by Ben Hale
“You want my slaves.” The captain’s eyes narrowed.
“What else would we want?” he asked.
“We’re entering the Javelin system,” Kensen said through the open beamcast.
“Thank you, Kensen,” Ero said.
“You have a human piloting your ship?” Prelith growled.
“They really are far more capable than we thought.” Ero tapped his chin in contemplation. “And once I augment your cargo, they will be worth ten times the amount your House paid.”
Prelith’s eyes widened and flicked to Siena. “You’re an augment.”
“Guilty,” she said.
“A real augment?” Prelith said.
“Are you always this slow?” Ero flicked him on the forehead. “Now, if you’ll kindly unlink the slaves in the cargo bay, we’ll dump you at the outpost in the Javelin system and be on our way.”
The captain sneered at him. “There’s no way I’m going to give you our slaves.”
Siena’s blade came to a stop on his throat, appearing so fast that Prelith flinched. But with his back to the chair, there was nowhere for him to go. Siena, as silent as the grave, stood immovable.
Ero smiled faintly. “Are you certain there is nothing we could do that would make you reconsider? I assumed that sparing your life would be sufficient payment, but perhaps I was mistaken . . .”
“No,” Prelith said, his voice trembling, “I believe that is indeed sufficient compensation.”
Ero clapped his hands together. “Your bargaining skills do you credit.”
Prelith glared at him. “I hate you.”
“I know,” Ero said with a smile. “Siena? He’ll need a hand.”
She slashed once, severing the bindings holding Prelith’s right hand to his chair. The cut was so perfect she did not even break the krey’s skin. Ero felt a touch of jealousy. As a result of her recent training with the dakorians, the girl was quickly becoming better than he was with an energy blade.
Prelith activated his personal cortex, embedded in his left wrist, and a holo appeared over his arm. He input a code and then a command Ero recognized. In an instant, every slave earring on the ship turned from orange to blue, signifying their new ownership.
“It appears our transaction is complete,” Ero said. “Do you mind if we keep the ship? It would be a challenge to move the cargo through the Gate.”
Prelith yanked against his bonds. “You can force me to give up my cargo, but I’m not giving you my ship—” His eyes closed and he lapsed into unconsciousness.
Siena removed her hand from the krey’s head and watched him critically. “He won’t wake up for a few hours,” she said. “But I’ll need Tana to wipe his memory.”
“You can’t do it?”
She rubbed her neck wearily. “As I’ve explained before, the mind augment has several facets, including memory, gravity, and telepathy. Tana is better than me at all three.”
“I thought you were supposed to be a supreme augment.”
Ero summoned his own subdermal energy blade and cut the krey’s bonds before unceremoniously tossing him from his seat. The krey captain flopped onto the floor. Ero claimed the chair and turned his attention to the controls.
“I am,” she said. “But just because I have access to every augment does not mean I can master them all.”
Tana appeared in the doorway. “You needed me?”
“Can you wipe his memory of the last hour?” Ero asked.
“You sure we can’t just kill him?” Tana approached Prelith and knelt to put her hand on his skull.
“Not this one,” Ero said. “He’s too connected with House Jek’Orus, and we don’t want to draw that much animosity. Kensen, get ready to disengage the gravity coupler.”
“Ready,” Kensen said.
Ero frowned as a blinking light appeared on the holo. “Kensen, did you block all outgoing transmissions?”
“I did when Siena started the attack,” he said. “But I opened them back up so you could talk to Skorn.”
“And you reengaged the block afterward, correct?”
Silence.
Ero sighed. “It appears we have a problem.”
“What sort of problem?” Siena asked. She leaned over the bridge, getting blood on Ero’s cloak.
“Hey,” he protested.
Siena ignored him and nudged the unconscious captain with her boot. “It looks like the captain managed to get a message out when he unlocked the slave leashes.”
Kensen sounded confused. “What does that mean—oh.”
Ero tapped the holo, and it brought up the image of a ship. His heart sank. “We’re about to have company. Looks like Malikin just entered the system.”
Chapter Four
“How did he find us so fast?” Siena demanded.
Ero set a new course while he brought up the message. “Our unconscious friend here sent a beacon straight to him. Malikin has been tracking us for months. He must have been watching slave shipments. He was ready for us.”
Ero was annoyed, mostly at Kensen but also himself. He should have been more careful. Malikin, currently serving as a Voice for the Emperor, had repaired his powerful ship and been relentless in his pursuit of Ero and Skorn. As a judge he was not even supposed to be on a military vessel, but according to fleet records, the Kildor didn’t exist.
Ero’s holoview beeped angrily, but Ero didn’t bother answering. It would be his brother, Skorn. He would have spotted the Kildor on long-range sensors. Ero pushed the ship’s engines, and the Light of Everden accelerated until all four gravity drives whined. Then pushed them until they shrieked. The high-pitched warning echoed throughout the ship as the seracrete hull vibrated.
“What are you doing?” Siena asked.
“The Kildor entered the system at a flanking heading,” he said. “We’re six minutes from the planet, but he’s ten. If I can give us a few extra minutes, we might have time to unload.”
Siena grabbed Tana’s arm and pulled her towards the door. “We’ll get the slaves out of their cages,” she called over her shoulder.
Ero watched the planet grow large in the distance. The Javelin system contained a white dwarf star and a single planet, a ball of snow and ice with little to offer. Its proximity to the main shipping lanes had once made it valuable, but with hyperlight technology and faster ships, it had been abandoned ages ago. It sole distinguishing feature was the moon ascender, a long tube that connected the moon to the planet’s surface. At a distance, it looked like an ancient javelin had been driven into the planet’s surface.
The holoview beeped again, and Ero answered it without looking. “Yes, I know Malikin is here. We’ll land in four minutes.”
“Leaving five to unload,” Skorn said. “It’s not enough time.”
“It will have to be.”
Ero could hear shouting coming from the ascender; it emanated from deck three, where Siena and the other augments were unlocking every cage and frantically ushering the humans to the doors at the bow of the vessel.
“How did this happen?” Skorn demanded.
“Prelith got a message out.” Ero kicked the unconscious krey. “And it seems Malikin was ready for us to steal another ship.”
“He’s getting too close,” Skorn said. “We won’t be able to risk another theft.”
“It won’t matter,” Ero said. “I’ve got twenty thousand humans onboard. Add that to the thirty we already have, and we have enough.”
“Land as close to the Gate as you can,” he said. “Every second is going to count.”
Ero approached the icy planet and started his descent. He didn’t slow down, and the impact with the atmosphere spiked the heat to dangerous levels. Warning lights flashed as the large cargo ship shuddered.
Siena stumbled back onto the bridge. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “Do you want us to crash?”
“Of the two of us, who has been flying a ship for nearly twenty thousand years?”
“Doesn’t mean you
can defy natural laws.”
She dropped into the copilot’s seat and took control of the emergency systems, where she funneled heat from the bow to be vented out the stern.
Ero glanced her way, a smile playing on his lips as they plummeted towards the icy planet’s surface. “Remind me to tell you about the time I ran out of drey on my personal cruiser and stole a cargo ship from House Mor’Val.”
“Did the ship crash?”
His smile widened. “As a matter of fact, it did. The drey ignited and burned for days.”
“Can we hold the crashing stories for after we survive?”
He sighed. “You’re no fun.”
She glared at him, and he laughed. He eyed the approaching surface as the ship’s cortex warned of an approaching impact. The warning mounted until it blared in his face—and then he finally pulled out of the dive.
The bow began to curve upward as the ship gradually banked out of its thunderous descent. The sheer weight and size of the vessel strained the four gravity drives to the limit. They warped into a cushion-like bubble of energy. But they were just too heavy and too big. They burst through the clouds, and a line of peaks came into view.
“We’re going too fast,” Siena said.
“I can see that,” Ero said, and risked pushing the gravity drives further.
Boom.
The second drive, already pulling against the superstructure of the ship, ripped free of its moorings. Like a tooth yanked from a skull at the speed of sound, it tore through the decking and blasted through the hull, knocking the entire ship off center.
“We lose another drive and we’re dead,” Ero said. “Think you can use your augment to take the drive’s place?”
“Are you asking if I can lift a starship?”
“Can you?”
“Of course not,” she growled. “I’m an augment, not a god.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
Siena cursed and activated a beamcast to Kensen. “Where are you?”
“Trying to keep up,” he said, his voice strained. “You’re thirty seconds from hitting a mountain.”
“We lost a drive,” Ero said.
“I know,” Kensen replied. “It nearly blasted through me before it cratered on the surface.”
“Use the gravity coupler on our weak side,” Siena said. “Help us get enough lift to clear the peaks.”
“I’ll try,” he said.
Kensen cut the beamcast, and Ero activated the holo to show their ship relative to the surface. The Rising Dawn accelerated to reach their starboard side, where they were venting smoke and debris. Ero pushed towards their bow and dropped lower, the gravity coupler mounting him to the hull. Then he began to pull up.
“We’re not going to make it,” Siena said.
“Why are you always so pessimistic?” Ero said.
“I’m a realist.” She stabbed a finger at the rapidly approaching peak. “That’s in our way.”
“It’ll move,” Ero said confidently.
Siena actually laughed. “One day your luck is going to run out, my friend.”
Ero grinned. “But not today.”
They braced themselves against the bridge controls as the cargo ship hurtled into a saddle between the peaks. Ero had aimed for it because it was the lowest, but a smaller peak rose like a needle between the two.
“Diverting power to forward shields,” Siena said.
The giant cargo ship sped towards the mountains, its hull burning red, contrails of heat rippling in its wake. Snow and ice briefly obscured the forward window, and Ero cringed for the impact. If they were lucky, maybe it wouldn’t rip them apart . . .
CRACK.
The impact snapped the smaller peak like a tree ripped from the roots. The bow of the ship slowed and the stern of the cargo ship lifted a hundred feet in an instant, sending them into the mountain on the right. Ice and boulders rained down on the upper hull, and screams echoed from the cargo bays. The peak had snapped off and tumbled down the mountain, sparking an avalanche.
Ero caught a glimpse of the ruins of Kraven, an ancient city on the other side of the mountains. He dropped them to the snowy plain extending between the mountain range and the ruins. On a platform at the base, a glittering arch was just visible, with a solitary figure standing in front of the portal.
“If we hit Skorn, he’s going to kill me,” Ero said.
Siena snorted as Ero forced the gravity drives to push more power into arresting their momentum. They dropped out of the sky and skimmed across the glacier, gradually settling deeper and deeper, until snow and ice cascaded in their wake. Bouncing and skidding, they slid a thousand feet a second, the ice failing to slow them as much as he’d hoped. Then they hit something hard, and the stone carved a line through the bottom of the hull like a knife through their belly. More screams from the cargo bay, but the breach had not pierced the deck. Even so, the rent acted like an additional brake, finally slowing them down.
“Do you ever get tired of being lucky?” Siena asked.
“Never,” Ero said with an easy smile.
The ship slowed further and further, the rent hull increasing the friction and pulling them down at the cost of hull plating, which scraped until it was torn free. Even with the gravity stabilizers, Ero was pushed forward in his seat until his stomach pressed against the curved bridge controls.
Bouncing, skidding, and sliding, the Light of Everden finally came to a shuddering halt, so close to the Gate that the ship’s shadow hung over Skorn. Ero immediately dropped power from the gravity drives, but the damage had been done.
“The drives are burnt to a crisp,” he said.
“I see that,” Siena said. “I bet we have six minutes before they implode, taking the entire ship with it.”
“Perfect,” Ero said, rising and sprinting to the exit. “I didn’t want to leave evidence anyway.”
“You did not plan that,” Siena said flatly.
“I bought us an extra minute and ensured Malikin has no evidence to follow.” Ero scoffed. “Of course I planned it.”
“What about the Rising Dawn?” she asked. “It’s stuck beneath the ice, and there’s no way we’re getting it out. Did you want to lose it?”
“An unfortunate casualty,” he admitted. He would be sad to lose the ship, but Siena was right. There was no way to get it out from under the cargo vessel.
They dropped down the ascender to the top cargo bay. One of the augments had already opened the main doors, and slaves were rushing to the extended ramps. They tumbled down the slope and poured through the waiting World Gate. Ero and Siena joined the crowd.
Thousands of slaves from all three decks rushed down the ramps. Disheveled and limping, they were aided by the augments, who, after three such thefts, actually worked like a cohesive team. High in orbit, a large object was hitting the atmosphere; its front bow just beginning to heat. The Kildor had arrived.
Ero jumped off the ramp and approached his brother, who had not moved from his position at the Gate. Behind the Gate, the twisted and dilapidated ruins of an ancient city rose like clawed fingers through the snow. The starports, homes, and warehouses comprising the superstructure were hardly distinguishable from each other due to the ravages of time.
Ero came to a stop and surveyed the slaves sprinting through the arched Gate. “You did say to land as close as possible to the Gate,” he said to Skorn.
“I didn’t mean this close,” Skorn said.
Siena joined them, but kept her distance from Skorn. “The ship’s gravity drives are overheated and the control system is damaged. It’s going to implode in three minutes.”
“And I’m sure my brother is taking credit for the erasing of evidence.”
Siena nodded. “He is.”
Skorn and Siena shared a smile, a rare moment of kinship for the two—and at Ero’s expense. He didn’t care. As the gravity drives began to crack inside the Light of Everden, he knew they had made it, and at the rate the humans were rushing to escape, h
e knew they would all make it out alive.
“Make sure everyone reaches the Gate,” Skorn said to Siena. “Then prepare them for the procedure.”
A touch of distaste wafted across Siena’s features, but she controlled it. “I’ll get them settled.”
Ero remained with Skorn as the slaves passed by. Tana, Bort and Begle, Rahnora, Siena, and the other augments urged them to move quickly. The slaves—a mass of men, women, and children—cast furtive looks at Ero. Many were too terrified to question what had just happened. Others showed more hope than was normal for slaves. That was to be expected, given what they’d probably seen Siena and the others do.
The flood gradually slowed, with those who’d been wounded in Ero’s reckless descent limping and shuffling at the back. Others were quick to help them, and Ero appreciated how readily they jumped to serve. In a similar position, krey would have been pushing their way to reach the Gate first.
The compassion in humans was not something he’d ever noticed before Siena had opened his eyes, and he’d gradually begun to view them differently. They were not the brute animals most of the krey believed them to be, but sentient beings with a nobility that deserved respect. Not that he would ever admit his new perspective to his brother. They were still slaves, after all.
The last of the slaves were guided through the Gate and teleported to the secret harvest world as the Kildor reached the mountains. It passed over the peaks with ease and dropped towards the snowy field.
“What do we do about the Rising Dawn?” Siena asked.
“Leave it,” Skorn said. “There’s no way we can keep it at this point.”
“And the captain?” Ero asked.
“He went down with the ship,” Skorn said.
Siena motioned to Kensen and Tana, who were standing at the Gate, to pass through. Once they had, Siena nodded. “We’re done.”
“You can go,” Skorn said dismissively.
She nodded and left.
Ero turned to follow, but Skorn caught his elbow. “Hang on.”
