The Starhawk Chronicles Page 15

  Starting up the ramp to his yacht, he paused, turning to look back at the hangar doors, puzzled.

  The hangar doors had been open.

  Lotha always made sure that the doors were sealed. Even when the maintenance techs were working on the ship, he made it clear he wanted the doors closed and locked. A sudden feeling of dread began to creep over him.

  A sound up in the hatchway of the yacht caused him to turn. A huge fist slammed into his broad face. He blacked out long before he finished his slide across the hangar floor.

  *

  Jesse and K’Tran reached the hangar doors as the security locks were clamping into place. Jesse pounded and kicked against the door. When that had no effect, he vented his rage against the trash receptacle along the wall. K’Tran watched him with quiet patience, waiting for this storm to pass.

  To their mutual surprise, the locks disengaged and the doors started to part. Wary, they kept their guns trained on the opening until, with uniform sighs of relief, they holstered their weapons.

  Morogo was standing on the other side, lips curled in a grin, eyes bright with victory. He carried the unconscious Lotha over one shoulder. Kym stood just behind them with the same self-satisfied grin on her face. In her hand, she playfully tossed a security bypass module up and down.

  Jesse felt lightheaded from lack of adrenaline as all tension instantly drained from him. Grabbing K’Tran’s shoulder for support, he looked at the two of them and said, “Did I ever tell you just how much I love you guys?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ludo Springer settled into his beaten leather chair, support springs groaning in protest as he settled in his seat. Closing his eyes, he prepared to sleep through another long, uneventful night at Piraxis Colony’s tracking station. It was an understood fact that unless a ship was scheduled for arrival at the small backwater colony, there was nothing else to keep a watch on. However, colonial regulations required that the tracking station be manned at all times. Whether the person on duty was actually conscious or not was another matter entirely.

  Ludo planned on at least a good four hours of sleep, then some time to catch up on the latest data novel that his sister had sent him on the last transport. The time would pass quickly enough, and he was looking forward to some time off, having not been scheduled for monitor duty again for another three days.

  Folding his hands across his stomach, he shifted to a more comfortable position in his seat and knew sleep would not be long in coming. Ludo let his body relax.

  BEEP!

  He ignored the electronic call for his attention, figuring it to be a glitch in the system. The equipment in the tracking center was in need of an overhaul, often sending false signals.

  After the third beep, however, Ludo was annoyed enough to prop one eye open. He sat up in surprise upon seeing that there actually was something on the monitor screen. It was indeed a ship, and a sizable one according to the readouts from the computer. It was coming out of hyperspace, approaching Piraxis Three at an unusually doggish pace for a ship of its size.

  The next sound to go off in the tiny monitor room was the distress signal that the craft was sending out.

  Ludo hesitated a minute. He had been trained in the proper procedure for contact with distressed ships, but had never had to use them before this. That and his confusion at having an unscheduled ship come in on his shift caused him to blank for a moment.

  Recovering his wits enough to run the procedure through his head, he grabbed his headset receiver, switching to the incoming ship’s distress channel. “Unidentified ship,” he said, “This is Piraxis Colony. We are receiving your distress beacon. Do you require assistance?”

  The response was heavy with static. “Piraxis Colony, this is the freighter Morning Star. We have sustained damage from a pirate attack. We are in need of repairs. Can you assist us?”

  “We do have facilities, but they are limited. If you can make it to our landing site, or even set down outside the colony. . .”

  “Negative, Piraxis Colony. We are not atmosphere capable. We shall need to make repairs in orbit. Can you send a shuttle up to assist us?”

  Ludo thought. The transport ship that dropped off supplies to the colony every three months was still planetside, scheduled to leave in another day or two. He would have to wake the pilot, and that would not make old Jed Martinez the least bit happy, but this was an emergency. “You’re in luck, Morning Star. Our supply ship hasn’t yet departed. I’ll alert the pilot and have a crew up there to help you as soon as possible.”

  “Much obliged, Piraxis Colony. We’ll assume orbit and await your ship. Morning Star out,” Khyber replied, fighting to stifle the giddy laugh rising inside him. He looked to Rahk, who gave him an approving nod.

  Rahk turned to his brother, who sat toying with the controls on his weapons console. “You shall soon have an adequate test of the repaired systems.”

  “Good,” Kahr grumbled. “I didn’t think that one ship could do us so much harm. At least we destroyed her before running from the Starhawk like cowards.”

  Rahk ignored the jab at his ego. He did not like running from a fight any more than his brother did, but the battle in the Melarii system was never intended to be decisive. For there to be any true glory in Forster’s death, it would have to be face to face, at Rahk’s own hands.

  “Reading a liftoff from the planet’s surface,” Tesk buzzed from his station. “Arrival estimate, forty-seven standard minutes.”

  “Excellent,” Rahk answered. “Continue to keep up the distressed ship act until they are within range. Then with their only means of escape gone, we can take the colony at our leisure.” He turned back to Kahr. “Just make sure that they are well within weapons range before you go firing any shots. Don’t let your excitement make you stupid.”

  *

  Betan Lotha awoke to find his world literally turned upside down.

  Hanging by his ankles, arms bound behind him in the ballroom of the Galaxy Arms, he writhed, trying to free his arms, causing him to begin swinging over the dance floor.

  Seated at a nearby table with Kayla, K’Tran, and Sneaker, Jesse was first to notice he was awake. He strode over nonchalantly. “Not such a great feeling is it?”

  Lotha struggled more, increasing the arc of his swing. He burned a look at Jesse. “Release me now.”

  Jesse snorted at the demand. “You’re not exactly in a position to dictate orders.”

  “Nevertheless, my men will come for me,” Lotha said. “They will know by now that something is wrong and you will be in over your head Forster, as usual.”

  “I doubt they’re that loyal. Besides, any attempt at rescue would be a useless gesture.” He tapped a button on his communicator, then spun Lotha around so the Kammaran could see out the window. With a roar of lifter jets, the Starhawk dropped into view from somewhere above the tower. “I don’t think your men want to try taking on my ship. I doubt even less that Del Loora authorities would look kindly on you for starting a dogfight over city airspace, should your people be stupid enough to try launching ships at her.” The ship lifted out of view again as he waved out the window.

  Lotha sighed, hanging in silence.

  “Now I know the Nexus is holed up somewhere, waiting for word from you. After all, you were arranging to deliver Miss Karson and me into Rahk’s hands. Just tell us where you were supposed to meet and we’ll cut you loose.”

  Lotha turned away, keeping his silence.

  Jesse let out a strangled sigh. “You do yourself no good by protecting them.”

  From the table, Kayla pushed out of her chair and approached. She was clenching and unclenching her fists; a feat Jesse knew must be painful because of her lacerated hands, temporarily wrapped in surgical gauze. She had refused any further medical care until they finished their business here.

  “Enough of this sweet talk,” she said, pushing past Jesse and squatting in front of Lotha. She gave the Kammaran a humorless grin and roughly shoved two fingers int
o his blowhole nostrils. Lotha’s cry was a comical bleat, eyes going suddenly wide in surprise.

  “You said you liked the fire in me,” Kayla said, her voice taking on a decidedly icy rasp. “So tell me, do you like it now?”

  Lotha regained his composure faster than Jesse would have thought. Giving Kayla a cool stare, his barbed tongue snaked out, licking the back of her hand.

  If there’s a top ten list of stupid ways to anger Karson, Jesse thought, Lotha’s just shot to the top of that list.

  Kayla released his nostril, standing and pulling her taser staff from the sling on her back. Setting the weapon at one-quarter charge, she jabbed it into Lotha’s belly. The Kammarans eyes went wider than before and he bellowed, loud enough to rattle the remaining glass in the windows around them.

  “Um, Karson,” Jesse started to protest, knowing that even this was a bit extreme. Whirling on him, she held her staff as though he was her next target, and he backed off, hands held before him.

  “This slime licker tries to have us killed and you want to baby him?” Kayla hissed, her eyes full of rage. She turned back to Lotha and jabbed him in the belly again.

  Lotha’s wail ended in a most pathetic sobbing sound. Kneeling before him again, Kayla glared into his eyes. “You better tell us what we need to know, or I swear I’ll burn out every nerve ending in that bloated body of yours, and when I’m done, I’m gonna drop you out that window so you splatter all over the pavement.”

  Lotha’s lipless mouth was quivering, mucous streaming in green trails down his broad face. A look came into his eyes, as if he were considering another defiant action. It ended abruptly when Kayla stood again, turning the charge controls on her staff up another setting. “Piraxis Three!” Lotha shrieked. “We were going to meet them on Piraxis Three!”

  Kayla patted his face almost lovingly. “Good boy.”

  While Lotha’s revelation may have pleased Kayla, the words turned Jesse’s innards to jelly. He glanced at K’Tran, and saw the same effect on his face. “Piraxis,” Jesse echoed. His voice sounded to him like a hollow whisper.

  Kayla looked to him with concern. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  K’Tran answered first. “It’s where we captured the Nexus the last time.”

  “Where I lost Lohren,” Jesse added.

  The ballroom fell quiet, save for the sound of the wind blowing through broken windowpanes and the creak of the cable that held Lotha suspended from the ceiling as he swayed back and forth. Jesse looked to Kayla, saw the compassion in her eyes, and felt a little of the nausea that had come over him fade. In its place, he felt a new resolve come over him. He started for the stairwell that led to the roof. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait!” Lotha called after them. “You said you would cut me loose.”

  Jesse paused in the doorway, as the others started up the steps. “I lied.”

  Lotha’s curses followed him up the stairwell.

  *

  We are coming full circle, Rahk Garrakis thought, watching the faint lights of Piraxis Three’s sole colony nestled safely in the crux of an enormous, U-shaped stone mesa several kilometers off. This place saw the death of our father, and of Forster’s mate. It will soon see the death of Forster himself.

  The town in the distance had been their hideout until only a few weeks before their capture. The colonists, mostly miners and their families, welcomed any visitors openly, allowing them full use of whatever meager resources they had, eager for stories of the greater galaxy around them to brighten their dull, quiet lives.

  Even the Nexus Gang was welcomed at first, so anxious for new faces and experiences were the townsfolk. At first the gang’s excesses were tolerated. Soon things began to get out of hand. Ghorman had gotten sloppy in his later years, and could not control his crew as well as he should have. Then one night a colonist’s family was slaughtered. No one knew exactly who had done the act, but it was known that it had been at least one of the Nexus. The colonists brought the hammer down. The Starhawk had arrived less than a week later. Ghorman was put out of his misery, and the rest of the gang had been jailed.

  As Malcontent had flown over the colony earlier that evening, the thought to level the settlement from the air had more than once crossed Rahk’s mind. It would have been quick, clean, and simple, and their vengeance would have been amply served.

  Nevertheless, Rahk knew that he was very close to facing a mutiny. The crew was itching for bloodshed on a more personal level. They wanted the blood of the colonists on their hands in more than just the figurative sense.

  Rahk looked back to where Malcontent had set down on the desert plain. The crew was waiting beneath the ship, readying their weapons for the coming assault on the colony. The air was so thick with their excitement it was nearly a physical thing.

  Kahr and Khyber were clowning, sparring with their bladed weapons. Rahk still marveled how two beings, who were at each other’s throats ninety percent of the time, could come together like brothers when a battle was forthcoming. All animosities between them were set aside, until the adrenaline levels dropped. A few days from now, when the fight against Forster and the Starhawk crew was over, they would once more be trying to kill one another.

  From the boarding ramp, Tesk came into view, his multi-faceted eyes scanning the area until they focused on Rahk. His segmented legs and claw feet clattered across the rocks as he approached. “Received priority message from Lotha on Del Loora,” Tesk reported, his mandibles clacking softly. “Forster and the others survived the ambush. They are headed our way.”

  “As was planned. Lotha couldn’t handle Forster if he were still a babe in diapers.” Rahk replied, his left hand absently polishing the chrome of his cybernetic right arm. He paused, taking in a lungful of the dry night air. “Send no reply. Let Lotha sweat a bit. I shall deal with him once we are finished here.”

  Tesk bobbed his head, then retreated under cover of the ship to help with the preparations. Kahr, Khyber, and Khyber’s woman, Jarhna, passed him. Khyber was decked out in his knives, six of them by Rahk’s quick estimate. Jahrna wore her scant warrior garb, her long black hair tied back in what she called “battle braids.” She wore a sidearm, a knife, and a pulse-whip on her hip. Kahr wore only a loose-fitting breechcloth and carried a meter long laser-carbine. “Brother,” he addressed Rahk as they approached. “The others finish their preparations.” He waved a claw at Khyber and Jahrna. “We are ready. Let us go forth. We shall clear the way.”

  In other words, you want to get a head start on the trophies, Rahk mentally translated. He knew by the look in his brother’s eyes that the request was merely a formality. They would go whether Rahk gave his permission or not. It was only a matter of whether it would take the spilling of brother’s blood to get things started.

  “Go,” Rahk said. “Hunt well, but leave some for the rest of us.”

  Kahr smiled, baring almost his full set of fangs, and slapping his brother on the shoulder. Without further conversation, the three of them started off into the night.

  Rahk watched as the darkness swallowed them and knew that they would not live to make it off the planet.

  *

  Plex Morgan reined his Phalean strider to a halt and strained his eyes, looking for any signs of movement. He cursed himself for forgetting to bring his night vision binoculars for the second time in as many nights. Without them, even under the light of the twin moons, spotting the nocturnal borer moles was a near impossibility and it showed. Plex had bagged only one of the critters at a time of year when he could easily average a dozen or more a night. It was mating season, and the critters always came above ground at night to mate.

  Killing the creatures was easy. They were incredibly slow and not the smartest of animals, but their low ground profile and armored hides gave them enough camouflage, especially at night, to make them all but impossible to spot unless one was standing right on top of a nest.

  Plex took a swig of water from his canteen, and climbed from the saddle of h
is elephantine mount. He might have better luck down here, if he could perhaps spot some tracks. It rarely rained and winds had been light over the past few days, so there was a good chance that any recent tracks would have remained undisturbed.

  He had taken no more than four or five steps when Kafu began a low, mournful lowing. Plex looked back at the animal with curiosity. The beast was fidgeting, pawing at the dust with a foreleg. Its stringy brown hair stood on edge. Phalean striders were, for the most part, relatively calm animals. Unlike horses or bogos who could start at the slightest unexpected noise, the striders were a docile and rather imperturbable animal, and Kafu was no exception. The animal’s agitation told Plex that there were more than just borer moles in the vicinity.

  Plex removed his rifle from where it was nestled against the saddle. Patting Kafu to quiet him, he cocked his head to one side and listened intently. There was most likely a pack of briar wolves nearby, and that bothered Plex. Briar wolves were the only species of Piraxis Three’s many predators brazen enough to attack an animal as large as a strider. The beasts would have no qualms whatsoever about attacking a human.

  There was sound off to the south of his position, from the long-dry riverbed a hundred meters away. Claws scrabbling on the loose rocks that lay in the dust. Briar wolves for sure.

  Plex wasted no more time. A lone human stood no chance against a pack of hunger-crazed wolves. He only hoped that he and Kafu could put some distance between them before the beasts took it in their heads to attack.

  Climbing onto the strider’s back, he heard the sound. It was not the hideous howl-shriek of the briar wolf that he had expected. It was the sound of a high-powered laser weapon singing out.

  Plex’s left leg below the knee was cut cleanly away. His mouth fell open in a soundless scream as he tumbled from the saddle, landing in a cloud of dust. The other half of his leg lay next to him, and he stared at it in wordless horror.