by Chris Turner
“Fuck off, dogshit asshole. I hope you and that broad get wasted—”
I finished him off with a single shot. He lay still, with a gaping, smoking hole in his forehead. Good riddance. Couldn’t stand the man.
A death was a death, and this was no less gruesome, though more like putting a rabid hound out of its misery. But the cost of taking a life always stirred the hairs on the back of my neck.
I caught up with Wren. She and the others were hustling toward the east wall, the workers frightened out of their wits at the echoes of gunfire blasting away and the hint of white steam floating ever closer toward them. “Out the side door!” I grunted. “This area’ll be gassed out in minutes.”
A group of fifty of them looked at me with dilated eyes of terror. “Who are you?” they cried.
“Pazarol’s nemesis. Get moving! This is your lucky day. I’ve a ship waiting.” Blinking in astonishment, they stumbled on trembling legs and I bunted them toward the side exit. Wren sighed with relief at the sight of me, alive and whole.
Some of them were too frightened to take action and stood immobile. Others gaped like fish, cowering behind the rows of khaki wear they had toiled so hard to produce. I gave a croak of frustration. “Do you want to stay here enslaved, victims of these scumlords?” A lean, hollow-cheeked woman with dark circles under her eyes visibly trembled. She wrapped her bruised arms around her chest, gave a choked sob and a call of action to the others. Then took to her heels after Wren. Some I had to leave behind, blinking in the dim emergency light as the alarms rang. So be it. I joined in the mad scramble, prodding the others from behind down the main corridor, blaster in hand. When more rats with foul teeth came out to play, I stayed back as their rounds clipped out toward us, and rolled under equipment tables, using the gathering smoke as a screen through which I shot at will. Tools and instruments skidded off tables; khaki fatigues lined up on hangers shredded around us to the rat-tat-tat of gunfire. Wren was somewhere ahead of us, gesticulating with her R4, herding the mob forward through the double doors, three and four abreast so undernourished they were.
It was a wild rush. Desperate figures burst out into the damp air onto the weed-ridden tarmac, the grey light of dusk hitting us, and the smell of chemicals in our noses. Down the service yard, past rusty forklifts. Again I had to drop back as five others came out of the emergency exit we’d booby-trapped, staggering like strawmen in a gale. I fired shots back at them.
I hit the detonator switch. All disappeared in a cloud of white flames as their charred limbs flew, severed from torsos.
More stumbled out of the side door closer to the back. This time caustic smoke billowed out at their heels like sidewinders’ tails. I jammed down the detonator. It didn’t fire. “Fucking hell!” The canister was a dud. I threw the useless thing away.
They chased after us. Gunmen rained fire like cannons. Two women fell, shot in the back. I cried out in dismay. A tousle-haired boy tripped and crashed to his knees, sobbing. I winced and hauled the featherweight up on his feet, urging him to run like he’d never before. Like panicked sheep, they all ran after Wren through the weeds and cracked tarmac toward the distant fenced yard. I thought some would expire from sheer exhaustion and terror before they made it to the hold. They kept apace each other, some women gripping boys’ hands.
I stayed back, kneeling, pegging off those who came within range. Blaster fire kicked up. One caught me in the left foot and I cursed, felt a zinging burning sensation in my toe. Shit, this was not progressing well.
“Move your asses!” Wren cried, swatting at them with the flat of her gun. She crowded them forth, through the fence toward the ship, herding them in the direction of the hold like cattle at a roundup.
When the last worker was in the ship, I came hobbling, sucking in lungfuls of air. I closed the hatch. All were secured and Wren already had Bantam circling in the air. I raced to the bridge, used the remote to fire her front cannons, bright lasers which licked at the snipers retreating in haste back to the compound. I grimaced in triumph as bodies fell.
I scanned the ground. Some survivors piled into the dormant X-R Rover craft sitting out in Pazarol’s dilapidated yard. The V-winged tri-fighter whisked up at us, fareon beams pouring out, catching our shields, but Wren was pounding them with our own pulse beams. We were already well ahead, engaged, and I maxed Bantam’s impulse out to the twin moons, past the atmosphere and out into space. The go indicator flashed yellow and free of Tarsus’s gravity, the Varwol engaged. The universe slipped sideways. Stars, light flashes, multicolored beams sheared on impossible angles that bent in wrong places and made no sense to any waking eye.
We were off to the stars, and I could only breathe a gasp of relief.
* * *
I came down into the hold, limping with Wren at my side. There they all crouched in a miserable huddle, murmuring and sniffling like lost orphans, some in shock. The women held each other like frightened sisters, consoling each other and some of the younger boys. Wish I’d had a rescue like this when the bombs and pulse beams were going off and dropping on us during my teens. I let the memories slide by, shaking loose those frightful, estranged years of a lost youth. I blinked, emotionally spent, such feelings suppressed for decades now.
I’d take these victims to a far off world and let them start fresh, give them a second chance like Wren. They deserved it. The boy I had set right came hesitantly forward, touched my mechno hand. He smiled. I placed my good hand over his with a startled glance.
I felt a stir tingle in my breast. Seeing those grateful, teary-eyed faces affected me. A wave of something memorable and wholesome blossomed in the depraved chaos of this world for a change. It was a spark of some miniscule change. So much different from the killing and the violence, the cons and blowing everything to shit. It had been so long since I had experienced anything comparable.
Wren came beside me and curled an arm about my waist. She flashed me her lopsided grin.
I thought of that tech hid in the warehouse north of Hoath and a derisive rumble caught in my throat. Let Mong search the universe for it. The bastard’d never find it and I’d never go back to retrieve it.
The phaso I’d keep as a souvenir to remind me of what I had lost. But the other half of the amalgamator would sit there and rot in the darkness. No place for that evil caricature of bug-alien engineering in a human world. I thought of Billy’s demise and TK’s grief-stricken face before he died. It sent chills down my spine. No less that harrowing glimpse I’d caught out in nowhere land when I touched the phaso. All together, it had cost me my hand and taken a year off my life, or more. But it had given me something else—a sense of purpose. A spur that had driven me to liberate these downtrodden people, whom I never would have met or helped otherwise.
Somehow I knew there’d be more victims squirming like worms on the hooks of evil scumbags like Baer, Pazarol and the fanatic Mong.
I gave a gusty sigh and swung back to the bridge with Wren. “Going all maudlin on us, Rusco? Need to step up your game, I think.” I croaked out a laugh and drew nearer to my companion-in-arms, a crooked grin pasted on my haggard face and my eyes agleam. “Wren, you ever hear of Xerxes station out in Perseus?”
“No, should I?”
“Well, it’s remote, certainly off the radar of the big moguls. Far from Mong, far from terror. Easy pickings. We could work ourselves a master con. Dress you up real pretty. Minimum risk. That boy shows plenty of promise too.”
“Leave the boy out of it. But I’m game.”
STARVENGER
BOOK III
Chapter 1
I drove the loaded flatbed with an itchy foot on the accelerator. I cursed every pile of rubbly shit that made me deke around and waste more time. Bad enough to have to maneuver through a war zone than to drive this claptrap two-ton shipment in to the rebel dropoff point. Why hadn’t I allowed myself more time?
Hindsight, Rusco. Everything’s easy in hindsight.
Many times I’d have to tell
myself the same thing. This road was blocked like the last, sprawled with some building that’d caved, spreading across the pavement like a broken tower of Babel. The city was a shambles. Courtesy of dear old Mong, our friendly neighborhood warlord, Star Lord, whatever the hell, who had torn through every nook and cranny of this metropolis. Made an example of this rebel city with his Warhawks. The insurgents would certainly like our precious cargo, that tickletrunk of fiery, feral goodies in the back, everything a diehard, red-eyed rebel could ever want to use against a hated enemy—RPGs, land mines, R4s, death-dealing fire flares. Only problem was, I wondered if they’d still be there. We were late to dropoff with all this backtracking and I’d already been running far behind on the long haul from Uziles in Veglos where we loaded the stuff. Not to mention nursing a very bad feeling about this gig in the first place.
Too late to back out now. Too much invested. You’re up to your neck, Rusco. You’ve a reputation to keep. Backing out has its price.
Wren was at my side in the truck’s cab, calm as the quiet before storm, her shiny dark hair grown back from its ugly baldness when I had met her. Could smell the faint odor of her sweat. Three blond youngbloods hunched in the back behind us, breathing down my neck. A trio of hothead punks I’d brought in on short notice. Breaking them in. Good training for their lot. Blest had potential, but Klane, well, dunno about Klane. Could go either way—something off with his logic. Tager, worth a chance, but I’d dump him if he messed up.
Sweat beaded under my brow, the grey showing to the discerning eye. I tossed back my faddish, purple-dyed pony tail kept tied as a nostalgic gimmick while I still had hair. I stretched my six foot frame in that cramped cabin, tired and yawning from the long space flight across the black gulfs, stewing over these zany last minute plans.
I looked around the terrain and shook my head. Too many worlds like this one, blown to shit. Wartorn prizes of space thugs and warlords, captains of disaster and ragged-eared dogs fighting over graveyard bones in a planet-wide slurry. The few pristine worlds left would be sodomized by warlords and gangsters before the decade was up. I knew it in my heart. The rest had fallen into corruption, decay, death. I’d grown up into it and it was no different now than it was say, thirty years ago. If anything, worse.
Enough doom and gloom, Rusco. Get on with the program.
After a brief recap of our plans, I screeched the tires to a halt on the warehouse asphalt and ordered my new recruits out. Wren sauntered out like a lioness, slinging her R4 rifle over her lean, sinewy shoulder.
I squinted around in the opaque light. The sullen sky did not improve what I saw. A rectangular shitbox of a warehouse, steel refab beams leaning on drunken angles. The lot, strewn with crumbled concrete, was no better than the rest of the city: a write-off. Some wrecked vehicles and lift loaders to the side, nothing now but mangled junk fallen to the fire of warships. An overturned jeep sprawled with bent wheels and a jerry-rigged flamethrower mounted on overhead bars. Made to look like an abandoned base, I guessed. Ten to one there were assault vehicles tucked inside just waiting to burst out and wreak havoc. To the other side lurked a tangled thicket that backed out onto another yard and some open land beyond, here at the western edge of the city. Broken light-posts teetered around the lot’s perimeter. Remarkably, one tall one still stood and its yellow lamp burned feebly by the warehouse door where some activity caught my eye.
Two sets of explosives I carried hidden in my breast armor, coin-size, not easily detectable. In case things went awry. Any arms dealer would have them. We wore fatigues, dirty grey and green-black, padded. All of us wore Kevlar vests underneath. “You know the drill,” I grunted at them. “No embellishments. Everything to plan.” I stared at Klane who’d already shown a tendency to waver from orders.
They growled at that. Two of them gave nods. These recruits still gave me cause for worry. Wren I needn’t worry about. She was an asset: wiry, statuesque, a gutsy brunette. We’d worked together before and she’d gotten me out of a lot of jams. Big ones. Like the one where we were shipwrecked on Talyon when Baer and his thugs had pinned us down. We knew each other. I’d fight to the end for Wren.
Two armed men stepped out of the doorway and motioned us to a rusted side entrance while others poked the back of the truck with their rifles, lifting a flap to peer in with oily smiles. They didn’t disarm us but I noticed they kept their sawed-off R4s well-trained on us—probably in case we were agents of Mong. The detail escorted us none too gently into the half bombed warehouse, down a stale-aired hallway reeking of kerosene and old cheese. From there, to a dim backroom with a rat-eaten table and two bulbs burning overhead.
The nearest man jumped up from a stool: Froy, our contact. He turned about with a scowl, impatient, surly, a half-chewed beedi leaning out of his tar-gummed mouth. “You’re late.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a fucking far way from Veglos,” I said. “We were told this is the place and that we should bring no others and here we are.”
Froy grunted, unimpressed.
The man was cloaked in ragged brown fatigues, frayed at the edges, hair askew. He’d suffered multiple wounds recently, judging by the hackjob on his khakis. Looked as if he hadn’t bathed in weeks. Pearly eyes were round saucers into nowhere as he blinked at us. I’d seen eyes like that on wartorn mongrels before. The enlarged whites gleamed—the mark of the invinco addict and crack hashish user if I’ve ever seen one, mixed with Myscol OD, floating in his blood. With nothing to lose, these war types remained volatile to the end. A chip on their shoulders as big as an anvil and an axe to grind. I looked at him in casual disinterest, hoping to disarm him. It failed. The situation would require careful maneuvering.
His henchmen who’d escorted us from the flatbed shifted, and one inclined his head with a flick of eyes. “They came in on a truck, Froy.”
“A truck? You check it?”
“It’s got the stuff.”
“Good.” Froy nodded, momentarily appeased, but still wound as tight as a prowling tiger. “I thought you were coming in on a ship, Rusco.” His voice was low, sinister.
“Plans change.”
“Yeah, and so does the price, smart guy. I just dropped it. Bad for you. Market’s low today, as is my mood.”
Klane surged forward. “What do you mean, dropped?” The gunman choked, licking his lips, gripping his R4.
Froy turned to him. “What does ‘price dropped’ mean to you, kid? You deaf or something?”
“Relax. Cool it,” I said, clutching at his elbow.
The idiot wriggled out of my grip. “Less profit for us, Rusco. We’ve got to get a profit out of this.”
Froy gave a sour laugh. “Profit? Kiss your boss’s ass for profit. This is wartime.”
I suddenly felt a noticeable dip in our security here. The hothead lout, Klane, was all elbows and knees, clacking teeth, as if Santa Claus had denied him a toy. Too worried about losing his share of the spoils, dumbfuck. Made a move too fast which spooked Froy’s nearest boy. The gunman’s barrel came up and Klane took this as a threat and whirled his piece about, another stupid move. He had the butt end braced in his gut like a gangster. The clack of fire nearly killed our ears in that tiny place. Klane’s innards spilled over the floor and his head exploded in a crimson mash like a melon bursting.
I jerked back, a warm sickness swarming my gut. “What the fuck—” I ducked, wiping the putrid slime of Klane’s brains off my camos. “You stupid dipshit, Froy. Why the hell did you do that?”
“Get them to shut up, Garr.” Froy stabbed out a fist at his men. “Bind these fuckers. Pissed me off enough today, and it’s been a bad day. We won’t be paying anybody anything today, Rusco. Mong’s up our ass. My cousin and his brother, Joely, are jelly. They wouldn’t have been corpses today if you bags of shit had showed up on time…if we had your RPGs in our hands and used them to cut down those pinkos. Cost us too many lives today. Too many valuable lives.”
In any other scenario, we would be toast. But Wren and I had
already acted. I pulled the pin on one of my coin-size bombs and chucked it at Froy’s three minions. We dove for the exit just as gunfire raked the air where we’d been. Blest and Tager, likewise lucky, saved their heads from being shot off. We raced down the hallway, a motley misfit of four, me, lifting my weapon, blowing out the hanging bulbs. Wren bowled over a surprised guard at the door while we burst through the rusted exit and raced for the flatbed.
The seconds passed like hours in a nightmare. The first piff-paff of shells came spraying at us and I flung myself to my stomach, breathing tarmac. One of the goons came coughing out of the smoke, shooting blind. I pulled out the second flash bomb, and chucked it. Three of them disappeared in a cloud of smoke and blood splatter. Not before the first one had riddled our ride’s tires to useless shreds. No getting away on this rig or retrieving the cargo.
“Fuck!” I breathed. “Out of here.” I gave back covering fire while I pushed Wren and the other two toward the tangled thicket breasting the lot. “Move!”
We ran with fire flare eating at the foliage around us.
Blest’s sweat-laced face was wide-eyed with terror, a curse on his lips. “Screw you, Rusco! I didn’t sign up for this shit.”
“What did you sign up for then? Tiddlywinks? Get your ass moving.”
We struggled through the brambles, getting pricked like divers in a school of blowfish. The least of our concerns. More rebels must have buzzed out of the warehouse and swarmed after us while I felt the riffle of shots at my feet and a whizz over my ear. One grazed my thigh; not enough to damage me, but it hurt like hell. Bee stings soaked in vinegar.
“Fucking hot-headed rebels fueled up on rage, having their city sacked.” Seems as if they’d forgotten who their friends were.
Chapter 2
A hail of fire blizzarded over our heads. We broke out of the scorched thicket, hopped the next yard and raced down a gravel path with the intent to loop back toward the city closer to where my ship was hidden. Froy’s goons were somewhere behind us, shooting away. I caught muffled echoes of boot on gravel, stray shots, shouts.