turns out to be the winning side, keep me in mind. As a small business owner, life isn’t grand. It’s not easy making ends meet around here.”
Reyne gave her a polite nod. The three men headed up the stairs. Reyne and Boden donned their breather masks before they entered the store, in case any customers were shopping. Fitzroy slid his mask on at the door, and they followed him outside to where a beater of a truck sat.
“Does it run?” Boden asked quietly behind Reyne.
Reyne was wondering the same thing, but he didn’t say anything.
They all climbed in the front seat.
“The air system’s busted, so you’ll have to wear your masks,” the man said as he started the vehicle. It came to life with a grumble and a lurch. Fitzroy went to shift it into gear, paused, and turned to Reyne. “I sure could use some good faith before we get on the road.”
“Of course.” Reyne fished out a large bill. “This should cover the energy cost to the docks.”
The man’s eyes grew wide. “Yeah. That’ll do.” He immediately shifted the truck into gear and headed down the road.
Fitzroy took them down several side roads, and they reached the docks faster than Reyne expected.
“Which dock do you need?” he asked.
“Hilo,” Reyne said.
“Oh, the private docks. I should’ve known. Well, since you’ve been so nice and all, I’ll give you a lift to your bay.”
“Five,” Reyne said, intentionally giving him the wrong number.
Fitzroy stopped at bay five, where a Myrad hauler sat, but Reyne was already looking down the line to where the Gryphon sat. His lips thinned, and his heart pounded. He shot Boden a quick glance, and by Boden’s narrow gaze, it was clear he’d seen it already, too. A bright yellow Quarantine sign was posted by its ramp, and an entire squad of dromadiers stood on guard.
“You think Throttle’s still on board?” Boden asked Reyne in a whisper.
“She has to be,” Reyne answered.
“What’s that?” Fitzroy asked.
Reyne didn’t answer. As they climbed out of the truck, Fitzroy pointed at the Gryphon. “You’re lucky your ship ain’t the one down there. Looks like the CUF’s laid claim to that one. Damn CUF buggers.” He spat.
Reyne thought for a moment and then turned to Fitzroy. “How would you like to earn ten times what I paid you to drive us here?”
The man’s jaw dropped. He clamped it back shut and tried to act casual, but was failing. “What do you have in mind?”
Spate, with little to offer in terms of resources, had become a melting pot of everything illegal in the Collective—drugs, gambling, prostitution. Every colonist in Devil Town had either participated in an illegal activity or at least touched dirty money. Reyne knew Fitzroy was a drug addict. He was hoping the man had other “flexible” scruples when it came to money.
“The CUF’s claimed that ship, which means it doesn’t belong to anybody in particular anymore, right?”
“Well, it belongs to the CUF buggers,” Fitzroy countered.
Reyne nodded. “Agreed. But they have so many ships, they can’t keep track of what they do and don’t have.”
Fitzroy kept watching him, like he didn’t know where Reyne was going with this conversation.
“What if Dock Control received orders for that ship by ferry pilots bringing it to the armada? Then, there’d be no
reason for the squad to remain here. Isn’t that so?”
“Sure,” he said. “But they don’t have orders.”
Reyne shrugged. “There’s never been a mix-up around here?”
Fitzroy laughed. “There are mix-ups all the time. You’ve just got to grease the right wheels. Oh. Oh.” His eyes grew wide. He glanced at the Dock Control station for several long seconds, and then back at Reyne. “Thompson’s working today. She can grant clearance, but she’s not cheap. She just bought the newest Rosten last month. She’s not a fan of the new stationmaster, so I think she’ll do this.”
Reyne fished out all his remaining credits and handed them to Fitzroy. “This should cover everything.”
His eyes were as large as saucers. “It’ll do.” He pulled out a bill and tucked it into his pocket. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll make it happen.”
“No questions asked,” Reyne cautioned.
“Shoot,” he said. “I know better than to ask questions. I figure the less I know, the better off I am.”
Fitzroy drove away. Reyne and Boden stepped under the hauler’s shadow.
“You think he’ll give the money to this Thompson and not drive off and keep it all for himself?”
Reyne sighed. “I sure hope so. This is how Devil Town operates. I’m counting on Fitzroy to have enough honor to keep his word.”
Boden guffawed. “A drug addict?”
“You have honor,” Reyne said, and Boden stiffened. He then added, “We’d best kept an eye out for trouble, just in case.”
Boden unholstered a gun and held it behind him. Reyne followed suit.
At least fifteen minutes passed before Fitzroy returned in his truck. He stuck his head out the open window. “It’s a go. You have ten minutes before they initiate launch. Oh, but she doesn’t have a keycard to the ship. I’m afraid you’re on your own for that.”
“Leave that to me,” Reyne said. “And the squad?”
Fitzroy pointed. “Looks like she’s reporting the change in orders now.”
They looked to see the squad checking their wrist comms. The dromadiers seemed pleasantly surprised that their guard duty was cancelled and wasted no time in departing. As soon as the squad disappeared around the corner, Reyne patted Fitzroy on the shoulder. “It was good doing business with you.”
“Likewise,” the man said. “Look me up the next time you’re in Devil Town. I can help you find whatever you need.”
“I’m sure you can,” Reyne said, and he and Boden took off at a jog.
They ran up the ramp and on board the Gryphon. The door had been left open, and Reyne prayed Throttle had kept her breather mask on. He ran to the bridge and found the hidden closet door standing open and a breather mask on the floor. His heart dropped. “Throttle!” he yelled.
When she didn’t respond, his heart began pounding. He pinged her wrist comm. “Search the ship!” he ordered Boden.
Boden ran through the ship, calling her name.
Reyne placed his hand on the instrument panel, and the ship systems came to life. He tried to focus on initiating launch prep sequences, but his mind kept going back to Throttle. If she wasn’t on the ship, then where the hell was she?
Boden ran onto the bridge. “I can’t find her anywhere,” he said breathlessly. “What do we do now?”
Reyne grimaced. If they aborted the launch now, they’d never get another chance at getting the Gryphon back. But if Throttle was hiding somewhere in the docks…
His heart sank. His gut told him that if she wasn’t on board, she wasn’t in the docks. She hadn’t responded to the ping, which meant something was preventing her from responding.
The droms had her.
Reyne exhaled slowly to suppress his terror. “Get back to the engines and prepare for jump speed.”
“What? We can’t leave Throttle behind.”
“We have no idea where she is. They found the Gryphon, which means every drom on Spate will be searching for us. We can’t do any good for Throttle if we get caught.”
“We can’t just give up on her.”
“Trust me, I’m not giving up.”
Boden clenched and unclenched his fists, glaring at Reyne. “What do we do now?”
“We head to the rendezvous point. Throttle would go there first. Now, buckle in and prep the engines for jump speed the instant we break out of atmo.”
Boden stormed off the bridge.
Reyne opened the comm channel and immediately received contact.
“Phantom Five-One-Bravo, launch approved and sequenced. Launch upon your command.”
Not even a countdown. This dock control was good. Reyne hit the comm. “Dock Control, this is Phantom Five-One-Bravo. Launch acknowledged and approved. Thanks for your help.”
“Anytime. Watch out for patrols.”
The Gryphon was launched by Dock Control from its bay and straight up into the atmosphere. Reyne fired the navigational engines, and the ship blasted through the sky at over ten Gs. When the ship broke through the last of Spate’s atmosphere, he initiated jump speed.
With the system running the ship, Reyne pulled up an image of Spate. He gripped his armrests. He couldn’t help but feel he’d left everything that mattered back in Devil Town.
Five
The Coastal Run
The Space Coast
Heid
“Bring shields up to thirty percent,” Captain Gabriela Heid ordered.
She felt the crew’s nervous glances being directed at her as they looked away from the screen filled with dots—each one representing a CUF drone—growing bigger every second.
When the distance hit three thousand, Heid said, “Enter stealth mode. Then, jettison the flak.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Sylvian replied.
A red border encircled the screen, the only on-ship visual sign that the Arcadia was in stealth mode. The warship was now effectively invisible to visual and radar systems alike.
Moments later, lights flickered against the blackness of space as chunks of garbage—each piece of flak repurposed with a small power generator—were ejected from the warship.
Heid had been in the CUF since she was fourteen, but her father had begun her teachings even earlier. She knew how the armada operated and knew how to exploit their dependency on unmanned defense systems. Drones were powerful tools with one critical weakness—they had no AI, therefore, no reasoning capability. Drones responded to threats exactly how they were programmed to. Heid had studied their programming, and knew things, like how drone sensors wouldn’t pick up any traffic beyond a 2,800-click radius.
She also knew drones weren’t equipped to scan for ships in stealth. Even so, Heid disliked using stealth. It burned juice at an exponential rate, and juice was at the top of their limited resources list. But even she acknowledged that stealth had its value, especially when she was planning to run a massive CUF blockade.
Her entire plan hinged on the assumption that drone programming hadn’t been changed in over a year. It was a big assumption, since one of the armada’s newest warships and a supply vessel now sat under torrent control.
Like clockwork, when the flak reached 2,800 clicks, the drones stationed at equal intervals across the entry to the Space Coast whirred to life and flashed red and white warning lights.
Heid continued to watch the distance close between them. At two thousand clicks, the drones fired at the flak. When no shots came at the Arcadia, Heid let out a breath. “Take us in, Will,” she commanded.
“Taking us in,” Will, the ship’s pilot, said.
Before this moment, nothing larger than a Myrad cargo hauler had ever entered the Coast before. The Arcadia, a massive warship, was easily ten times the size of the Collective’s largest hauler. Heid would’ve preferred to have taken a smaller ship in the specter fleet with stealth capability, but she needed the space for the refugees. At least, she hoped there were still refugees alive to rescue.
A rock hit the hull, sending a ripple through the ship.
“You can do this, Will,” she countered.
“I—I’ll try,” he stammered.
The Space Coast was an asteroid belt that sat outside the Collective’s control. Up until a year ago, the CUF had ignored the Coast. Citizens avoided the Coast. Only the most adventurous colonists braved the asteroid belt to journey to the unauthorized colony situated in the middle of the Space Coast. Nova Colony sat inside a hollow asteroid that had been colonized by outlaws and smugglers as a sanctuary for those who needed to avoid the CUF. It had become the center of all less-than-legal business activities, and one of the few places offering colonists the opportunity to earn a decent living—or die trying.
A small asteroid hurtled at them. Will banked, but too late, and the rock the size of a house ricocheted off the bow. Two other asteroids followed in quick succession. Each hit made Heid cringe. As a rock scraped alongside the entire length of the hull, her hands gripped her armrest. “Will, don’t break my ship.”
“I’m trying. I mean, I’m trying not to,” he stammered.
A massive asteroid filled the view screen.
Gasps and murmurs filled the bridge.
“I can’t do this!” Will exclaimed.
Heid reached out to her panel. “Okay, Will. I’m taking the controls.”
“Oh, thank the gods.” Will’s words drifted off as he slumped back from his panel.
No sooner did she take the controls, she leveled the ship, raised the bow slightly, then shoved the bow downward, arcing the massive warship under and around the asteroid in a half-loop. The Arcadia passed by the rock so closely she was surprised the asteroid didn’t slice a hole across the hull.
She twisted the ship around the next asteroid and then the next, banking and corkscrewing through the Coast. If they’d been within a planet’s atmosphere, the g-forces would’ve made nearly the entire crew either sick or pass out. But they’d been flying with minimal gravity, making the maneuvers feel more like a simulation than a real life-and-death race.
