by Jay Allan
She pulled hard, the rusted old manual access latch resisting until she put almost all her strength into it. Then, it jerked free, and she felt a pain radiating up her arm as it slammed into place. She wasn’t hurt, but the last thing she needed was a numb arm when she went for her pistol, which she was going to do the instant Gregor and the others showed.
She reached down an put her hands under the now-loose door. Then, she paused and looked back. “It’s a little heavy for me alone, Carmichael.” Not really true. She’d managed it fine earlier. But she wasn’t trying to buy time for her crewmates to catch up then.
The gangster frowned, but then he gestured toward Vig. “Help her,” he growled.
Vig stared back with a defiant look, but then a few seconds later, he leaned forward next to Andi and grabbed the bottom of the door. They both pulled, and the thing practically flew up along the tracks that guided it.
“Now, let’s go inside…everybody. It’s time for you to get those artifacts.”
Andi was looking back at the gangster, but she could see movement in the distance, over his shoulder. She knew he wanted them all inside because that was a convenient and private place to murder her and her two companions.
But she wanted to get inside, too. She had a surprise for Carmichael…one she was determined would end with a nice round hole in the lying scumbag’s forehead.
“Okay, follow me. It’s right in here…all ready for you.”
Time for a good old-fashioned gunfight.
Chapter Two
Abandoned Warehouse
Just Outside the Spacer’s District
Port Royal City, Planet Dannith, Ventica III
Year 302 AC
“Here it is, Carmichael, just like I said. I’ll inventory it with you if you want.” The room was full of the remains of several dozen wood crates, half rotten and clearly quite old, but Andi stood over three small plastitech boxes, each of them sealed with an electronic lock.
“Just open those locks, and I’ll take it from there. Then, you and your people can go. Come find me tomorrow, and I’ll pay you what this stuff is really worth.”
Andi felt a flash of anger, one she could barely hold back. It wasn’t because the gangster had reneged, or that he was stealing her loot…or even that he was going to kill her and her two companions.
It was because the pompous bastard believed she was stupid enough not to know that, to open her AI-locked boxes for him like some sniveling fool begging for her life, and then to turn around to leave so his thugs could shoot her in the back.
This planet will sit inside the swollen red dwarf its star will become in a few billion years before that happens…
But opening the boxes served her purpose just then.
She knelt down, one hand tapping out the combination codes she’d set, while the other slipped under her coat. She couldn’t be sure Gregor and the others were out there waiting for her signal—or for that matter, if Vig and Yarra were following her moves. Yarra had always been more comfortable in the engine room than the battlefield, and Vig was so…young.
Young? He is only four months younger than you.
None of those concerns mattered anyway. They were all dead if they didn’t do something.
This was their only chance.
She popped open the first box, pushing it a few centimeters toward the gangster, and then she dove over the other two, dropping to her knees—harder than she’d intended—as she whipped the gun out from her coat. She ducked to the side, behind a pile of old metal girders, firing as she moved. Carmichael yelped in pain, and for an instant, she wondered if she’d killed the miserable son of a bitch. But then she saw the spray of blood around his shoulder as he, too, dropped down behind cover.
Carmichael’s men scattered, clearly startled, if not shocked, at her sudden move. Then, she caught the gangster’s voice, and she relished at the pain she heard in it.
His words were deadly serious.
“Kill her. Kill them all.”
Andi ducked low behind the pile of metal as Carmichael’s thugs opened up with their automatic weapons. She gritted her teeth as she listened to the rounds ricocheting off the metal in front of her. The girders weren’t perfect cover, and she half expected some of the rounds to find their way through. But she was only pinned for a few seconds. Then she heard more automatic fire, from a far heavier gun.
Gregor with his autocannon.
To normal people, the weapon as a stand-mounted job, usually operated by a crew of two. But the giant wielded the thing like a rifle, and the sound of the heavy slugs slamming into the walls was music to Andi’s ears.
Not to mention the cries of Carmichael’s goons as at least half a dozen of them went down under the relentless fire.
But there were still a lot of them left, and even with Gregor and the others, her people were still outnumbered.
She crawled to the end of the pile or girders, and she scanned the room. She picked out one of Carmichael’s people turning toward the direction of Gregor’s fire, bringing his rifle around. She reached out, struggling to aim in the difficult position, and she fired three times, as quickly as the small pistol could manage.
She missed twice, but the third shot took off a piece of the gangster’s head, and he dropped like a sack of cement. She could feel the smile forming on her face, but there was no time for celebration. The fight wasn’t over, and she’d just given her position away to anyone paying attention.
She didn’t think much of Carmichael’s men individually, but there were more than a dozen of them left, and they all had to realize they were in a fight to the death.
She scrambled forward, struggling to get up onto her feet as she pushed herself out from behind the steel and stumbled over toward a concrete half-wall about two meters away. She heard the fire coming her way—the rounds ripping through the air behind her, fortunately—and she spun around as she reached the wall, staring out over it as her pistol fired again and again, almost as if it were on some kind of autotargeting routine. She took down at least two more of Carmichael’s people when one of them spun around and opened up on her with one of the compact submachine guns. It wasn’t a particularly hard-hitting weapon, but at a range of five meters, it didn’t have to be. She reacted, dropping down behind the wall…but too late.
She felt the pain along her neck, and for an instant, she thought she was dead, that the thug had taken her down. But she quickly realized the bullet had only grazed her neck. It was throbbing, painful…but it was localized.
She took a deep breath without any real trouble, and she righted herself, preparing to lunge back up. But the fire was still coming in, and she stayed down, pinned, her mind frantically trying to figure out what was going on. She heard the sounds of her people yelling, shouting out to each other as they battled the enemy—and a couple of high-pitched shouts that had her stomach tied up in knots—but she was stuck, and there was nothing she could do.
Not until her adversary’s clip emptied.
She waited three or four more seconds…and then the fire stopped.
It could be a trap, she thought to herself, but she’d been doing her best to get a feel for the number of rounds fired, and in an instant her mind bet that the weapon’s magazine was indeed empty.
The stakes of the bet were high. Her life.
She leapt up, swinging over the half-wall and racing forward, her eyes scanning furiously for her target. She spotted him, just as he was slamming a new clip in place.
He saw her, too, almost at the same instant. He started to bring his own weapon back up to bear…but he was just an instant slower than Andi.
She fired, and then again, but the first shot had been enough. She put the bullet right into her enemy’s left eye, and he fell back, dropping the submachine gun to the ground as he did.
Andi dove for the weapon, grabbing it and executing an almost perfect combat roll. As she came back up to a prone position, her finger started to tighten on the trigger.
&nb
sp; But the enemy was gone. All of them.
She could hear them scrambling out of the building and into the street. She guessed none of them would have made it, save for the fact that Gregor was standing against the wall, struggling furiously to clear a jam in the massive gun he’d used to cut down swaths of the gangsters.
Her legs tensed, and she started to race forward, to follow her enemies and gun them down in the street. She’d wounded Carmichael, but not mortally…and she wanted the piece of shit dead. She took two steps, determined to finish the fight…and then she stumbled to a halt.
Yarra was on the ground no more than two meters from where she stood. The engineer was lying in a pool of blood, one that grew in size as Andi watched.
“Doc!” She screamed so loudly, her throat felt as though a hot blade had cut across it. But Pegasus’s medic was already there, and he dropped to his knees and began frantically working on Yarra.
“Gregor, Jackal…get outside and make sure they’ve really had enough.” Andi didn’t’ think Carmichael had the stomach for more, not when half his men were down, and his own shoulder was a bleeding chunk of meat. It was his style to pull back, to wait for a chance to strike when the odds were more in his favor. A time Andi knew would almost certainly come.
But she wasn’t going to take any chances. IF Carmichael found some hidden courage, if he sent his people back in, she wasn’t going to let her people get caught by surprise.
“On it, Andi.” She heard the giant’s deep voice, but her eyes and her attention were already back on her stricken shipmate. For a second or two, she panicked, and thought Yarra was dead, but then she saw the engineer’s chest move up with a shallow breath.
She could tell it was serious just by the amount of blood, and also by the frantic nature of Doc’s efforts. She knelt down beside her friend, oblivious to the wetness soaking through to her knees as she did.
“Doc…”
“I don’t know yet, Andi…but distractions aren’t going to help. Go out and see how Gregor and Jackal are doing…or go stand in the corner. You can’t help here.” The medic’s voice was raw, ragged. He was clearly scared, and Andi wondered whether he really wasn’t sure, or if he was just trying to lie to himself that there was a chance. Doc was skilled at patching wounds—the result of long experience along the wild frontier of the Badlands—but he wasn’t a real doctor. If Yarra had serious internal injuries, he didn’t have the skills or the equipment to save her.
Andi hesitated, staring down at her stricken friend, as though her gaze alone offered some kind of medical treatment. Then she turned abruptly. Doc was right. She wasn’t helping. She started to walk toward the front of the building when Jackal ducked back in.
“They’re gone, Andi. Gregor’s up on the roof. He can see anybody coming at us from either direction. All’s clear so far.”
Andi just nodded. She was proud of her people, of the way they operated as a unit. She’d inherited some of that from Captain Lorillard, of course, just as she had the ship itself. But she’d made a difference herself, and she’d put the Marine’s teachings to good use.
She didn’t have time to think of that, though, and her mind was focused on her wounded friend. Aside from worry for Yatta, all she felt was rage, a fury she could barely contain. Part of her wanted to run out into the street, chase that bastard Carmichael to the ground, and put a bullet in his head then and there. But it wasn’t time for that. Her people needed her. Yarra needed her.
Another time…
“Doc…” She’d held back as long as she could, but she needed to know something.
I think I’ve stopped the bleeding. I’ve got her pumped full of painkillers and coagulants, and I’m giving her the pack of artificial blood I had in my pack. But that’s not going to be nearly enough…and she’s going to need a lot more than I can do here. Maybe more than I can do at all. She needs a hospital…or at least, we need to get her back to the ship.
A trip to the hospital would trigger a lot of uncomfortable questions. But that didn’t matter to Andi, not then. She was ready to do whatever she had to do for Yarra, and damn the consequences.
But the hospital in Port Royal City is too dangerous. Carmichael will be out for blood, and as much of a horse’s ass as he is, he’s got a lot of connections. One switch of an IV pouch, an ambush on her people coming in and out would be the end. She couldn’t leave Yarra unprotected, and she couldn’t get her people in with any weapons. The hospital was out, at least until she was able to deal with the gangster once and for all.
The ship. It’s the only choice.
“Do what you can to get her ready to move. We’ll make a dash for the ship. Pegasus is our best bet right now.”
She’d finally started to get used to the new name. Pegasus had been born from Nightrunner’s past, and the name change had done a considerable amount to cut down on the heat bearing down on her people, from the authorities, of course, always a thorn in the side of a Badlands prospecting team, but mostly from Sector Nine. The Union spies that infested the Spacer’s District, and all the other ports along the Badlands border, were deadly dangerous. They paid good money for artifacts, though getting caught dealing with them could turn moderate harassment from the navy into something far more dangerous. The Union was the enemy, if not quite officially at present, and three wars in eighty years were reason enough for naval patrols to react harshly to prospectors selling their swag to Sector Nine.
“Okay, Andi…I’ve got her as ready as she’s going to get. We’ll have to carry her—and the less she gets jostled around, the better. Those wounds are barely patched up, and she can’t afford to lose any more blood. Another liter, and we’ll lose her before we even get to the ship.”
Andi looked up, her eyes fixing on Jackal. “Go back out, and tell Gregor to get back in here. Then, stay up there, and keep an eye on the street until we get moving.”
She gestured toward the front of the building, but Jackal was already turned around and heading back out. She spun back toward Doc. “Gregor’s the best bet to carry her. And she won’t slow him down at all.”
Andi wasn’t even letting herself think about how much unwanted attention they’d get when they got near the spaceport. She didn’t care.
Her eyes moved over the crates with the artifacts, all her people had to show for three months of hard work and more than one close escape. They were torn apart, riddled with what looked like hundreds of bullet holes. She moved toward them, but she stopped herself. There was no point. She knew the stash was a total loss without pawing through the shards of obliterated cases.
Besides, as much as greed, an almost uncontrollable lust to rise above the hell into which she’d been born, drove her on, as far as Andi Lafarge was concerned, her people came first. Always.
They were all that really mattered to her, and just then Yarra needed her. They all needed her. Getting back to the ship alive would be reward enough, at least just then. The last thing they had time to do was fish through the wreckage hoping to find a piece big enough to be worth something.
It was time to head back, and damned any District toughs or checkpoints that tried to give her trouble. If someone got in their way or gave them any crap, she still had rounds left in her gun.
Chapter Three
Free Trader Pegasus
Port Royal Spaceport
Port Royal City, Planet Dannith, Ventica III
Year 302 AC
“I’ve got her in the med unit, Andi, and the medical AI is managing her care. But Pegasus’s med suite is limited. She’s badly hurt, and she’s going to need treatment. Real treatment.”
Andi knew exactly what Doc was saying. There was a streak of cockiness that ran through her crew, and most of them had a difficult time admitting when they couldn’t do something. And that was exactly what Pegasus’s medic was saying.
Doc wasn’t a real doctor, he wasn’t even a formally trained medical technician. But he was what Andi had, what Yarra had, and that was going to have
to be enough.
“Doc…we can’t take her to the hospital. I wouldn’t be surprised if Carmichael’s got people watching the ship even now. We’d never be able to protect her…and that son of a bitch knows going after her will be a good way to get to me. We can’t risk it.”
“I can’t help her, Andi. I just don’t have the skills. And, even if I did, Pegasus doesn’t have the equipment we need.” A pause. “She’s going to die if we keep her here, Andi.”
The words hit like a hammer. Andi had a way of convincing herself she could make anything work. But she was helpless to save her friend.
She turned abruptly, her stress driving the move, and she winced. Doc had bandaged up her own wound, though she’d pushed him away the first few times he’d tried. It had proven to be a bit worse than the graze she’d thought it was. The bullet had penetrated her arm, and it was still in there. She didn’t have time just then to let Doc go rooting around looking for it. It was annoying, but between the patch job and the painkillers, it hurt a lot less than it had.
Except when you move like a lunatic…
Her mind was racing, searching for a solution. Then one came to her, a desperate one.
“Durango.” She muttered the name, to herself more than to anyone.
Her thoughts drifted to the seventh planet in the system, and the extensive network of stations positioned around it, to the shadowy figure who’d managed Nightrunner’s repairs, and the ship’s illegal—but well executed—name change. The Samis shipyards operated under the radar, avoiding unwanted attention. She hadn’t thought it through before, but now she realized how Durango and his associates maintained their status.