When one of the wounded Scalpers rose up, holding his head where his ear hung like a raw piece of poorly butchered meat, Ben shot him high in the chest. The bullet punched through a thick plastic ornament the outlaw wore around his neck. He was knocked backward by the shot.
Only one of the outlaws remained able to fight. He was on his feet as Ben pulled the slide on the frag pistol again, preparing another shot. The Scalper knew he was in danger and dove out the transport’s window. Magnum was on his feet before Ben, tracking the outlaw with his own pistol, but he didn’t shoot. He just made sure the man wasn’t a threat. He then turned to Ben, who was helping Kim out from under the bus.
“This is insane,” she snarled.
“Let’s go,” Ben said, feeling sick again. “I want to get off this transport.”
They hurried out of the empty wreck. Ben got his bearings quickly, while Magnum kept looking for more danger. The sound of gunshots would have carried far across the salvage yard. Most people would stay away, but Ben knew the crazies would be drawn to the sound of slaughter. They would find the bodies and pick them clean. Clothing, weapons, tools, anything the Scalpers had on them would be taken. He wanted to be long gone before then.
“I’ve never killed anyone before,” Kim said angrily.
“Me neither,” Ben said. “But it had to happen sooner or later.”
“That’s a grim view,” she replied.
“What choice did we have?”
They hurried across the salvage yard, scrambling over heaping piles of junk, hurrying along trails and across vast stretches where junk was piled at least several feet on top of the ground. Eventually, they found the ridge where the Modulus Echo was hidden. Ben slowed down, stopping on top of the big ridge and carefully looking in every direction. He saw no one and felt a slight sense of relief. He was tired, frightened, and more than a little desperate to get back to the ship where he felt safe. It was his home. As he slid down the ridge, he breathed a sigh of relief. The empty water tanks were unmoved, and when he slipped between them, the ship’s open hatch awaited.
“Welcome back,” he said over his shoulder to Kim.
“Tell me I won’t have to kill anyone inside,” she said.
“Other than me?”
“I’ll make an exception for you,” she said, smiling for the first time that day.
Chapter 14
“You really believe this ship is fit to leave the atmosphere?” Kim scoffed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
They were sitting around the table on the upper deck. The last rays of the day’s sunlight could be seen in the partially uncovered observation windows above them. They had taken their time resting from their journey. Kim had taken a shower, put on clean clothes that Ben had come up with for her, and taken a tour of the ship.
“She’s ready,” Ben insisted.
“How can you know that?” Kim asked. “You can’t even power up the main drive.”
“We’ve run simulations,” Nance said.
“No offense, Nancy, but just because your computer tells you it will work doesn’t mean it will. I mean, come on. There are some things that you can’t run a diagnostic on. The airframe, for instance. I mean, you don’t even know what the outside of this ship looks like. It’s been covered with junk longer than you’ve been alive.”
“The ship has an inner and an outer hull,” Ben said. “Both had integrity sensors built in. The computer checks those sensors. She’s ready, I guarantee it.”
“You really believe it will fly?” Kim said. “Why do you have all the spare heat shield tiles, then?”
“It will need some repairs,” Ben said. “Like you said, we won’t know to what extent until we uncover her, but we can reattach the heat shielding wherever it’s needed once we’re in orbit. It’ll be easier that way.”
“You’ve lost your mind,” Kim says. “Let’s just suppose that she flies and that the fusion reactor doesn’t blow the entire vessel to ions in the process. If you manage to reach orbit, which isn’t a given, you’ll be pursued by the Royal Imperium. There won’t be time to make repairs.”
“That’s why we need you. To run the blockade,” Ben insisted.
“You don’t get it,” Kim continued. “They won’t just look the other way. This planet is a no-fly zone.”
“Smugglers make it through the blockade all the time,” Nance said.
“Sure, that’s what the Confederacy wants you to think, but we can’t know that for sure,” Kim said. “It might all be propaganda to keep us fighting the Imperium.”
“Look,” Ben said. “We’re taking this ship to orbit. I’ve got a lead on how we can get some Zexum. All we need is a pilot.”
“And how long are you talking?” Kim asked.
“We get off-world and we keep flying,” Ben said. “I don’t ever want to come back to this junk planet.”
“No, pinhead,” Kim said. “How long will it take you to get the gas?”
“A few days, I suspect,” Ben said. “I’m going to meet my contact tomorrow.”
“Fine,” Kim said. “I’ll stick around for a few days. If you can get the gas and this ship doesn’t melt down when you fire that fusion reactor up, I’ll fly her. But don’t expect me to help with whatever crazy plan you have to get the Zexum. I’m strictly a pilot.”
“Fine, that will work,” Ben said. “Magnum and I will get the gas. You’ll see. We’re getting off this rock and we are never coming back.”
“Famous last words,” Kim said. “Now, what’s for dinner?”
Kim ate more than her share of the two protein bricks Ben had prepared. She settled into the last of the crew quarters quickly afterward. Magnum had set up a workbench in his own room and was cleaning the guns they had taken from the gamblers in the canyon. Nance was back at her computer station on the bridge, and Ben joined her.
His preferred space, the engineer’s work station on the bridge, was not as customized as Nance’s but he set it up just the way he wanted it. The display screen showed the ship’s variety of systems. They were all in the green.
“She could be right, you know,” Nance said without looking up at him. “We might have missed something.”
“Anything is possible,” Ben said. “But we haven’t rushed anything, and we’ve done as much as we can without full power.”
“You’re certain there are no cracks in the fusion chamber?”
“I ran multiple tests,” Ben said. “So have you. It’s as solid as we can make it.”
“So you’re going to the Big Market tomorrow?”
“Yes. I’ll find Liam. He has contacts with the smuggler’s guild.”
“You really think they’ll just give us the gas we need?”
“I don’t see why they wouldn’t,” Ben said. “We’re offering them a ship that’s ready to go. All they have to do is share a bit of their gas.”
“You know they’ll want something in return.”
“Yeah, I do know that, but what choice do we have? We can’t just purchase some Zexum, even if we had the credits.”
“I know, but it seems like a big risk,” Nance said. “You were almost killed just getting to the canyons and back.”
“This place is getting out of hand,” Ben said. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Fleet Security do a sweep. It’s just another reason why it’s important to get us out of here while we still can.”
“As long as you’re sure,” Nance said.
“The only thing I’m sure of is that we can’t go anywhere without Zexum. If Liam can’t point us in the right direction, we’ll have to come up with something else, and I really don’t know what it might be. From where I’m sitting, we’ve got one shot at this. It has to work.
Chapter 15
“You don’t talk much,” Kim said. She had decided to tag along to the Big Market which was just outside of Longdale, one of the few cities that had been spared during the war.
“Don’t bother him,” Ben said.
They were tir
ed after a restless night. Ben had been plagued with nightmares. He couldn’t close his eyes without seeing the gruesome images from the gunfight on the old transport. Rationally, he knew they had done the only thing possible. If they hadn’t fallen asleep under the seats they would have been robbed, beaten, perhaps even killed. And if they hadn’t intervened when they did, Magnum might have been seriously hurt or killed. Still, he felt a sense of real terror whenever he thought of how quickly the Scalpers’ lives had been snatched away.
He didn’t blame himself or Kim or Magnum. They hadn’t forced the outlaws to turn to crime, or even to assault Magnum, who had been doing nothing more than getting out of the weather for the night. But still he felt a sense of terror, as if death was stalking him now. He’d felt queasy in the night. And even though he was tired, he couldn’t wait for the sun to rise.
From the looks of his companions, Kim hadn’t slept well either. Magnum, on the other hand, seemed unfazed by the violence. And if the Scalpers had hurt him, it didn’t show. Kim limped along, still favoring her bruised leg, but Magnum had to force himself to slow down to keep from running off ahead of the others.
“I’m just saying he doesn’t talk much,” Kim said.
“He’s the strong, silent type,” Ben said, adjusting the pack he was carrying that he had filled with trade goods.
“If we’re going on an adventure together, I thought it might be nice to know who everyone is,” Kim said. “Ben and I go back, but I don’t know you.”
“What do you want to know?” Magnum said, speaking for the first time that morning.
“What’s your story?” Kim asked.
“No story,” he replied.
“Come on. You know how to fix guns. Where’d you learn to do that?”
“My uncle taught me.”
“Where’s he now?”
“Dead.”
“You don’t have to answer her questions,” Ben said.
“I’m not the enemy here,” Kim said. “I’m just being friendly.”
“If he wanted to talk about stuff, don’t you think he would?”
“I don’t know,” Kim said.
“It’s okay,” Magnum said. “My father joined the Fleet, so we left him. My uncle taught me to fight. We were arrested in a raid. I got out, they didn’t.”
“Were they killed?” Kim asked.
Magnum shrugged his shoulders.
“How could you leave without finding out?”
“I doubt he had much choice,” Ben said. “Besides, the Fleet doesn’t answer questions. How was he supposed to find out?”
“He could have tried,” Kim said. “It was his mother and his uncle.”
“I did what they taught me,” Magnum said.
“Which was what? Cut and run at the first sign of danger?”
“Come on, Kim. He saved our lives in the canyons. He saved me from the Scalpers. He’s no coward.”
“How do we know he won’t run at the first sign of trouble?” Kim demanded. “Or turn us in to save himself if we get in a jam?”
“That’s absurd,” Ben replied. “He’s one of us and I trust him.”
“Well, I’m not one of you, and I don’t trust anyone. We don’t know what he was taught.”
“To survive,” Magnum said. “I was fourteen.”
“And the Security Force just turned you loose on the street?” Kim asked.
Magnum nodded.
“Every day, I hate them a little more,” Ben said.
“You thinking about joining the movement?” Kim asked him.
“I’m not interested in furthering anyone’s agenda but my own,” Ben said. “You know that.”
“Oh, I don’t know. People change.”
“Have you changed?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You didn’t have much choice.”
“No, I didn’t. And as soon as we get back to your ship, I want you working on a new kite frame,” Kim demanded. “That was the deal, remember?”
“I remember. I also remember you before you got so jaded and cynical.”
“It’s called reality. This world is a shitty place, and the sooner you accept that the better off you’ll be.”
“All the more reason to get off this world,” Ben said. “I would think you of all people would be excited about that prospect.”
“Look, I know there are worlds where people live without fear,” Kim said. “Places where the water is clean, and the world isn’t covered with junk.”
“My point exactly?” Ben asked.
“But my point is, if we take off on your old bird, we’ll officially be outlaws. We’ll be living outside the Imperium for all intents and purposes, always on the run. We’ll never be able to settle on some pristine planet and live happily ever after.”
“We’ll be free,” Ben insisted.
“Not really. Freedom is a myth. We’ll just be trading one set of circumstances for another.”
“They can’t get much worse than this,” he said, waving his arm at the salvage yard they were walking through.
“All I’m saying is, we’ll be giving up the chance to have normal lives on a better world.”
“They don’t let just anyone onto the worlds you’re talking about.”
“No, they don’t. But if I could get into the Fleet, I could earn a spot,” Kim said. “That’s what you’re asking me to give up.”
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” Magnum said.
He didn’t look at either of them. His eyes roamed the salvage for any signs of danger, but he was listening to their conversation. It was the first time Ben had heard the big man speak without first being asked a direct question.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kim asked.
“It means,” Ben interjected, “that you have no way of knowing if you’ll ever get into the Fleet Academy. Or that you’d do as well as you think if you somehow found a way in.”
“Hey! I’m a damn good pilot. I can fly anything, anywhere.”
“I’m not talking about your skills, Kim. I know you’re a great flyer. But do you really think the Fleet isn’t just as political as everything else? You don’t have the support that other people have. The family connections, the business relationships, the money, that’s what you’d need to excel in the Royal Imperium.”
“Who’s jaded now?” Kim said.
“All we’re trying to say is, you have a chance to escape this horrid place once and for all,” Ben said. “And the reality of that is better than the hope of something else that may never come to pass.”
They reached the Boneyard by midmorning and traded some of Ben’s refurbished goods for a seat on a transport headed to Longdale. The trip was uneventful. They reached the outskirts of the city just before dark, and Ben hurried into the market. Most of the vendors and merchants were packing up their goods. The Big Market was a trading post much like the Boneyard. Inside the city, credits were used for commerce, and outsiders needing to do business had to first convert their goods into money at the Big Market.
Ben had several small gadgets, which he traded for less than thirty credits, but it was enough for what he hoped to do. While he bartered with one of the more reputable vendors, Kim followed Magnum to a weapons dealer. The big man laid out four pistols, including the ones that had been taken from the gamblers who attacked them in the canyon.
“Hey, what are you up to?” Kim asked him in a quiet voice.
“Trading,” Magnum said while the vendor checked the weapons.
“You have any more ammo for these?” the merchant asked.
Magnum shook his head.
“What are you looking to get?”
Magnum held up five fingers. Kim started to object. She didn’t know a lot about guns, but she knew they were worth more than five credits.
“I can’t do five,” the merchant said. “I’ll do two and a half.”
Kim shut her mouth when she realized that weren’t talking about just five credits. T
here was no such thing as a half credit, and while she didn’t fully trust Magnum, she respected him enough to let him do his own trading.
“Four,” Magnum said.
“That’s too rich for my blood,” the vendor said. “I could maybe do two hundred credits and another hundred in trade.”
Magnum pointed at a rifle that was on a rack behind the vendor. The man smiled.
“You know your weapons,” he said. “But that’s not the kind of thing you want to go walking through the city with. The Security Force will pick you up just for having a weapon like that.”
“What is it?” Kim asked.
“That’s a Vox One, over-under repeating rifle,” the vendor explained. “The top barrel is a projectile weapon, semiauto. The bottom is a laser. These were all the rage after the war. Crowd busters. But with power being at a premium and ammo hard to come by, they went out of style.”
“May I?” Magnum asked.
The vendor turned and handed over the rifle. Kim was beginning to understand how four handguns could be more valuable than an assault rifle. Even if they could keep it concealed, they would be hard pressed to find ammunition for it.
“I could do the rifle at one fifty,” the vendor said.
“One seventy-five,” Magnum said, working the action on the upper barrel.
The rifle was only two feet long, without a buttstock. It had a pistol grip handle and a carbon fiber barrel shroud. The magazine loaded from the side, and rechargeable high-capacity batteries went into the pistol grip.
“Deal,” the vendor said. He quickly removed the pistols from the table and began counting out paper credit slips.
Magnum pulled an old cargo strap. He fed it through the trigger guard to make a loop, which he placed over his shoulder, but under his long coat. The rifle hung between his body and his arm, well hidden. Kim had to admit she was impressed. Magnum was a big man, but nothing about his appearance roused suspicion. In fact, he had a jovial face that seemed happy, almost carefree.
When they met back up with Ben, Kim was further surprised when Magnum handed Ben the credits he’d gotten.
“What’s this?” Ben asked surprised.
Kestrel Class (Kestrel Class Saga Book 1) Page 7