Stealing Spaceships: For Fun and Profit

by Logan Jacobs

  Jax tossed us a pack from the side of the room and gestured at the meal replacement bars in the crates around us.

  “Take whatever you can fit in here,” the red-coated man told us as he headed out the door. “I’ll go set you up with fuel and some men I can spare to get to your ship.”

  “What’s your big plan, Leon?” Orla whirled on me the moment that Jax left.

  “I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t call me by that asshole’s name when it’s just the two of us,” I said with a wince.

  “Well then, what’s your big plan, Trevor?” the brunette repeated.

  “I like it when you say my name, princess,” I laughed. “What’s to know? We’ll get some food, some fuel, and even some money to top it off, and then we’ll blast off of this little world.”

  “What about the coil?” Orla groaned.

  “Don’t really need it,” I lied. “It’ll be fine.”

  I didn’t think Orla would screw me over, but I also didn’t trust her poker face. If my plan to get the stabilizer coil worked, it would only be because I had kept it a secret until the last minute.

  “Now come on, help me pick out some good flavors,” I said as I moved over to stand beside her.

  The princess glanced into the crate in front of us and picked up a bar labeled ‘beef stew.’ She wrinkled her nose.

  “Oh, that’s a good one,” I congratulated her. “Much better than the stroganoff pile over here.”

  “These are disgusting,” the brunette said.

  “These are what we need,” I answered.

  We loaded up the bag Jax had given us with the least nauseating flavors of meal replacement bars. By the time we finished, Jax came back with twelve other burly fighters, all in red coats. I smiled and introduced ourselves, but I was glad that my glasses kept them from seeing the roll of my eyes.

  Twelve fighting men seemed a touch excessive just to make a simple trade-off.

  We followed them back out through the ULA facility. It was an impressive operation, all things considered, and they had more crafts, fighters, and arms than I would have guessed. Everyone gave us curious glances as we passed, but no one seemed particularly uneasy about our appearance.

  I glanced at a projection board of targets as we passed it, and I forced my expression to stay neutral. Three of the highlighted targets were schools.

  “All’s fair in war,” Honey Bee observed quietly.

  I shook my head but didn’t respond. That was just the lie that people told to justify whatever they wanted. I looked at Orla out of the corner of my eye and wondered if she had seen the planned attack and if she still believed in the glory of their cause.

  Jax led us to a decent-sized shuttle with a closed-top roof to guard against incoming fire. It was big enough to accommodate the twelve fighters and the two of us comfortably, and that meant it would have a big enough stabilizer coil I could work with. I shook hands with Jax and wished him well, even though he was probably trying to set me up.

  Orla and I settled into the back of the shuttle as the roof closed over us. The doors opened at the end of the ULA hideout, and the rebel pilot took us out into the open. We were on the outskirts of the city, and I was pleased to see that when I gave him the coordinates of the Skyhawk, we flew straight into the surrounding wilderness. I’d just as soon not have another encounter with the Dominion before the day was out.

  We hopped off the shuttle once we passed through the jungle and reached the Skyhawk. The ULA fighters started toward the ship with us, and I shook my head.

  “You just wait here,” I told them. “I’ll bring back the murisia, and then we’ll make our little exchange out here in the open.”

  The pilot glanced at Orla, and she looked at me with her wide green eyes.

  “Okay,” the pilot said, “but she has to stay here, so you don’t get any ideas.”

  “Because we are clearly the ones with the upper hand,” Honey Bee chimed sarcastically.

  “Sure thing,” I answered the pilot.

  “I think it’d be--”

  “You just hold tight, Lora,” I interrupted the princess. “I’ll be back directly.”

  Orla looked like she might protest again, so I just headed up the ramp before she said anything else. I had a feeling that the murisia was about to be way more trouble than it was worth, but I hadn’t had much of a choice. At least we had food and fuel on the shuttle. Now if I could just get it on board the Skyhawk without too much of a fight, I’d call it a day.

  I loaded one crate of murisia on the ship’s dolly and headed back to the boarding ramp. I rejoined the fighters and took the first small bag of cash from them in exchange for the drugs. I turned to go back for the second load.

  “We’re not stupid, you know,” the pilot interrupted.

  “Oh?” I asked innocently.

  “We know who she is,” the rebel pilot continued. “The radio’s blown up all day about how Princess Orla Medalla was spotted right here, in our own backyard.”

  I turned back around. The princess looked panicked, but she kept perfectly still.

  “And?” I challenged. “Your point is?”

  “I hear the Dominion’s willing to pay a pretty penny for her,” the pilot said. “I also hear she’s interested in joining up with us rebels. I think that means she probably ought to stay with us, don’t you?”

  “How much you want to pay me for her?” I sighed.

  Orla opened her mouth to protest, but I shook my head before she started. This was getting interesting. I’d planned to steal the coil from the shuttle once this drug deal went south, but I could always improvise. I still had an escape pod on board the Skyhawk, and I could always rig her up to take back into the city, or a different one, and just buy a coil. It would take a little work, but I could manage if the price was right.

  “Let me talk to my associates and come up with a number for you,” the pilot said.

  “Super,” I agreed. “Then you won’t mind if I talk to my associate too.”

  The princess strode toward me with her head held high, and the pilot turned to the other ULA fighters to discuss their price. Orla followed me onto the end of the boarding ramp.

  We stayed in view of the men, so they wouldn’t be suspicious, but I made sure we were out of earshot. Then I nodded to the brunette that it was safe to speak.

  “You can’t just leave me with them,” the princess hissed under her breath.

  “I thought you couldn’t wait to be rid of me,” I snickered “I’m foul, remember?”

  “Yes, but--”

  “And I thought you wanted to join the ULA,” I interrupted. “Isn’t that your whole life’s dream?”

  “Well, I do, but-- well, not this ULA,” Orla pouted.

  “You mean, you don’t want to be part of the ground-bound rebel forces?” I laughed. “Don’t you know that’s where all the action is?”

  “Maybe, but-- don’t you find them a little… uncivilized?” the princess cleared her throat.

  “Ah, I see,” I sighed. “You don’t want to be a part of the gritty footsoldier life. That’s beneath you, is it?”

  “It’s not that it’s beneath me,” the princess defended. “It’s just-- I was supposed to go to their space station. To the Napoleon.”

  “No, no, I get it,” I agreed. “You want to belong to the fancy officers on the fancy space station. That’s the kind of life Princess Orla Medalla is used to, so by god, she’ll get it, right?”

  “I don’t want to belong to anyone,” the brunette said furiously. “That’s the whole point of all this, don’t you get it?”

  “Everybody belongs to somebody or something,” I said harshly. “Besides, I’m sure these assholes could get you to the Napoleon, eventually. If you pay them enough, of course. And if they pay me enough to take you off my hands.”

  “I don’t want to go with them,” Orla said in a small voice.

  “Make up your minds yet?” the rebel pilot called.

  “Yep,�
� I answered. “What’s your offer number?”

  We exited the boarding ramp. The pilot quoted less than half the amount that Jax had promised for the murisia. Orla looked equal parts shocked and offended, and I had to admit that I was pretty offended myself. For the princess of the Dominion, daughter of the Supreme Commander, it was an insulting price.

  “I don’t love that number,” I said dryly. “Try again.”

  The pilot glanced at the other rebels with a smile. Two of the fighters filed in behind us to cut us off from the Skyhawk, and the others all took a step toward us.

  “I don’t think so, Leon,” the pilot said. “It’s a buyer’s market, so that’s our final offer.”

  “Hm,” I exhaled.

  “It’d save you a world of trouble from the Dominion,” the rebel pilot offered. “We’d take good care of her. She could be the ULA’s new poster girl.”

  “Trevor, please,” the princess whined. “I don’t want to go with them.”

  The pilot looked at Orla like she was a slab of meat and he hadn’t eaten in months. The expressions of the other fighters weren’t much better, and I had no doubt that whatever these ground-bound fuckers had planned for the princess of the Dominion, it wasn’t for her to be their poster girl. I remembered how soft Orla had felt in my arms after I saved her from the Dominion soldiers, and I shook my head at the implications of these rebel assholes.

  “What’s it gonna be?” the pilot asked.

  “You know, I think I’m gonna have to pass,” I sighed.

  “That’s a mistake, Leon,” the pilot said.

  He reached for his gun, and the other rebels followed his example.

  “Nah,” I said with a grin. “The mistake was you calling me that asshole’s name one too many times.”

  I watched as Honey Bee showed me the path that the rebels’ bullets would take, and I saw that the two closest fuckers were the only ones with an aim that was an immediate threat. I reached for both the guns on my belt and started firing before the rebel fighters could pull their triggers.

  Chapter 13

  As soon as I fired the first two rounds at the assholes closest to us, I shoved Orla behind me with my elbow and then kept shooting. I shouted for the princess to retreat onto the Skyhawk, and as soon as the first two fuckers were down, she ran up the boarding ramp. I followed close behind her, but I walked backward so I continued to shoot the rebels.

  As soon as I was out of sight, I ducked into the main hold with Orla. We couldn’t power up the ship or even close the boarding ramp without fuel, and our fuel was stuck on the shuttle outside.

  “What do we do?” the princess asked.

  She checked her shotgun to make sure she had a round in the chamber, and I grinned. She would make a good fighter, whether it was for the ULA or not.

  “We fight, sweetness,” I answered. “Unless you’ve suddenly changed your mind about going with them.”

  “Nope.” The princess shook her head quickly.

  “Yeah, I didn’t think so,” I agreed.

  I took off the bag of our supplies from my back to see what kind of firepower we still had. I tossed her a flare from our pack, and I took out two of the grenades I’d stolen from the ULA supply room. Jax might have thought he was just going to steal the murisia from me and keep his money, but he had proved to be an idiot when he left us alone in the supply room. I hadn’t stocked up on all the explosives I wanted, since we had actually needed the food, but I had stashed away enough grenades to do some real damage.

  “You come out blasting,” I ordered. “If it moves, you shoot it. I’m gonna get our fuel before those fuckers accidentally blow it up.”

  The princess looked scared, but she nodded and pressed her full lips together.

  “Just try not to shoot me, okay?” I teased.

  “I’m not an idiot,” the brunette defended.

  “I know,” I said with a grin. “Now let’s do this thing.”

  I raced back down the boarding ramp and pulled the pin out of my first grenade. As soon as I reached the end of the Skyhawk, I chucked the grenade at the cluster of rebels to our left. Most of them dove out of the way in time, but it took the legs out from under two of them, and I put them out of their misery with two shots each to the chest.

  Orla was right behind me and blasted her shotgun right and left. I couldn’t tell if the wild aim was on purpose. It might just as easily have been because the princess was too tired to absorb the recoil like she had earlier in the day against the Dominion. Whatever the case, it worked to confuse the rebels, and that was all the distraction I needed.

  I ran forward and slid across the gap between me and the shuttle. As I slid, I felt bullets whiz by over the top of me, but I just leaned harder into my slide and they passed on by. When I was almost at the shuttle, one of the rebels lunged for me, and I whipped out my machete.

  I sliced the ULA fighter clear across his Achilles tendons. He went down with a little cry of agony, and I rolled upright beside the shuttle. Then I fired a round into the wounded man’s skull when he grabbed at my legs, and his brains exploded out of him like a rotten melon dropped from a building.

  I glanced back at the Skyhawk, but Orla still held her ground against the rebel assholes. It helped that they wouldn’t actually shoot her unless they had to, since she was much more valuable to them alive than dead. They were a little closer to her now, but she successfully hit one every few rounds, so they took their time in their approach. That left me with just one asshole right in front of me.

  “Left you on guard duty, hm?” I asked the serious-faced redcoat.

  He swung at me as his answer, and I guessed he didn’t want to shoot me so close to the shuttle, what with the shit-load of fuel it had on board. I blocked his punch and swiped at him with my machete. I ducked when he tried to backhand me, and then I caught him across the jaw with the handle of the machete.

  The serious-faced redcoat stumbled backward. I reached into the trunk of the shuttle, hauled out one of the fuel barrels, and rolled it away from the fight. I managed to roll away a second one before the redcoat guard recovered and came at me with both fists swinging.

  I dodged left, then right, and then punched him straight in the nose with the machete handle. He cried out and grabbed at his weapon, but I stabbed him in the stomach first, and he thudded to the ground. I rolled him over once, away from the shuttle, and fired a mercy shot into his temple.

  There were four more huge barrels of fuel to go. I grabbed a third and aimed it for the other two that were safely at the edge of the clearing. As soon as it reached the others, I hauled a fourth one out and got ready to send it on its way.

  That was when I noticed the gunfire around the Skyhawk had stopped.

  I looked up from the fuel barrel at the boarding ramp of the ship. One of the rebels had snuck up behind Orla and now had her arms pinned behind her back. Her shotgun was useless at her feet, and the rebel pilot had a knife to her throat.

  He grinned at me as he ran his fingers through the thick brown ponytail of her hair, and the princess just clenched her eyes shut.

  My stomach tightened, and I stood up slowly from the fuel barrel in front of me and raised my hands with my machete still on my grip.

  “Looks like we’re gonna come out on top of this deal after all,” the redcoat pilot said. “Why don’t you just put down those weapons and head on back over here?”

  The ULA pilot grabbed Orla’s hair a little more forcefully now, and the princess shuddered as the man sniffed it.

  “Well, that’s the last fucking straw,” I growled.

  I kicked the fuel barrel to roll it toward the Skyhawk, and when it was halfway there, I pulled out my gun and emptied my whole magazine straight into the middle of the blasted thing.

  The rebels didn’t even have time to respond. The fuel barrel exploded skyward in a symphony of light and sound, and smoke billowed up from the orange-red flames. It hadn’t been close enough to the Skyhawk or the rebels to do any damage,
but I didn’t wait for the smoke to clear to see their reactions.

  I pulled myself up onto the roof of the shuttle, got a running start, and launched myself into the air. I hurtled through the clouds of smoke above the flaming barrel of fuel, and I crashed down in the middle of the rebels with my machete raised in one hand and my hunting knife in the other.

  I hacked at the closest rebel with the machete, but I saved the hunting knife to slice the rebel pilot’s throat. They both collapsed in rivers of blood, and the other redcoats jumped at me in slow motion. I stabbed one of them in the eye and chopped off a second one’s hand when he made a grab for my vest.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the rebel who held Orla. He backed up the boarding ramp with her, even though she kicked so much that he had to all but drag her with him.

  I slammed my boot into another redcoat’s shin, and the crack of the bone sent him down with a wail. I gutted the next one clean across his abdomen before I threw him on top of the rebel with the broken leg.

  When the rest of the rebel fighters were down, I put my blades away and fired one shot neatly into each of their skulls to finish them.

  “All’s fair in war,” Honey Bee reminded me as my sunglasses started to vent.

  “Well,” I sighed, “they were planning to blow up schools, so I feel like this probably evens things out.”

  I looked up at the boarding ramp, but the rebel who had taken Orla captive had disappeared onto the ship with her. What an idiot. The Skyhawk wasn’t my ship, but it was still home-ground advantage for me. I wondered if there were any more three-headed creatures in the jungle, and if they would accept sacrifices, because I had one hell of an idiot jackass I’d like to hand over to them.

  They weren’t in the main hold, but I doubted they had gotten very far, and I guessed that Orla had probably already kicked the man’s shins until they were black and blue.

  I ducked back onto the boarding ramp when I didn’t see them. The last thing I needed was for that rebel asshole to be hidden somewhere he could shoot me from before I saw him.

  “I got your redcoat pilot here,” I called. “So how about we do us a little prisoner exchange?”