Origins: The Complete Series

by J. N. Chaney

  In the hallway, Hunter and Ruby shouted in unison, their voices clattering together to the point where I couldn't understand either of them.

  “Siggy, close the damn door!” I snapped.

  The cockpit door shut just as Rudy and Hunter tried to enter. They slammed their fists on it from the outside, their voices muffled as they still tried to get in.

  Now it was just me and Colt.

  In the background of the transmission, Edwin grunted and cussed under his breath, doing his best to stifle what had to be brutal pain. From the placement of that shot, there was a good chance the bullet had hit bone, and I could only imagine the misery he must’ve been in.

  It took everything in me to look Colt directly in the eye and not check on Edwin. If he was making noise, he was alive, and that was all I could hope for—for now.

  “I'm giving you a fair warning, Colt,” I said. “This can end here. You give us Edwin back, and all of this stops. We pretend it never happened, and you can get right back to work without spending another cred on us. This moment—right here, right now—this is your last chance. After this transmission, I'm coming for you.”

  To my surprise, Colt grinned.

  His eyes crinkled with laughter, like I had said something truly funny. “You know, Hughes, you're better than I thought you'd be. You really are, but a man like me doesn't take threats from a man like you. You don't have any power here, and no matter what you say, no matter how much bravado you show those kids back there, I will kill you before the week is out. I didn't make it to where I am by letting myself look weak. Let's face it, Hughes, you have no ground to stand on.” He paused, tilting his head as if he almost pitied me. “You've lost. Learn when to quit.”

  The feed cut out, and the holo went dark.

  I sat in my seat, my grip on the armrest only tightening in the silence that followed. I couldn't even pinpoint the core emotion here. Rage. Irritation. Anger. It didn't really matter.

  I stared at the empty holo, and I knew one thing for sure—as long as I was breathing, I wouldn't stop fighting.

  And I would never quit.

  I pushed myself to my feet. “Open the door, Siggy.”

  The door opened to reveal two furious Carson kids. Ruby had her knife out, and Hunter instantly barged into the room, wasting no time as he got in my face.

  I shoved him back before he could say a thing, sending him against the wall. “Enough!”

  They went silent, and Ruby shifted her attention to the holo. I could already see the cogs in her brain turning, and whatever she was planning, I wouldn’t allow it to happen.

  I grabbed Hunter by the collar and shoved him back into the hallway with his sister before walking out to join them. “Siggy, lock the bridge.”

  “Locking,” answered the AI.

  The door shut behind me, ensuring the kids didn’t get the chance to do whatever stupid thing they were thinking about doing.

  Ruby smacked her fist on the door.

  “Don’t start with me,” I warned, my voice dangerously low as I cut her off. “You two need to listen up. Being mad doesn't get shit done.”

  To their credit, they both went quiet. Though they still practically trembled with rage, they managed to say stay silent long enough to listen.

  “Rein it in,” I ordered. “Edwin is alive, but he's hurt, and Colt’s not going to treat that wound. We don't have long to help him, and we have to act fast. Now are you going to be pissed or are you going to be focused?”

  With that, a bit more of their rage dissolved, and Ruby reluctantly sheathed her knife.

  “You're right, Captain,” admitted Hunter begrudgingly. “But that doesn't make me hate this guy less.”

  “Then use it,” I told him. “Use it to make you stronger, and don't let it cloud your judgment. When you rush off into something headfirst because you're trapped in that rage, you've already lost. Colt’s in that fortress, gloating, and he thinks he's won. I plan to blow that smirk right off his face.”

  “How?” asked Ruby.

  “There are some final pieces of the puzzle I need to put together,” I admitted. “That call changed things, and I need to tweak the plan of attack. Your intel still helps us, Ruby, and I can use that. We have a day and a half of travel to prepare, but when we attack, we can't do it like this. You both need to go blow off steam. Punch the metal walls. Break your own stuff. I don't care, but you need to clear your heads. Don't come back to the lounge until you're calm.”

  “Fine,” said Hunter as he smacked his palm against the wall and stormed off.

  Ruby followed, and though she didn't try to break anything, I knew she wanted nothing more than to stab someone with that knife of hers and watch them bleed.

  I leaned against the door to the bridge and rested my head against the cold metal. Edwin was damn near close to death, but I wouldn't let him die on my watch.

  One way or another, I’d keep my promise. I was going to blow that cocky grin off Colt’s face, and I was going to enjoy doing it.

  25

  I stood in the cockpit with my arms crossed, staring out into the deep black of space through the side window in the Star. With the door to the bridge shut and the two siblings blowing off steam elsewhere on the ship, I had a rare moment to myself to plan our attack on Colt Lockwood.

  To my advantage, I had a cloak, a shitload of weapons, a hover car, and two kids from a crime family.

  Colt, meanwhile, was locked up tight in his hole. The legendary Renegade was armed to the teeth, surrounded by soldiers, and controlled a prisoner he could use both as bait and leverage against us. He also had enough supplies by now that I couldn't siege him into surrender. Even if I did manage to figure out a way to starve him out, Edwin would probably be killed out of spite.

  No, I had to go in, hit him hard with everything we had, and end it before Colt’s forces could recover. The trick was figuring out how to do that without ending up dead.

  For once, I just let my mind wander. I'd never been up against someone as seasoned as Colt, and this whole affair seemed outside even my ability.

  But I didn't get this far in life by giving up that easily.

  “Pull up Ruby’s scans again,” I ordered. “Start with the last one I viewed.”

  “Transmitting to the holo,” responded Sigmond.

  The display popped to life and showed the now-recognizable base on the rocky cliff. We'd gathered dozens of clips and surveillance angles at this point thanks to Ruby's contact, and I had watched them all.

  Of them all, I hated this one the most.

  A man with a bag on his head and his arms tied behind his back limped along the front path of the building as the four men from Edwin’s abduction footage surrounded him. A burly meathead behind the captive shoved him forward, nearly sending Edwin to his knees, but he caught himself in time. With each step, he left a trail of blood as they guided him toward the front door.

  As they reached the front door into the fortress, four men walked out to let them through. The meathead shoved him again, and Edwin hit the doorframe with his shoulder. He doubled over in pain, probably because the goon had hit his wound, but the men around him just grabbed his collar and dragged him into the house.

  “Show me the most recent ones,” I said.

  The holo flickered, and this time it displayed the fortress from a different angle. I could still see the two ships parked outside, with the house as the tallest silhouette on the cliff’s edge.

  In the vast expanse around the fortress, there wasn't a single tree. Just rocks and gray dirt. The two ships’ guns were trained on the heavens, and one of them rotated toward something on the horizon as the clip came to an end.

  “I assume those are armed and ready?” I asked.

  “Confirmed, sir,” responded Sigmond. “Scans indicate there are most likely two men in each ship at any given time, though that’s hard to guarantee.”

  “Noted. Replay that last one again.”

  This time, I focused on the two
ground-mounted machine guns that sat farther away from the house and the ships, their barrels also trained at the sky. One man stood behind the controls, shifting his weight now and again as he scanned the clouds. Three additional men flanked each gun.

  Eight men by the machine guns. Four men total in the ships. That was only twelve of the several dozen I’d seen go into the house across the scans, and there was always the risk that we’d missed some.

  The scans were helpful, but they still didn’t give us the whole picture.

  “Show me the cliffside view,” I ordered.

  The holo shifted again, and this time I could see from the other side. The steep drop of rocky cliff ended in a valley hundreds of meters below. Two cave entrances at various points in the rock led into what could only be a network of tunnels beneath the fortress.

  Mounted near these openings in the cliff were two additional machine guns, one on each open platform. These guys had less range than the other guns, so attacking from this side might mean less of a fight.

  Of course, I had no idea what lay beyond, even if I did find a way to destroy those guns and clear a place to land. For all I knew, forty men were lined up in the darkness, ready to fire the moment I stepped out of my ship.

  I studied the rest of the holo, looking for something I might have missed before. This time I noticed a silhouette in one of the windows.

  “Siggy, zoom in on those windows on the top floor,” I ordered.

  “Enhancing,” said Sigmond.

  The holo zoomed closer to reveal the barrel of a rifle sticking through a small gap in the bottom of the window as a man scanned the sky.

  “Sweep along every window on every floor,” I ordered.

  The image slowly panned along the full stretch of the fortress. Window after window was the same—the barrel of a rifle peeked through the gap while a silhouette waited in the darkness, and no doubt with an itchy trigger finger.

  Colt really had gone all out, just for me.

  “Sift through what we have, Siggy,” I said. “Scan through the clips and look for a change in shift. I want to see what happens when these guys go on break. They can’t sit there waiting forever.”

  “Searching,” responded the AI.

  Seconds later, the holo changed back to the front of the house.

  A dozen men walked out the front door in a single file line, guns raised and eyes on the sky. Even as they split off to their stations, no one dropped their guard. None of the new soldiers took their eyes off of the clouds even as the previous shift retreated into the house.

  Four of the men splintered off from the main group and split into pairs. Each pair headed for one of the two ships. They entered, and five minutes later, the two men from the previous shift shuffled down the ramp, exhausted, and headed toward the front door of the fortress.

  If I attacked during the shift change, it would actually make life worse for me. Sure, half of the soldiers would be tired, but adrenaline was a powerful drug. Even a tired man could focus for a few minutes when an ocean of bullets rained over his head.

  And these guys were good, I could tell that just by watching how they moved. Twenty-four soldiers out in the open meant twice as many chances to get everyone on the Star killed. Given that there was a man at every window, there had to be a small army in that house, just waiting for us to attack.

  “Colt must have one hell of a budget for this,” I said.

  “It appears so, Captain,” replied Sigmond.

  “It doesn't make sense,” I pointed out. “He said he's sick of spending money and yet pulls together the resources to pay all these people, to hire ships, and to set out machine guns. It doesn’t add up.”

  “Perhaps he simply doesn't want to underestimate you, sir,”

  “If that’s true, he would’ve gotten more than two ships,” I pointed out.

  Two armed ships and a smattering of machine guns were a challenge, but I'd gotten out of worse scrapes before. I was more concerned with the sheer number of soldiers than I was with their tech.

  One way or another, I would figure a way out of this.

  “Let's review, Siggy,” I said, sitting in the pilot’s chair as I closed my eyes. “What do we have going for us?”

  “We have the cloak,” answered Sigmond.

  “That we do.” I grinned despite the grave situation. “And everything we've experienced with Colt so far suggests he doesn't.”

  “That's true, sir.”

  “Those two ships he has probably don't have cloaks either,” I added. “We have proof that Edwin is there and confirmation from Ruby's contact that Colt hasn’t left. That means a final assault on this place will end this once and for all, but it also means we can’t blow the house to hell. It would kill Edwin.”

  “That’s unfortunate, since we are heavily outnumbered,” said Sigmond.

  “Outgunned too,” I added. “Those scans show the place is set up with more weaponry than I was expecting.”

  Even if we got past the guards outside, getting into the house without Colt shooting Edwin in the head would be next to impossible. It was Colt’s trump card, and I didn't quite know how I was going to keep my promise of not letting the kid die. For all we knew, he’d bled out or been shot already. We could only get external scans, and I had no idea what was going on in the house.

  That was another downside.

  “We don't have any interior data at all,” I continued. “No cams, no feeds. We don't even have heat maps.”

  “Mr. Trinidad has been trying to get any intel he can,” said Sigmond. “But none of his contacts have been able to infiltrate Colt’s circle.”

  “I’m not surprised,” I confessed. “And we still don't know where Edwin’s being kept.”

  The first seeds of a plan were beginning to form, but I wasn't sure how all this is going to work, yet. I knew that our best shot would be to tackle this in phases, but that still relied on a whole lot of the unknown and hoping things went our way.

  I didn't like to rely on luck.

  “Sir,” interjected Sigmond. “The Carsons are walking toward the bridge. Should I open the door?”

  I sat with that, and after the way Ruby had eyed the holo, I wasn’t sure it was a good idea. In the end, though, I could always have Sigmond override whatever she tried to do.

  “Go ahead, Siggy.”

  I pivoted my chair and leaned my elbows on my knees, watching the door as I waited for them to approach.

  The door opened to reveal Hunter with his fist raised, about to knock. Ruby stood behind him, her hands on her hips and a frown on her stony face.

  “Have you two relaxed?” I asked, raising one eyebrow.

  Ruby just pursed her lips. They walked in, and even though I wasn't sure I liked them up here, I let them enter. At this point, we were in this together, one way or another.

  “Look, we're not ones to apologize,” said Hunter, fidgeting slightly as he hooked his thumb on his pocket. “But back there—what you said—you have a point. We're willing to do whatever it takes to save Edwin. He's always been the calm one, the one who always knew the best thing to do. But right now, we have to shape up.”

  “For him,” finished Ruby.

  “Good,” I said. “Because I have a plan.”

  Hunter’s eyes widened. “You do?”

  I ignored his tone and just nodded. “With what we have ahead of us, I need you to be at your best.” I paused, looking at Hunter. “And I need you to bring every godsdamn weapon you have to this party.”

  “Now that’s more like it.” He rubbed his hands together eagerly. “Tell me who to shoot, and I’ll blow them to hell.”

  I smirked. Maybe this would work after all.

  26

  We had one shot to make this work.

  Only one chance, or all of hell would be after us, and we’d lose the precious little advantage we had.

  With the Star cloaked, I approached Colt’s location. The house appeared on the horizon, a lone beacon on the rocky cliff to
p flanked by the silhouettes of the two ships. It was one thing to see it all on a recording, and quite another to see it approaching on the holo.

  Colt lay in wait for me, his trap set and his bait dangling. However this went down, today would end with one of us dead. Maybe both, but not if I could help it.

  I slowed the Star as we approached the fortress, mentally preparing for the fight ahead. This was the first time I’d used the cloak in a life or death situation, and I still wasn't sure if I totally trusted it yet. All the tests I had done so far proved it worked, and I was starting to get the hang of its limitations, but things didn’t always go according to plan in the heat of a fight.

  “Do they know we're here, Siggy?” I asked, scanning the holo as it showed the full range of what lay ahead.

  The two ships. The heavy guns. The men outside. The fortress on the hill, fortified and ready for war, not to mention the men inside.

  “They seem unaware of our presence, Captain,” said Sigmond. “No new defenses have been enabled on the ships or the building, and there are currently no shields around either. I’m surprised to say the ship weapons aren't armed.”

  “Interesting,” I admitted. “Maybe it’s because they've been out here for a few days now. Keeping the weapons armed and the shields up for that long would waste a lot of fuel, and he’s already spending enough money between the soldiers and added tech. He’s probably cutting corners to save what money he can.”

  It was good news. It further proved that he didn't know I had a cloak. Without one, I would’ve been visible as I approached, and they would have been able to detect me with enough time to arm the weapons and activate their shields.

  Colt had underestimated me, and that meant I’d recaptured the element of surprise. That gave me a slight advantage, and I had to use it well. Once it was gone, I’d never get it back.

  As we slowly approached the building from the front, it took everything in me not to gun it. The faster we went, the louder we would be, and I needed to be as stealthy as possible.