Starship Rogue series Box Set

by Chris Turner

  A group of five of them branched off to search Starrunner. Good, keep them busy. The rest moved in after us.

  Chapter 20

  My eyes dilated, adjusting to the murk. The command area of Belisar One was a rubble-strewn sprawl just as we’d left it. A pool of blue-black shadows with lots of places to hide showed itself, rigged with enough booby traps to kill an elephant and several lions thrown in. The place had been looted by bandits over the decades, as evidenced by the hodgepodge of overturned consoles, smashed component boxes, spilled circuits with wires showing. The pillars that supported the honeycombed ceiling had whole sections eaten out of them. By machine gun fire. Wedges were cut out as if drunken bandits had aimed a thousand shots and chewed holes into the walls. At least the idiots had left the port door alone.

  The light was so dim as to make it difficult to see. Only a faint ambient bluish glow spilled from the windows overlooking the interior of the station.

  I motioned to TK and Wren, urging them to the side wall to duck behind the random wastage while I staggered in a bent-kneed crouch over to the opposite wall to lure the others out and activate the explosives. Good thing the heating and air systems had powered on during our last mission, eliminating the need for suits. I made quick time to the back corner where the paneled glass looked into the interior: a place of silence, brooding and mystery. Below, the lower level showed massive ore bins, sorting stations and holding pods. A vast tangle of machinery, piping, docking stations, catwalks and inky depressions lurked in those confines. The emergency lights dimmed, then cut out. The unearthly blue glow flickered back on again, so recently activated by human presence after many decades.

  Despite what I’d told TK about Starrunner, I felt sick at the loss of her. In her state she was of little use. We were marooned here—like castaways, stuck out in nowhere with no hope of rescue or little chance of making repairs. I thrust that anxiety out of my mind.

  A dozen and a half enemy, lean and silent as weasels, came slinking in low on a wide sweep of the area. Their laser sights gave away their position while ours remained dark. We had an advantage, but they had the superior numbers.

  I signaled Wren with my silent communicator: lie low. The plan was for me to draw them out, pick off stragglers with explosives, and rely on the camo qualities of my guerrilla suit to keep them at bay.

  I chucked a piece of broken circuitry toward the first plant of explosives by the lower level ore carts. Several green laser sights lanced to the spot and eager figures split up to investigate.

  My sweat-beaded face curled in a cold grin. I saw a line of them moving toward the sound. Fools. My body tingled with expectation. Imminent slaughter was moments away.

  Just as the pack was within blasting distance of the far wall, I pinched my thumb on the detonator. Flesh and sinew erupted in a crimson mash. The force took out six of them, shredding them like ripe carrots in a blender. Bloody shreds of arms, legs and torsos sprayed in the immediate vicinity.

  Baer’s voice rumbled over the flames. “Fan out, you stupid fools! That fuck Rusco’s got the place rigged! He wasn’t so dumb after all. Flush him out. Quickly. Now!”

  “But boss—”

  “Shut the fuck up! What am I paying you for, blockhead? Move!” He thrust the man forward. “Don’t cluster in too tight and let him take you down.”

  I pressed the left detonator. Kabam. Another bright blast took out four more of the black-masked bastards, leaving a gaping hole in the ore bins and tangle of machinery below. Bright fire licked out at me as I sprang from one hiding place to another behind an overturned console. Keep them moving. Make them think there was a rat’s nest of snipers and ambushers around them.

  I winced. Shit, they were rounding on Wren. Someone must have sighted a flicker of movement. That idiot TK panicked, for he began shooting a spray into the fray. I told the fuck not to fire! Except in an emergency as it gave away location.

  A howling cry rose above the mayhem. Another black enemy fell on a knee, shin shattered by the shells.

  Wren joined in the firefight. Two more gunmen groaned in anguish and fell face down in the rubble.

  We were down to four plus change.

  But three of them started firing, and like a death squad, rained a fury of inescapable green at Wren and TK. They were smart, those stalkers; they took out the pillar where Wren and TK had dug in and the ceiling collapsed on them. A ton of metal came crashing down and I heard Wren’s sharp cry echo in peaked anguish. The girders folded like a tent around them, offering them some small cocoon—I hoped. All I could see was a dull gleam of metal where she was. I swore silently and acted without hesitation. The explosion had left her pinned behind a mangled ceiling panel.

  TK must have managed to wiggle free for I could hear his hoarse grunts and curses. I could vaguely make out a dark outline moving along the shadowy backdrop of the side wall. His or an enemy’s?

  I scooted closer. Like a thief in the dark, I kept low. My itchy fingers hovered over the last of the detonators. But the enemy was nowhere in my sights, nowhere near my kill zone.

  I think the last four heard Wren. I set off the last explosive, only serving as a costly diversion, and while they staggered back, wondering what next booby trap they’d step into, I raced forward, struggling to cover the area to their left side. She was gasping and cursing and banging on the metal that covered her.

  I rapped hard, hissing at her to quiet down. I grabbed an old machine tool, a hammer or something, caked with eons of dust and launched it somewhere behind them. One of the stalkers whirled around at the clatter of metal and loosed a shot. I launched out like a cat to a new defensive position, but was forced to dodge around and confuse them before I could come back to her.

  “Sh,” I hissed at her, trying to imagine the terror she felt trapped under that mangled mess. “Stay silent, you hurt?”

  “Pinned, can’t get out,” her muffled voice came back. “Left arm is throbbing.”

  I whispered, “Wren, listen to me. Stay put, no noise. Don’t try to move. I’ll get you out—but not now.” I couldn’t peel the metal back around her without alerting those fucks to my position.

  They were returning. Shit! This was not going well. I backed off, my head in a quandary, a high buzzing in my ear.

  “The old subterfuge trick,” Baer called out in the murk. “Nice job, Rusco. I expected more from you. Disappointing that you let your arm get blown up like mine. We’re two peas in a pod, you and me, two fools in a stew pot.”

  That’s it, you dumb fuck. Keep talking. Draw yourself out like a fat fool and use up your energy.

  An assassin had positioned himself between Baer and the tangle of metal. Now he was moving closer. Before long he’d clue in to where Wren was, trapped and helpless.

  I slunk away, hoping to draw him away. No luck. The bugger kept sidling closer, weapon trained at the fallen mass of metal. Where the hell was TK? Why wasn’t the twit helping?

  I sidewinded back and snuck up behind him while the gunman was focused on the debris, weapon aimed at the fallen ceiling. I hoped to neutralize him while he was preparing to take out the two of us whom he thought cowered behind that mound.

  I dove at this hulking figure, meaning to kick him in the groin with my poison-tipped boot to avoid firing and giving away my position. But the stalker heard the crunch of glass under my boot and pivoted. I ducked, missing by a hair his stun beam, wrapped my arms about his waist and brought him crashing to the ground. I knocked his weapon away. The man was exceedingly strong and he bent me backward to the point I could feel my spine creaking under the pressure. I pummeled him with my fists and in a mad tangle of arms and legs, we grappled and hooked, grunted and cursed. My hard right lashed out and I caught him with my elbow in his teeth. He loosed a garbled cry. I scrambled to my feet, kicked out a foot while rising, and grazed him high on the thigh. He went down with a howl, shivering for an instant and was dead within seconds. An impressive fast-acting poison. I staggered over the body, panting as
I saw his glassy eyes stare up. No time to get Wren. I stumbled away from the booted feet coming closer to my position as they set scarlet sights upon me—scarlet meant moderate to lethal.

  Peeow. Peeow. Bright laser fire licked past my ribs, shredding consoles and metal.

  I couldn’t find my weapon in the dim light. Fuck it. I’d lost it.

  I saw the dead man’s firearm, a long fat rod of dark length in the shadows. I dove for it, snatching up his modified AK, then rolled flat to fire on the last moving shapes in the dark. But the damn thing jammed. I threw it away in disgust. Laser lines were sighting on me. With a hissing curse, I scrambled crab-wise for cover. Rat-a-tat-tat. A death rattle for heart-pumping Rusco. Terror raged at my heels, shredding everything around me. Those were no stun rays. They were real shelled bullets.

  “Rusco, give it up,” shouted Baer. “You’re a dead man. You’ve no ship and your explosives can’t last forever.” His panting voice rose above the shell chatter. “Tell you what—give me the phaso, and I’ll call it even—”

  “Phaso? Why didn’t you say so?” I called.

  Restless rumblings came from the huddle, like a nest of rats from where I counted three, with weapons cocked, laser sights trained in my direction. I ducked, held my breath behind a mound of shredded tin. Wished I was the invisible man right now.

  Baer held up a hand to the others to hold their fire. He advanced like a hairy beast.

  “Tell me where it is, Rusco.”

  “If you really want it, Baer, it’s in the conduit leading to the Barenium cylinders in my ship. I hid it there, taped it to the silver metal siding for safe-keeping. Go ahead and check—it’s out of harm’s reach, and the hands of even my own crew.”

  “More like a trap,” he jeered.

  “Believe what you want. Send one of your crew members to check.” I ducked down, inching away from there to another overturned console a few yards away.

  I hoped they’d fall for the lure as I’d bomb-rigged that conduit. It would mean one or two less thugs for me to kill.

  How everything was going to shit right now. It would kill Starrunner’s Barenium drive for good but better that than dying here at the hands of these cutthroats. A gamble. I hadn’t counted on both TK and Wren being neutralized so soon.

  One of them left on quiet feet; I could feel a lightening of presence. It was about the same time I noticed some other dark figure trail after him with a hobbling gait. TK? Where was that sneaky fuck going? Maybe he was going to take down the errand boy. I hoped so.

  My explosives were done. I’d been reaching for a fallen hunk of metal a yard away from my defensive position. It lay in open sight, but I was afraid that if they saw the small movement, they’d blow my hand off. And I wasn’t about to let that happen again.

  I tried to keep Baer talking. Fortunately Wren had made herself quieter than a church mouse. Make the Baer blunder. The man had a gun, I didn’t. A distinct disadvantage in this miserable situation so any winning trick was a good one. I’d grab onto it like a drowning man grasped for straws.

  “I’m not sweet on the phaso, truth be told, Rusco,” said Baer. “Just tell us where the amalgo is, and we’ll be out of your hair.”

  Just like that, you slimebitch, as if we were old pals? I grinned. “The amalgo’s a little trickier, Baer. Truth be told, it isn’t here, hate to tell you. I put it somewhere safe. Thought you’d like that.”

  He chuckled. “I do, and that’s good to hear. For a second, I thought you might have gone and done something stupid like destroy it to spite me. After that unfortunate incident back on Trellian.”

  “No, nothing like that, Baer. I got better things to do with my time than play the spiteful bitch.”

  “Haw haw. You’ll have to tell me where it is sometime. I got a short temper with this one at the moment.”

  To my right came a shuffle of feet. I could hear two of them. Flanking me like foxes at the henhouse, moving inch by inch, expecting that I had another detonator to trigger, but I’d drawn my last card.

  “Tell your gophers to stay back,” I croaked. “Otherwise I’ll blow them up like the rest of your tainted meat.”

  Baer nodded, signaled the two to stop. “So, what do we do now?” he said. “Seems as if we’re at a stalemate.”

  I let the seconds pass. I was running out of options. Just when I was about to do something desperate, I detected a hint of motion back near the landing dock entrance.

  TK, the mysterious sod, was slinking by the side wall. The crystal ring clutched in his trembling hand; it radiated that queer iridescent glow that had always mesmerized me. What was the fool up to? Maybe he thought to use the phaso as a bargaining chip? To save his own hide? Why had he left Wren, though? Seemed cowardly in my opinion. I couldn’t quite figure it.

  The dark animal shape of Baer lunged out of the shadows and intercepted him, speaking low in his ear. “The phase-shifter or I blow your cock off, asshole.”

  TK whirled, looking as surprised as I’d been. “Stay back or I nuke it,” he rasped, twisting on his hips. He jammed his weapon down at the phaso.

  “Go ahead, blast it, you muttonhead, you die next.”

  TK’s eyes flicked away, a trickle of anxiety running down his hollow cheeks.

  “Don’t be stupid, TK,” I warned him. “Give him the phaso. Or we all die.”

  “Shut up, Rusco. We’re all dead anyway!” He turned, scowling at me like a fishwife. “You let Billy die. I owe you nothing. You left him out there, you bastard.”

  “Think again. Billy’s dead and you can’t save him.”

  “We might have saved him,” he whimpered. The old man was all choked up. “He might have gotten away.” He lifted his gun hand to wipe at his running nose.

  A moment of distraction that allowed Baer to put a ruby ray between his eyes. TK dropped like a strawman, the phaso rolling out of his hand like a pinwheel. One of Baer’s goons reached to snatch it up then disappeared in a haze of multicolored light. The idiot hadn’t grabbed it properly, so he winked out of existence much as had Billy and Mitch, unaware of the alien device’s potential.

  Baer swore as I jumped up and hurled the bar in my hand like a boomerang. Didn’t care who I hit. Just that it hit. I clocked the first thug in the neck. He fell choking in his own blood with a crushed windpipe. At the same time, I scuttled out like a crab, grabbed the phaso with my sleeve, and was up and running to the next place of protection. I dove behind a component box just before Baer’s fire could eat away at me.

  He cursed and I heard muffled cries coming from Wren, still trapped underneath that wretched panel, maybe injured or maybe not. She kicked and cursed, lashed out at the metal. Shut up, you stupid woman. Christ, she had a foul tongue.

  “Nice move, Rusco. I’m guessing you’re right out of explosives by now by the look of that little missile you cast. Makes my job a lot easier.”

  The bear-man moved forward, emptying fire into the scraps of metal that shielded me and I cried out in pain as a hot flare grazed my side, singeing leather and drawing blood.

  “Feel like talking now?” he grunted. “I know you’re still there. I can smell your dirty hide. Once I get you, I’m going to cut off your head, then take your squealing bitch back for a ride she’ll never forget.”

  I crouched, my heart beating, counting the moments. Come on, Rusco, think.

  “Just you and me,” laughed Baer. “Your geriatric mechanic is down, but I guess you saw that, didn’t you? Sure you did. The girl? Well, she ain’t sounding as if she’s too available right now.” He laughed, an acidy hyena chuckle. “Why don’t you just come out like a good boy, and we can settle this like men, instead of rustling around in the dark, shitting in the corners like mice?”

  ‘That’s a nice idea for someone with a gun.”

  “It is what it is, Rusco. Not leaving here until I have your head on a platter. Part of the deal I made with Mong. Either your head or mine. Mong gave me the choice, a month to track your miserable hide down and del
iver the phaso. Said he’d make a captain of me in his army, with all the material perks of war.”

  “That’s a nice deal, Baer. Congratulations.” Three down, only one black bear to go.

  My prosthetic hand twitched. A bad time for it to act up. Control it, Rusco. It reached out and clutched the smooth, cool surface of the phaso, my last card.

  “You’ve been duped by a charlatan with psi power, Baer. Parlor tricks that a well-timed hit from a blaster can end in a second.”

  “You’re wrong there,” Baer grunted, loosing another spray of fire as he moved closer. “I’ve seen Mong employ telekinetic powers that you wouldn’t believe. Got ’em through his meditation on dark gods, that black religion or whatever he dabbles in. You don’t know the power of the man.”

  “I could give a shit about his powers, if he sucked Adam’s dick. Give me a gun and I’ll put a bullet in the lizard’s brain.”

  “Tsk, tsk. Now that’s no way to badmouth somebody who isn’t here to defend himself. Didn’t your mother teach you manners? Think Mong would have something to say about that fly-away tongue of yours. Shame on you, Rusco. Plan on getting me back that little phaso. If I don’t, the star lord’s death warrant awaits.”

  “You’ve already mentioned that, Baer. Going Alzheimer on me?”

  Hearing my labored breathing, he strode in with a leisurely gait. “Mong told me all about that phaso. The Mentera were stupid enough in how they employed the technology. They could have ruled the universe, and almost did, but lost it at the end. Now they’re only passing memories. Mong and I’ll not make the same mistake.”

  Famous last words, reptile brain. All the while I’d been edging around his left side, inching on my stomach like an eel, leaving a small trail of blood and slime behind me. Wren chose that instant to whimper and as Baer turned his ugly head and muttered, “That’s right, bitch, you’d better—” I lurched up.