The Starhawk Chronicles Read online

  Rahk advanced. Jesse struggled to get to his feet, using one arm to lift himself while holding the other up to ward off the blow that he knew was coming. He would have had more success trying to hold back a battlecruiser jumping to hyperspace. Rahk’s fist smashed him down again and he felt several ribs crack as he received another kick in the side.

  Rahk grabbed him, hefting him to his feet. Jesse found himself staring into Rahk’s one good eye. The Kleezha’s muzzle twisted into a hideous grin. Knowing he had nothing to lose, Jesse spat into that bestial face.

  Rahk flung him across the bridge like a rag doll, where he crashed into a control console. The screens shattered and sparked with the impact and went dark. Jesse fell to the deck. He lay crumpled on the floor, fighting to stay conscious, dark spots flying in and out of his vision.

  From the corner of his eye, he spied his pistol. It lay only a meter or so out of his reach. With almost no strength left to him, it may as well have been half a galaxy away.

  Rahk was watching him from a few meters away. The Kleezha looked beaten and battered as well, but he was the one still on his feet. There was a curious, almost sympathetic look in his dark, sinister eye, a look that lasted all of five seconds.

  “I always wondered which of us would be first to die,” the beast said. From a sheath on his hip, he pulled his ceremonial fighting blade. With a look of contemplation, he ran a single claw-finger along its long, razor sharp blade, drawing a single drop of blue-green blood. Rahk contemplated it for a second before lapping it up with a flick of his tongue. “Funny, but I always did think that I would be first.”

  “You want to, you still can,” Jesse replied, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Don’t hesitate on my account.” His eyes strayed from the Kleezha to his weapon once more. His strength was ebbing back to him, enough, at least, to afford him one last lunge for the pistol. Rahk was nearly on top of him now.

  Jesse sighed, looking up at his adversary with eyes still full of defiance. If the bastard expects me to beg for mercy, he’s gonna be waiting a very long time. “No sense in dragging it out any longer,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Rahk nodded solemnly, stepping over his body and switching his blade to a better angle. “I have enjoyed this little dance of ours,” he said, holding the knife high over his head. “But now the time has come to . . . How do your people say? Pay the piper?”

  “You want to pay the piper?” The voice from behind was so sudden and unexpected that they both jumped slightly in surprise. “Pay him yourself, you ugly son of a bitch,”

  The Kleezha spun, and Jesse could now see around his great bulk. Karson stood there, holding her taser staff before her. Where she had come from, Jesse had no idea. Never seen anything or anyone so beautiful in my life. Bracing his feet against a panel behind him, he summoned every bit of strength he had left to him.

  The look on Karson’s face was one of pure defiance. “What’s the matter, big boy? You not man enough to ask a lady to dance first?

  She lunged with the staff. Rahk, despite his injuries, twisted at his hip. Kayla’s momentum thrust the staff past him. He grabbed the weapon around one end, ignoring the fact that the full charge coursing through it was searing the flesh from his fingers. With the other hand, he slashed down with the knife with such force that the blade cleaved the staff in two.

  Kayla’s look of defiance dissolved into one of dread. She held her end of the staff up to ward off the Kleezha’s assault. Rahk easily knocked the useless weapon from her hands and struck her in the side with his half. Kayla cried out, staggering back. Rahk continued pummeling her until she dropped to her knees, arms covering her head to ward off the blows.

  It was all the distraction Jesse needed. Pushing against the console behind him, he slid the final distance across the deck plates. Rahk caught the movement just as Jesse wrapped his hand around the grip of his weapon and raised it. “This dance is over Rahk!”

  Jesse fired, the weapon whining as a crimson laser caught the Kleezha squarely in his good eye, blasting out the back of his skull. Rahk jerked, hands clawing reflexively at his face as he fell backwards with one final scream before crashing to the deck.

  Jesse struggled to his feet, every muscle and joint screaming at him in protest, but with a strange sense of invigoration at the same time. Ignoring the pain, he walked over to Rahk’s body. He stared down at where the Kleezha’s face had been a moment ago, and the barest hint of a smile touched his lips.

  “That was for Lohren,” he said quietly.

  He turned to Karson, who was starting to rise as well. She was clutching her side where Rahk had struck her. She looked up at him, her bright green eyes still full of fire. “I’m going to be one big bruise in the morning,” she said.

  “Take a number,” Jesse chuckled, extending a hand to help her to her feet. “My thanks for the timely assist, again. Dare I even ask how you always happen to show up to pull my fat from the fire every single time?”

  “It’s a kind of magic,” she shrugged with the hint of a smile. Reaching into a pouch on her belt, she pulled out a collection vial and tossed it to him. “Here’s Tesk.”

  Jesse inspected the tiny canister, nodding his approval. “You do nice work,” he commented. He looked down at Rahk again. “Poor slob. I guess all the excitement just went to his head.”

  Kayla rolled her eyes, groaning at the pun. “Come on. Let’s get what we need from him and get off this flying scrapheap.”

  “Why don’t you make the collection?” Jesse suggested. “As long as we’re here I want to see if I can find something.”

  Without question, Kayla knelt beside Rahk’s body while Jesse hobbled over to the main computer console and began searching the data banks. As she finished taking her sample, she noticed a metal gauntlet around Rahk’s left wrist. It was a standard bio-sign monitor, found in any ship’s med-kit, but this one looked to be specially modified. The life light on it was slowly changing from amber to red as the Kleezha’s body cooled. When it turned a deep crimson, another light, a tiny LED display began counting down. 5:00

  4:59.

  4:58.

  “Oh hell,” Springing to her feet, forgetting about burning Rahk’s corpse, she sprinted over to the terminal where Forster was working, tugging at his arm. “We need to get off this ship now!”

  Jesse paused from his search to look at where she was pointing. The countdown on the monitor now read 4:38 and was continuing to diminish. “Bastard rigged the ship to blow in event of his death,” he surmised. “That vibration you feel is the reactor starting to go critical.”

  “I believe you,” Kayla replied, “What say we get the hell out of here? Now?”

  “I just have to finish this search,” he said, pointing at the computer monitor. He tabbed his communicator. “Starhawk, this is Forster.”

  No response came, only a low hiss of static from the speaker. He repeated the call again, then changed the frequency and tried a third time. The result was the same every time. “Reactor overload must be jamming the comm signals. We’ll have to use the escape pods. See if the bridge pods are active.”

  He turned back to the screen, heard Kayla curse a blue streak. “What bridge pods? They’ve all been jettisoned.”

  Jesse ran a scan on the next terminal. “Looks like they were all jettisoned earlier . . . wait. There’s a trio of them down in engineering that are still operable.”

  “Great! Can we go there please? We’ve got less than three minutes,” Kayla asked, trying hard not to sound pleading.

  “Just a few more seconds,” Jesse implored. As he spoke, the computer chimed. He looked over the information it had compiled. “That’s it!” He crowed, punching in the command for the computer to make a copy. A few seconds later, a hard disk copy sprang from a slot above the terminal. Snapping it up, he turned to her. “Let’s go. How much time?”

  “Two minutes, thirty seconds.” She called over her shoulder, already making for the door.

  He started to follow her,
but took a moment to stop by Rahk’s body, and crouched to pick up the blade that had come very close to taking his life. He tucked it through his gunbelt against his back. Catching the curious look from Kayla, he remarked, “Another trophy for the collection.” He started after her again.

  They had just passed through the hatch when the deckplates beneath their feet rumbled so violently that they were almost thrown to the floor. Jesse caught Kayla as she stumbled, and from the look in her eyes, he knew what she was going to say next. “Right,” he said. “We’ll double-time it.”

  They ran through the corridors, finding their way with surprisingly little difficulty. The doors to the engineering section opened, blast furnace heat hitting them like a physical blow. Emergency lights flashed red, making the engineering bay look like something out of Dante’s Inferno. Geysers of steam were spewing from ruptured coolant tanks. Sparks shot from the innards of shattered control panels.

  Kayla peered across the bay to the catwalk on the far side. “Escape pods are over there!” She was shouting now to be heard over the chaotic din. “We don’t have much time.”

  Taking off at a dead run across the catwalk, they were nearly hurled into the engine bay below when another, larger rumble, shook the ship. Half running, half crawling, they made it to the row of escape pods. Jesse pressed the activation panel, the hatch sliding open. He gestured for Kayla to go first.

  “Such a gentleman,” she remarked, grabbing onto the top of the hatch and swinging inside.

  Jesse crouched, ready to repeat her move, waiting for her to clear the way. He gripped the hatchway and was already starting to slide in when he was suddenly and violently grabbed by the back of his neck and hauled backwards. Jesse struggled against the grip as he was forcibly turned around.

  It was Kahr. Backlit by the steam and flashing red lights, he looked spawned from Hell itself. With one hand, he lifted Jesse off the deck.

  “Jesse!” Kayla cried out, scrambling to go to his aid. Kahr kicked the pod’s activation panel, the hatch slamming shut just as Kayla reached it. Jesse heard the explosive rumble as the engines fired, and the tiny lifeboat was ejected into space.

  Kahr pulled Jesse face to face. Jesse could smell his hot, putrid breath and he would have gagged, had he not been so desperately trying to breathe. “Remember me?”

  “Kahr,” Jesse choked out, trying with both hands to loosen the grip around his throat. Even with only one arm, the brute’s strength was awesome. “This ship’s gonna blow any second.”

  In punctuation to his point, something from the deck below exploded, throwing a fireball through the chamber. The catwalk began to twist beneath them with a shriek of tortured metal as the ship went through its death throes. There were only seconds left.

  Kahr sneered, a hideous, freakish look, giving Jesse a violent shake for emphasis. “Perfect!” he howled. “I die, I take you with me.”

  As he was jerked around, a new pain began pressing at the small of Jesse’s back. It was Rahk’s knife, tucked into the back of his belt. Releasing the Kleezha’s wrist, he reached behind him, pulling the blade free. He met Kahr’s sneer with one of his own. “Not today!”

  He slammed the knife home into the side of Kahr’s throat. The Kleezha howled in agony and loosened his grip. Jesse twisted the blade before yanking it out as he dropped back to his feet. Kahr staggered back, clutching his neck to stem the flow of blood. The catwalk railing was the only thing keeping him from toppling over into the hell below.

  Jesse kicked Kahr in mid-chest, the blow sending him out over the railing and he fell, screaming, until his body disappeared into the flames below.

  With no time to gloat over his victory, Jesse turned and raced for the nearest escape pod. Slapping the controls, he slid in feet first before the door had finished cycling open. The next explosion in the engine bay obliterated the catwalk he had only seconds before been standing on. Flames licked at the open hatchway as Jesse cycled the hatch closed and pulled down hard on the ejection latches.

  The lifeboat engines fired, the sudden acceleration slamming Jesse down into his seat. Checking the rear viewport, he could see the Malcontent receding as the pod made its getaway. The corvette’s midsection vaporized in a blinding fireball that quickly devoured the rest of the ship.

  Watching the Malcontent’s destruction, Jesse breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Only a few seconds later and he, too, would have been vaporized.

  The shockwave hit. Too late, Jesse realized his failure to secure his safety webbing. He clung to his seat armrests hard enough for his fingers to make indentations in the padding. The pod was flung end over end. He came out of his chair, head slamming hard into a panel, and he blacked out.

  His last thought as the darkness embraced him was that he would be joining Lohren sooner than expected.

  *

  The Starhawk drifted through the debris of the shattered corvette, its scanners at maximum. For nearly two hours they had been searching for the second pod that had ejected just before the ship’s destruction, having found Kayla’s pod only minutes after she had launched.

  Now they stood around the sensor monitor, only Bokschh and Morogo staying at the piloting stations to guide the ship. Wreckage of the Malcontent was everywhere, and a shroud of despair fell over them as each moment passed with less and less hope of finding their friend alive.

  Kayla looked to be near frantic. She was the only one who could not remain focused on the sensor screen. Instead, she would stare at it for a few seconds, pace the bridge, stop to peer out the view windows at the wreckage field, then back to the sensors. She was continually clenching and unclenching her fists in irritation. She looked ready to chew through a bulkhead when the sensor pinged.

  Everyone sat up, but no one dared to breathe. The sensor pinged again and Podo, directing the sensor sweep, targeted in on one particular area of debris. “Getting a life reading,” he said. “Faint, but it’s there.”

  “Can you tell if it’s human?” K’Tran asked. “I don’t want to open the pod only to find we brought Kahr aboard instead.”

  “Give me a second to calibrate the readings,” Podo replied. His tongue stuck out to one side of his mouth in concentration, paws running across the console so quickly they could hardly follow them. “Got it!” he shouted in triumph. “Definitely human. About a kilometer to port.”

  The drone and the Vor’na’cik turned the ship about and made for the position Podo’s sensors were showing. Within minutes, the pod came into visual range.

  “Damn thing looks like it was put through a shredder,” Kym commented. “No wonder we had trouble finding it. The emergency beacon was probably damaged.”

  “Get a grappler beam on it,” K’Tran ordered. “Pull it up to the cargo bay.”

  Even before Bokschh acted on the command, they were on their way out of the bridge, Kayla in the lead.

  The cargo bay doors were already open and the lifeboat just coming into view by the time they had arrived. With a thunk that shook the deckplates, the pod came to rest against the perimeters of the cargo doors, the top of the hatch passing through the atmospheric field.

  K’Tran and Podo quickly worked at the outer hatch controls, and with Morogo’s help, they managed to force it open. Thin wisps of smoke and the smell of ozone flooded out of the lifeboat, and they all clambered near to get a look inside.

  Forster lay across one of the couches, his forehead gashed, dried blood caking one side of his face. His eyes were shut and he did not seem to be breathing. “Jesse?” Podo prodded, reaching a paw down to shake his brother’s shoulder. “Can you hear me?”

  Jesse did not open his eyes, but a lopsided grin did play across his lips. When he finally spoke, his voice was a thin whisper. “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

  A collective sigh of relief and laughter escaped them all as Jesse struggled to climb from the pod. Morogo and K’Tran helped him out, supporting him until he was steady on his feet. A dozen questions were fired at him at on
ce, but he waved them off. His eyes, red with smoke irritation, still seemed unfocused, but they soon settled on Kayla, who stood apart from the celebration. She was smiling shyly.

  Jesse limped over to her. She met him halfway and he encircled her in his arms. She gratefully returned the embrace, and together they stood holding each other tightly, laughing until the tears came.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The city of Kanai, Planet Urusi, Stenax System, four days later

  Ignoring his secretary’s frantic calls for his attention, Governor Rans Mahlcobb strode through the waiting room of his office after returning from his lunch meeting with the Varg ambassador. Picking up the waiting stack of papers on her desk, he continued on to his office, letting the door shut and lock behind him.

  Leafing through the papers, he found nothing of any urgency, and placed them on his desk. A pleasant, warm breeze was blowing through the draperies hanging around the open balcony door, and he decided to step outside for a few minutes of fresh air.

  The warmth of the sun felt good on his perpetually cold flesh, and he leaned against the railing, soaking it in. The city below was a bustle of beings and vehicles criss-crossing the thoroughfares. A flock of birds swept past, settling into the limbs of a tree in a park across the way.

  Watching the city from high on his balcony was one of the few things Mahlcobb actually enjoyed in his life. He loved the thought of looking down on so many beings, knowing that any decisions he made would affect their lives, whether they wanted it or not.

  A thought flashed through his mind, cutting his reverie short. Turning away from his view, he gazed with curiosity at the open patio doors behind him. As a matter of habit, he always closed and locked the doors, drawing the curtains, whenever he would leave his office. He wondered if his secretary had opened them while he was away.

  Mahlcobb stepped back into his office, his eyes taking several seconds to readjust to the darkness after being out in the bright sunlight. When his vision cleared, he noticed his high-backed chair was turned around, facing the wall and not his desk. From the way it was rocking slightly, it was obvious that there was someone seated there.