Gravity Flux: Kestrel Class Saga Book 3

by Toby Neighbors

  Maybe, he thought, they would get lucky. Maybe the new flux shield would work, and Professor Jones’s rockets would work, and then Ben would come back for Kim. He would send them off without him if he could, but they were already shorthanded. The professor was too preoccupied to work the ship. And Nance was no pilot. Perhaps Magnum could fly them, but if they had trouble with the ship’s systems, they would need Ben. Other people could repair the Echo, but no one knew her inside and out the way he did.

  But soon he would make time to find the woman he loved. He doubted she would have him. Second chances were rare, third chances were really just wishful thinking. Still, even if she couldn’t love him anymore, he could love her. He could work to help her, even if he had to do it in secret. Letting her go was his biggest mistake, he knew that without a doubt. Once his anger had subsided, he was left with the haunting truth. He loved Kim, not just as friends, or like a sister. He loved her deeply—loved her so much that he ached for her deep down in his soul. And with that love came the realization that no price was too great to ensure her happiness. Even if he wasn’t what made her happy, he had to help give her what she wanted because that’s who he was.

  When Magnum relieved him a few hours later, he went to his bunk and slept soundly, having made up his mind that he would come back for Kim. All his life he dreamed of getting off Torrent Four, seeing the galaxy, and being free. But as he drifted off to sleep, he realized all he really wanted was the woman that had been right in front of him. He had let her go. He had been a fool. But he wouldn’t give up on her without a fight.

  Chapter 17

  The day was spent when Kim came to. She heard voices, two men speaking quietly nearby. The sky was deep purple, and a few of the brightest stars were already visible. Kim looked around, but didn’t see anyone nearby. She raised her head, searching the endless piles of debris, hoping to catch sight of the pistol she had dropped in the fight. If it was there, it could be within reach and she might never see it.

  Laying her head back, she moved her left leg. There was pain in her thigh and hip, but the blood had dried. She reached down and felt several holes in her pants, small blood-crusted holes. The realization came back to her quickly. The man with the hand cannon had fired at her. She had thought he missed, but the shot must have caught her leg and hip.

  The pain from the wound was bad, but then again, she was hurting all over. There was a tiny sliver of hope that if she lay still and darkness set in, the men whose voices she heard would leave her to die. She wasn’t going to die, but what did they know? Maybe she could crawl away in the dark and heal up.

  Hot tears ran from her eyes. She felt like such a fool. Why in the name of all that was holy had she left the Echo? It seemed utterly senseless, and she silently cursed herself for being so stupid. Maybe Ben didn’t love her, but at least she’d been safe. All her life she’d been on her guard, afraid of getting blindsided by the roving bands of outlaws on Torrent Four. But she had made her escape. She had left the trash world and seen places where the air was clean and there were flowers and trees. She had seen oceans and gleaming cities. She had walked on space stations that were so large it would have taken years to explore it. And yet, somehow she had ended up right back where she started. It was pride, she thought bitterly. Stupid, worthless pride.

  The pain was too much and she had to move. She rolled onto her right side, relieving the pressure in her back, but waves of pain radiated through her leg and hip. Her stomach twisted suddenly and she heaved. She was so exhausted when her stomach finally calmed down that she didn’t even care that the men were approaching in the darkness.

  “You’re awake,” said one of the men. “That’s good. I didn’t want to move you until I was sure you weren’t too injured.”

  “Leave me…alone,” Kim said.

  The men chuckled. “You’ll die out here alone,” said the second man.

  “Come on, we’re taking you to Hoya. He’ll know what to do with you,” said the first man.

  “No,” Kim said, but she had no strength to fight the men off.

  And to her surprise, they picked her up and set her on a stretcher and began carrying her through the salvage field.

  “Too bad about Johan,” said the first man. “He was a good kid.”

  “No luck, though,” said the second. “It takes skills and luck to survive out here. He should have stayed with Hoya.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” said the first.

  Kim didn’t know which of the teenagers Johan was. They had tried to kill her, or worse, capture her. Kim would rather die than be a Scalper slave. She wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t die from the rocking motion of the stretcher. With every jarring step the men took, pain stabbed at her. And she felt sick to her stomach, nausea coming in waves. If she threw up laying on her back, she would probably choke to death, but she had no strength to even roll over.

  Time seemed to pass in a fog that reminded her a little of hyperspace. Nothing seemed real, and she struggled to think clearly. The stars came out, the conversation between the two strangers started and stopped, but nothing penetrated the haze of pain and misery.

  Eventually, fatigue overcame her pain, and she faded away into the oblivion of sleep. It was a relief, even though she dreamed of Ben. He was nearby, whispering his plans to save her, telling her to hang on. But she didn’t want to hang on; she wanted to float away into the darkness where she didn’t have to think or feel. There was pain in her body… and in her soul. All she wanted was to leave behind the terrible life she had been given.

  But she didn’t die. And when she woke up, it was morning. She was in a strange place, not a building but a shelter of sorts. Above her was a crumpled piece of corrugated sheet metal. She lay on what had once been a bench seat of some sort of transport. The synthetic cover was ripped in places, and it smelled as if animals lived in the padded interior.

  Kim could smell food. And there were voices, men and women, all talking at the same time. Some were even laughing. She turned her head and saw a camp. The ground had been cleared so that she could see the dirt of Torrent Four, a reddish brown that reminded her of the canyons she had raced in. Around the camp were tall mounds of debris. It looked littered, but the more she examined them, the more she could see order to the chaos. There were stair steps leading up and out of the camp in various places. The trash strategically arranged to give the occupants a variety of exits.

  In the center of the camp was a cooking coil, rigged to several solar panels. At least half of the solar cells were broken, but enough worked to power the cooking coil, where a pot was simmering. She saw her bag, the one she’d filled with food from the Echo, laying discarded near the cook pot.

  There were Scalpers everywhere, many of them armed with weapons cobbled together from the junk. Mostly knives and clubs, but a few firearms as well. The Scalpers had the haunted look of people without much hope.

  “Welcome,” said one of the outlaws, a tall man with a thick beard that was nearly all gray. “I’m Hoya, and this is my camp. We thank you for breakfast. Been a while since we had good, clean protein.”

  Kim didn’t reply. She knew she was in a bad way. The pain in her leg and hip wasn’t so bad that it would kill her. No bones were broken. And yet she felt as if she might die. The skin around the wound felt like it was on fire, and she was so weak.

  “Don’t feel like talking?” Hoya said. “I get it, I get it. Let’s chalk it up to shyness. That way, I won’t be offended. My home may not be much to look at, but it’s better than nothing, which is what most of us have. Nothing. But not you, Kim. You have more than most, and I think it’s time you share.”

  The other Scalpers were drawing closer, anxious to hear what was being said. Kim felt a stab of terror that the outlaw knew her name.

  “What?” she asked, her voice croaking.

  “Give her some water,” said a woman in a filthy dress. “She’s dehydrated.”

  “Water!” Hoya ordered. “And make sure it’s cle
an.”

  Some brought a bowl, or perhaps it was an old wheel covering, she couldn’t be sure. But inside was water, and as soon as the word had been spoken, she realized just how thirsty she was. The woman in the dirty dress helped Kim sit up. Propped on one elbow, Kim was able to sip the water. It was the sweetest thing she’d ever tasted, which felt so cool as it washed over her swollen tongue and rolled down her parched throat.

  “There, that’s better,” Hoya said. “So tell us, Kim. Where is this ship of yours? I’ve heard some fascinating things about it.”

  Chapter 18

  They struck the motherlode on the third day. Ben found an ancient nuclear device, which hadn’t gone off, fortunately. They weren’t looking for a bomb, but they did need an extraordinary amount of power in a very small package. Ben checked his scanner on the bomb, and he saw that the enriched plutonium was still inside. It had degraded, of course, but still suitable for their purposes.

  “Okay, we’re in business,” Ben radioed in over the com-link.

  “What did you find?” Jones asked.

  “Plutonium,” Ben said.

  “That is extremely volatile,” the professor said.

  “Which is why I need one of the disposable safety suits and the double-insulated containment unit.”

  “I’ll get them,” Magnum said.

  Ben was a hundred yards from the ship and down a tunnel in the debris field. He had moved several items out of his way to get to the remains of a really old military vessel. Most of the old ship was gone, the metal compromised and crushed from the weight of more junk on top of the old ship. The bomb compartment was made of sturdier stuff and had survived, although Ben had no problem popping the lock and wrenching open the cargo door. The hinges had snapped easily, the metal corroded by the fissionable material in the bomb.

  Ben had to worm his way back out of the hole he’d fashioned so that Magnum could find him. The big man brought out a white disposable hazardous materials suit, with its own sealable bag. Ben would use the bag to get rid of the suit once he had the plutonium pulled from the bomb.

  Magnum also brought what looked like a suitcase, only it was round and had warning icons imprinted on it. Ben had picked up the containment unit on the Confederate mining station in the Bannyan system.

  “We’re being watched,” Magnum said.

  “Why didn’t Nance tell me?” Ben asked as he pulled on the hazmat suit.

  “We still had time,” Magnum said. “No need to rush.”

  “So you say,” Ben said. “Who was it—Scalpers or Security?”

  “Actually, I think it was both.”

  “We’ve overstayed our welcome,” Ben said.

  “Looks that way.”

  “Well, the good news is, with this material, we should be able to make the prototype of the professor’s rocket,” Ben said. “Another hour or so and I should have it out.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll stay here,” Magnum said. “Just in case.”

  “In case the Scalpers come back?” Ben asked.

  “Or worse,” Magnum said.

  “I’ll be pretty well hidden down in my hole,” Ben said. “You standing around will just attract attention.”

  “I wouldn’t want you crawling out of there and running into a group of outlaws.”

  “My com-link is working,” Ben said. “I’ll stay in contact. You cover me from the ship.”

  “Are you sure?” Magnum asked.

  Ben nodded. “As much as I hate to say it, I’m ready to get out of here.”

  “You sure you’re okay?” Magnum asked.

  “I’m as good as I can be,” Ben said. “Zip me up.”

  He could have zipped his own suit. The zipper was in the front, but between the big face shield that covered his entire head and the thick gloves, it was easier for Magnum to work the delicate zipper.

  “You’re all set,” Magnum said. “Be safe.”

  “Thanks,” Ben said.

  He got to his knees, lifted the containment unit, and started crawling back down into his hole. His tools were already down by the bomb, and he had a light set up as well. Getting back down to the bomb wasn’t simple, but it wasn’t all that difficult either. He just had to be careful not to tear the hazmat suit on any of the sharp edges sticking out from the mounds of junk around him.

  “I’m back at the ship, Ben,” Magnum said over the com-link.

  “Any sign of our friends?”

  “Negative,” Nance replied. “We’re all clear.”

  “Good, all I need is a little time and a few kind words,” Ben said. “Then we can leave this miserable world.”

  “Forever,” Nance added.

  Ben wanted to agree, but he had made up his mind. He was coming back, one way or another, to find Kim. The time wasn’t right to share his decision, though. There was still a lot of work to be done building the flux shield. He had done some of the work, assembling most of the salvage components. He still needed to add them to the art grav genny, but he could that easily enough. The difficult thing would be testing it.

  Nance was running computer simulations, but their lives were on the line. If they trusted the rotating gravity shield to protect them and he was wrong, they would be killed. Still, it was a good plan, and an easy enough modification to the artificial gravity generator. Ben just hoped that Professor Jones’s research was on point; otherwise, his flux shield wouldn’t keep them safe, and all their work would be in vain.

  Ben needed to concentrate on what he was doing. Removing bomb components was always risky. Doing it with a broken arm that was still mending didn’t help. Nor did the hazmat suit. And his mind kept wandering back to Kim. He couldn’t help but wonder where she was. What was her plan? Would he be able to find her if he left Torrent Four? The thought that he might lose her forever was almost more than he could take. His eyes started to water at the very thought of never seeing Kim again, and he forced himself to think of something else. There was no way to wipe away the tears, and he needed clear vision for the work he was doing. The radiation from the plutonium was deadly, and if he did something that set off the old nuclear device, it would destroy the Echo and kill him and all his friends. He tried not to think of the pressure he was under, or the sweat building up on his forehead as he worked. Instead, he concentrated on turning the screws on the bomb’s external casing. Just one turn at a time, he told himself. One breath at a time. Eventually, he’d be done and he could crawl out of the hole he was in, return to the ship he’d restored, and leave the junk world far behind.

  Chapter 19

  Torrent Four was one of the foulest planets Major Le Croix had ever been to. He was in a mobile command unit, essentially a box filled with monitors and microphones so that he could see what his Spec Ops team saw and speak to them via the com-links they wore.

  Finding the Kestrel class ship hadn’t been easy. He had used the telemetry that had been recorded by the satellites in the moon belt. After that, he had sent dozens of security agents in every direction, using night vision and thermal imagining, until they caught sight of the ship. It had been stationary for most of the day, but Le Croix knew that it would move again once night fell. He could track it easily enough; the difficult part was getting his units into position.

  The salvage fields were the perfect camouflage. He had half of his Spec Ops team covered in ghillie suits that looked essentially like garbage. As long as they were still, it was impossible to identify them as people. Le Croix could walk right over one and never know it.

  Those units had spotting scopes and magnetic tracking devices. If the ship lifted off, they would fire their tracking devices onto the ship’s hull, and Le Croix would be able to keep tabs on them anywhere in the galaxy. Their secondary objective was to get a fix on the crew. So far, they had only spotted two individuals. Le Croix had hoped they might get closer, perhaps even inside the ship. The crew left the large cargo hatch open, which was a tempting possibility to any Special Forces operator, but the larger of the
two crewmen was obviously on watch. That would require taking out the big man just to get inside, and while that option was certainly within the wheelhouse of his Spec Ops commandos, it would tip their hand. If the crew of the Kestrel class ship knew they were being identified, they would almost certainly search the ship for tracking devices. It was the first thing Le Croix would order if he were in their shoes, and he didn’t want to give away that critical component of their plan.

  “Major, I’ve got locals inbound,” Sergeant Duprey said over their tactical channel.

  “More spotters?” Le Croix asked.

  “Negative,” Duprey replied. “Looks like an entire village. I’m counting over thirty armed combatants. Some stragglers too.”

  “How close?”

  “Two miles, south by southeast of the target vessel.”

  Le Croix cursed under his breath. It was no surprise that a working ship would be a target to the roving bands of outlaws who seemed to be everywhere on Torrent Four. He would have to fend them off. His orders were clear: tag, identify, but under no circumstances was he to engage. The admiral general wanted to make an example out of the small ship and her crew, which tied Le Croix’s hands. But the band of outlaws approaching would make that difficult.

  “Should we move in?” Duprey said. “We can take out the crew and gain control of the ship before the locals even get within pistol range.”

  “Negative,” Le Croix said. “Hold your position.”

  “Unless they’ve got a small army on that ship,” Duprey said, “they’re done for. The locals in this shitcan world don’t know the first thing about mercy.”

  “I’m aware of that fact,” Le Croix said irritably.

  He understood the NCO’s frustration. Over the years of his career, he’d lead teams onto worlds and into combat zones over a dozen times. Usually, at least one superior officer who didn’t know a thing about the conditions, their enemy, or even how combat worked, would insist on calling the shots. That left it up to Le Croix to find a workaround. He was sure the sergeant, or hopefully his lieutenant, was smart enough to be making contingency plans while Le Croix stalled.