by A. K. DuBoff
Alyssa frowned. “Is there any way to get the shuttle to us?”
“Not without disabling the shield,” Finn told her.
Alyssa looked to Trent. “How did you get planetside?”
“Dropped off. We were supposed to steal one of the guards’ transport shuttles to get back to the ship.”
“That’s a terrible plan!” Alyssa exclaimed.
Trent glared back. “It would have worked fine if you hadn’t shown up!”
Merica scowled. “Wait, you’re not together?”
“Long story,” Alyssa said with a groan.
“No time to argue! We need a way out of here,” Finn urged. “I can program a pick-up flight path for our shuttle if someone can bring down the estate’s shield.”
“No way I’m letting him set foot on our ship.” Triss glared at Trent.
He rolled his eyes. “What if we take your shuttle to my ship? If you can get it here.”
“Fine,” Alyssa agreed. “Finn, do what you have to do. Jack and I will take care of the shield. We’ll rendezvous at the crawler—the cloak will hide you until we get there.”
Jack handed the blindfolded Merica over to Trent. “No funny business.”
Trent scoffed. “You weren’t even supposed to be part of the abduction.”
“That’s beside the point.”
Alyssa handed over Larry to Triss.
“See you soon,” Triss said.
The five of them headed for the exit door.
“Where’s the shield generator?” Jack asked Alyssa while they took off in the opposite direction from their friends.
“Probably in a fortified bunker somewhere.”
“Then how are we supposed to take it out?!”
She gave a dismissive flip of her wrist. “No sense in trying to do it that way. We’ll just destroy the base.”
Jack’s brow knit. “And how do we do that?”
“By shooting it, of course.”
“Right, of course…”
Alyssa sighed. “Look, the field is meant to withstand an exterior assault. There’s virtually no protection on the interior of the field generators. All we have to do is fire a few well-aimed shots and the entire system will fail.”
“Have you ever done this before?” Jack asked.
She shrugged. “First time for everything.”
Jack breathed out between his teeth. “Nothing could possibly go wrong.”
“Precisely.”
Alyssa ran the length of the mansion, passing through the room filled with injured guards. When they reached the far side, they exited through a broad, sliding glass door that opened onto a covered patio with a gas-powered fire pit.
“Nice place,” Jack commented.
“Oh, very nice indeed…” Alyssa got a devious glint in her eyes. “Help me trace this gas line.”
“Alyssa…”
“I never dreamed they’d have such an antiquated fuel source around here. This is the perfect way to take out the shield. They might even think it was just an accident.”
Jack frowned. “If we blow this whole place, the guards…”
“You’re right, no need to rack up a body count again.”
“You said we can just shoot it, no need to get overly fancy,” Jack pointed out.
“Good point. Let’s see what we’re working with.”
They ran into the garden, searching for the base of the wall surrounding the estate. A hundred meters from the manor, the stone wall rose from behind a row of bushes. At four meters tall, they had no line of sight or access to the top ledge, from which the shield extended.
“Okay, so that’s an issue,” Alyssa admitted.
“If we can’t shoot it, what if we overload one of the laser pistols to use as a makeshift bomb?” Jack suggested.
“Now who’s the one getting overly complicated?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Alyssa shook her head. “Okay, that might be enough to buckle the system if we find the right spot to stick it.”
“What about in a tree?” Jack looked over at a nearby tree grove. Some of the spindly branches extended toward the wall.
“Yes, if we can loop a rifle around the end of a branch, it might be close enough to take out the base of the shield,” Alyssa assessed. “Only one way to find out for sure.”
She removed her laser rifle from her stealth bag and began fiddling with the device.
“How do you even overload the weapon, anyway?” Jack asked her.
“Would you really like me to spend ten minutes getting into the technical specifications, or do you just want to watch it go ‘boom’?”
“The second thing.”
“Thought so.” She got back to work.
Two minutes later, Alyssa rose to her feet, holding the weapon carefully at arm’s length.
Jack eyed it warily. “That could kill us instantly, couldn’t it?”
“Oh, most certainly.” She walked over toward the tree closest to the wall. “Give me your belt.”
“What for?”
“Just do it,” she instructed.
Reluctantly, Jack reached inside his stealth suit to retrieve the belt holding up his pants underneath. “You better not make me run, because these pants are going to fall down inside, and—”
Jack cut off when he noticed that Alyssa had secured one end of the belt around the tampered rifle and the other had been secured around a rock as a counterweight. She held the center of the belt and was twirling the weapon in a vertical circle. When she let go, the belt and its cargo sailed through the air, then wrapped around the end of the tree’s branch.
She grinned. “Like a pro!”
The tampered rifle began emitting a high-pitched whine.
“Run!” Alyssa shouted.
Jack grabbed the waistband of his pants through the outer layer of the stealth suit and took off toward the manor as quickly as he could, Alyssa two strides ahead.
Behind them, the whine emanating from the weapon continued to intensify. After fifteen seconds, an explosion knocked Jack on his face.
His ears rang as he came to his senses on the ground. Gingerly, he pushed himself to his knees, spitting out a mouthful of grass. He looked behind him.
The top segment of the wall was gone, and the shield overhead flickered with dancing static.
“Come on…” Alyssa wished under her breath.
The shield failed with a spectacular wave of electrical energy, making Jack’s stealth suit light up with blue flecks.
“All right! We have to get to the crawler.” Alyssa grabbed his hand and led him across the garden.
Jack pulled his hand free of Alyssa’s to better hold up his pants. They found the pathway they’d used to access the manor and began tracing it back to the crawler’s position.
“It should be right around here…” Jack murmured.
Rounding a bend, he spotted the faint outline of the cloaked dome. The discharge from the larger shield must have resulted in some interference with the tech, causing it to shimmer and emit occasional bright flashes.
Jack stepped through the field, and suddenly the crawler and the other members of their party came into view. “And here they are,” he concluded.
“Shuttle is on its way,” Finn reported.
“Yeah, I hear it,” Triss said.
Jack pointed toward the sky. “That’s not the shuttle you’re hearing.”
Coming straight for the manor was a seemingly solid mass of purple—hundreds of huge birds descending in one magnificent wave.
“Oh shit!” Alyssa dropped to her knees and put her hands over her head.
“They can’t see us,” Finn reminded her. “As long as we stay under this cloak, they should leave us alone.”
“I hate to break it to you, but the cloak isn’t exactly working right now—it’s flashing,” Jack informed the others.
The birds drove straight for them.
“Finn, where’s that shuttle?” Alyssa demanded from the
round.
Jack dropped to his knees to shield his head like Alyssa had done. “This isn’t how I want to die!”
A high-pitched whistle filled the air, and the birds broke from their dives, scattering in every direction.
Jack looked up to see Merica with two fingers in her mouth. She whistled again, and the birds flew farther away.
“Damn avian menace,” she muttered. “Had to install the shield just to keep them out. They hate high frequencies.”
“And love shiny things, apparently.” Alyssa rose to her feet and dusted off her knees.
“They’ll be back,” Merica warned.
“But we’ll be gone.” Finn’s face lit up. “Shuttle should be coming into view… now!”
Sure enough, the craft arced over the top of the perimeter wall, coming to rest on top of a lone bush seven meters from the group. The back hatch opened.
Triss hopped into the crawler to drive it inside.
Jack ran into the cargo area with Finn, Larry, and Merica while Alyssa and Trent took the controls in the cockpit. Once Triss was on board with the crawler, the door closed and they accelerated into the sky.
“I’ll enter in the coordinates for my ship,” Trent said, and he made entries on the touch panel.
“Guess you don’t need these anymore,” Jack realized when he noticed Merica still had on the blindfold and fuzzy cuffs. He removed them from her.
“Thanks,” Merica said. “That didn’t go quite how I imagined. You kind of destroyed the place.”
“What do you care?” Triss questioned. “Screw him.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Merica rubbed her wrists.
Jack checked the crawler and saw that all the bags of loot were secured in the back. “At least we got the goods.”
“Yes, that we did,” Finn agreed. “All thanks to my safe-cracking, I might add.”
Triss rolled her eyes.
“None of this would have been possible without Triss,” Jack said on her behalf.
She smiled. “Thank you.”
The shuttle broke through the atmosphere and approached a ship approximately the same size as the Little Princess II, which Trent had identified as the Thrasher. Alyssa piloted the shuttle inside, then opened the back hatch once they were docked.
“Let’s divide up the loot and be on our way,” Alyssa said, rising from the controls.
“Don’t you want a tour?” Trent asked.
“Yeah, no thanks.” Triss crinkled her nose.
“We can go through everything over here,” Trent suggested, leading the group toward a stainless steel table near the shuttle’s docking pad.
They hoisted the booty bags on the table and unzipped them.
While Trent was inspecting the goods, Alyssa and Triss exchanged a knowing glance. Alyssa nodded.
Triss leveled a rifle on Trent. “Sorry to break up the party, but consider this a preemptive move against your inevitable double-cross.”
Trent held up his hands, backing away from the table. “Hey now! I really had no intention of doing that.”
“Really, just like Kayla was the one who wronged you?” Triss tilted her head.
“Leave the past alone, Triss.” Trent began to lower his hands. “Let’s just divvy up the loot and part ways. We never have to see each other again.”
She kept the weapon trained on him. “No, I know how you operate. You’ll stab us in the back, even if it’s not immediate.”
Jack felt a cool cylinder press against his temple. “Uh, guys!”
“Surprise! Trent’s not the one you had to worry about.” Jack was shocked to hear Merica’s voice coming from right behind him. Her arm looped around his throat while the other held a pistol to his head.
“What are you doing?” Disbelief laced Alyssa’s tone.
“You really think I’d let a bunch of lowly thieves take all my beautiful things? I hate Vincent, yes, but he was a means to an end. I could gather all the valuables I desired and use the proceeds to start a new life. All I needed were some pawns to get the goods away from the property,” Merica explained. “Trent was just the patsy I needed.”
“But you said you only liked the mountain landscape painting,” Jack murmured.
“I heard how you talked about the art in the bedroom—you were clearly people with no taste. It was all a ruse to win you over.” She tsked. “Honestly, you were too easy to manipulate.”
“There’s one critical part of this plan you didn’t think through,” Alyssa said. “There are six of us and one of you.”
“I’ll kill him if you try to stop me!” Merica tightened her grip on Jack’s neck.
“I think she’s serious.” He gulped.
“If you’re looking for a hostage, you picked the wrong person on the crew to hold at gunpoint.” Alyssa placed her hands on her hips. “Jack often causes more trouble than he’s worth.”
“You don’t mean that!” he exclaimed. “I’m a one hundred percent vital member of this crew.”
“Are you, though?” She wrinkled her nose. “Really, Merica, you kinda backed yourself into a corner here.”
Merica held her place. “You wouldn’t sacrifice one of your own. You’re just trying to distract me.”
“Is it working?” Alyssa asked.
“What? No, I—” Merica cut off with a yelp as a low-intensity laser blast struck her trigger hand.
“Guess it did.” Triss lowered her weapon.
“You bitch!” Merica shouted, gripping her injured hand.
“She’s really not the one worthy of name-calling here.” Jack pinned Merica’s good arm behind her back and held her in place. “And she’s a really good shot.”
“Well, pretty good,” Triss corrected. “And I hadn’t actually checked the sights on this pistol… I was, like, eighty percent sure I wouldn’t hit you.”
“That’s… not very good.” Jack frowned.
“Psh, you’re fine!” Triss waved her hand.
He sighed. “What do we do with her?”
Merica squirmed in his grip. “Get your hands off me!”
“Gonna pass. First you held a gun to my head, and then you insulted my taste in art. Kinda lost any favor,” he replied.
Trent stroked his chin. “What would you do with me?”
Triss raised an eyebrow. “You mean what we still might do with you? Drop you on the nearest habitable planet with provisions for a week and a transmitter to call for rescue—let you be someone else’s problem.”
“Sounds like as good a fate as any for her.” Trent nodded. “The deal was to get her away from Vincent. That’s fulfilling the contract.”
Alyssa smirked. “I have something else in mind.”
CHAPTER 9: Debts Paid
— — —
“How did you learn about this place, again?” Jack asked as the shuttle descended through the thick cloud cover of the remote planet.
“The school is one of the charities my parents donated to in an attempt to look less like monsters,” Alyssa replied. “However, it’s all run through an intermediary. It’ll be months before there’s contact with anyone on the outside.”
Jack smiled. “Perfect.”
In the rear of the shuttle, a blindfolded Merica strained against her harness and shouted into her mouth gag. Her empty threats of killing them all had grown wearisome, necessitating the gag. Jack had felt a little bad about putting it on her at first, but when she’d asked about her fuzzy handcuffs as soon as she saw the gag, he suspected she didn’t mind having it in all that much.
Alyssa directed the shuttle to an open field adjacent to a small settlement nestled in the foothills of a jagged mountain range. The town consisted of five wooden lodges and a handful of huts.
“Wow, it’s like stepping back in time,” Jack commented, taking it in.
“That’s precisely the point.”
Once on the ground, Alyssa powered down the engines and they unstrapped their flight harnesses.
“Time to see your new home,�
�� Alyssa told Merica, removing the blindfold.
The other woman shouted objections into her gag when she glimpsed the planet through the open doorway.
“You wanted to start a new life. That’s exactly what we’re giving you.” Alyssa grinned. “They were so thrilled to hear someone of your talents was looking to relocate.”
Jack helped Merica from her seat and directed her through the hatch in the rear of the shuttle.
As they exited the craft, an elderly man and two women were approaching. They were followed by a herd of three dozen young children.
Alyssa removed Merica’s gag. “Welcome,” she told her.
“Where is this backwater hell hole?” Merica demanded. “Take me to the nearest station immediately and I won’t report you.”
“Oh, nonsense!” Alyssa laughed. “But you can make such a positive difference here.”
“Hello!” one of the woman in the welcoming party called out. “We’re so excited our new art teacher has arrived.”
Merica’s face paled. “Oh, stars, no!”
A group of children ran ahead toward Merica. Their fingers were covered in orange and blue paint.
“Are you our teacher?” a little boy asked.
“No, I am most certainly not!” Merica objected.
Alyssa nudged the other woman with her elbow. “She’s funny, isn’t she? She can’t wait to spend all day painting with you!”
“Yay!” the children cheered in unison.
“We made you a picture,” the little boy continued. He held out a piece of paper depicting a crude figure of a woman, an orange blob, and a single strip of blue across the top of the sheet. “This is you, and this is the sky, and this is a flower.”
Merica’s eyes widened with horror. “Kill me now.”
Alyssa clapped her on the back. “We knew you’d love it here!”
The old man in the welcome party beamed, revealing purple teeth. “I hope you like beets, because we have them with every meal!”
Jack and Alyssa backed away as Merica’s face turned an unnatural shade of red.
“Have fun now!” Alyssa called out, and they made their retreat.
“She won’t hurt them, will she?” Jack whispered to her.
“Nah, nothing to gain from it. I hope some time off the grid does her good.”
