by Rachel Aukes
A small smile rose on Anna’s face, giving her the look of a viper. “We can help each other.”
Throttle’s brows rose. She remained silent.
Anna continued, “Hinze tells me that you abandoned the Gabriela with a crew of seven, yet only four of you entered Jade-8. What happened to the other four members of your crew?”
“Lost to the black,” Throttle said.
Anna eyed her for a moment. “I think they’re still on board one of your other ships. You arrived here on the Javelin, but Hinze told me that the name of the ship you left in was the Scorpia. If that’s true, how did you come to acquire the Javelin? Hinze wasn’t familiar with that ship, and he is quite familiar with you and your mission.”
Throttle still said nothing.
Anna waved her hand in the air, and Throttle noticed she bore the same tattoo on her wrist that Hinze had. “The Javelin doesn’t matter. I have little interest in that ship. What matters is that Hinze told me that the Scorpia is a gunship. Is that true?” Anna asked.
Throttle glanced at the man holding a bloody rag to his broken nose. She turned back to Anna. “It’s true.”
“And it has stealth capabilities?”
“It does.”
Throttle noticed the excitement building in Anna.
“Where is the Scorpia now?” Anna asked quickly.
Throttle said nothing.
Anna sighed. “I hope you understand what’s at risk. If the Scorpia falls into Jakob’s hands, there’s nothing stopping him from taking over all of Jade-8. While we each have some armaments of our own, there’s never been a ship with stealth capabilities in the Ross system before. In the wrong hands, it could wreak havoc on innocent colonists.”
“And yours are the right hands?”
“I’m trying to maintain a balance of power.”
“What happens if I deliver it to you?”
Anna grinned as though a small child had learned a simple trick. “Why, then I’ll offer you and your entire crew contracts to join my fleet.”
“And if I don’t deliver the Scorpia to you?” Throttle asked.
She frowned. “Then I’m afraid you won’t see any of your crew again.”
Throttle watched the woman for a lengthy silence before speaking. “Release me. Release Nolin. And I’ll bring the Scorpia to you.”
“I don’t believe you,” Anna said simply. “Both of you remain behind bars until the Scorpia is in my docks.”
“But if I can’t talk to my crew—”
Anna tutted. “I know you have one of those communication devices on your forearm, just like Hinze has. You can talk to them at any time. You can even speak with Nolin to know he’s alive and well. But you will not leave this cell until I have that gunship.”
“I won’t bring the Scorpia to you,” Throttle said.
Anna’s features hardened. “You have one day. If that ship isn’t in my docks within the next twenty-four hours, then you’ll watch Nolin die.”
Anna turned and left with her security forces. Hinze followed, but not before giving Throttle a sneer.
Throttle thought of Anna East’s words and knew that Anna had no intention of letting Throttle and Nolin live. Anna would know that Throttle would carry a vendetta, rightfully so, against someone who’d taken two ships and over eight hundred passengers from her. Throttle also knew that she could never let the Scorpia fall into Anna East’s hands. Meeting the woman in person was enough to learn that East was far too dangerous to add another gunship to her collection.
She returned to the small cot and sat down. She glanced around her cell and saw a tiny camera in the corner. She turned from the camera and switched her wrist-comm to a gray mode, which displayed all texts in code. She took a couple of deep breaths before rolling up her sleeve and tapping her wrist-comm. She saw several missed crew broadcast messages from Nolin and Birk. It took her several seconds to convert the code to text in her mind.
NOLIN: IN AN EAST CELL. ALONE.
BIRK: I SEE YOUR LOCATION. THROTTLE SHOWS TWENTY FEET TO THE RIGHT. THROTTLE—WHAT’S YOUR STATUS?
NOLIN: I THINK I CAN HEAR HER DOWN THE HALL. THEY SEPARATED US.
BIRK: THROTTLE—CHECK IN.
Five minutes passed.
BIRK: THROTTLE—CHECK IN.
Another five minutes passed.
BIRK: THROTTLE—CHECK IN.
Throttle tapped a reply and broadcast: NOLIN & I NEED JAILBREAK WITHIN 24 HRS.
She then sent all known details about the cell she stood in. If Birk had a specialty, it was breaking into things. She stared at her screen and waited for a response that didn’t come for nearly ten minutes.
BIRK: REMEMBER THE DEVIL TOWN BANK JOB?
Throttle thought for a moment before her eyes widened. She tapped a quick, YES. BE CAREFUL. THERE ARE CAMERAS IN CELLS.
BIRK: WHERE ARE THE CAMERAS LOCATED?
THROTTLE: TOP LEFT INSIDE CORNER BY BARS.
NOLIN: SAME FOR ME.
BIRK: DO THEY HAVE A BLIND SPOT?
Throttle casually strolled around her cell, keeping the camera in view through the corner of her eye. When she stood in the corner, directly below the camera, she looked up. The camera was implanted in the ceiling material to where she couldn’t see it, meaning that they couldn’t see her.
She returned to her wrist-comm: 0.5 M2 BLIND SPOT DIRECTLY BELOW THE CAMERA.
BIRK: GOOD. HOW ABOUT GUARDS?
THROTTLE: NONE NEARBY.
BIRK: GOOD. BE READY.
NOLIN: WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?
BIRK: YOU’LL SEE!
When Throttle’s comm went silent, she leaned back and waited.
Chapter Eleven
The Jader pirate started making a fuss as soon as he came back to consciousness.
Finn punched the man, knocking him out cold once again. “What was the Devil Town bank job you were talking about?” he asked.
Birk beamed. “Only the most successful bank heist in all of Devil Town’s history. Remember hearing about the Great Heist of 871?”
His partner shook his head. “No.”
Birk frowned. “How could you not have heard about that? We made off with over ten million credits’ worth of platinum.”
The other man shrugged. “I never heard of it.”
“That’s because you were probably still living on Alluvia then. Those news feeds hid all the real news. That bank job was glorious. You should’ve seen us—we were in and out an hour before they knew they’d been hit.”
Finn seemed less than interested. “Okay, so what’s our plan? How are we getting Throttle and Nolin out of those cells?”
Birk held up a finger. “First, we need to grab the right tool for the job.”
“And what tool is that?”
Birk grinned. “A construction-grade laser cutter. My cutter won’t do the job we need done.”
Finn frowned. “How are we going to find one of those on a space colony?”
Birk held up two fingers. “Two of those. We’ll need two cutters so we can break out both Throttle and Nolin at the same time.”
“And you plan to just walk right up to their cells and cut through the walls?”
Birk shook his head. “We’ll cut through the floors.”
“How do you even know we can get under the floors?”
“Because all levels have a level below them. All the wiring and plumbing has to run somewhere.” He hoped that was the case on Jade-8. The truth was, he was winging it and had no idea if any of the pieces would fall in place, let alone the entire plan. Even if the plan fell through, he’d find another way. He’d never leave Throttle and Nolin behind.
Finn looked dubious. “Maybe we should come up with another plan.”
Birk raised a brow. “Oh? And you have a better idea?”
“We’re already close to them. I think we should cut the power in that zone, and we rush in and retrieve them.”
At least they had a backup plan, and Birk admitted that Finn’s plan sounded about
as realistic as his did. Instead, he said, “That sounds like a good way to get ourselves killed. You’re a soldier—rushing in with guns blazing is what you do. I, on the other hand, am a pirate. Trust me. I’m used to breaking into places.”
Finn’s brows rose. “The last time you said to trust you, you tried to fidget with the Javelin’s gravity settings, and Rusty had to reboot the Javelin’s environmentals to keep us all from dying.”
Birk waved him off. “Everything would’ve been fine if Rusty’s systems were like all the others I’ve used. Besides, Rusty fixed things up before we froze to death.”
“But not before frost covered all the windows and my fingertips went numb.”
“There are no systems to deal with on this rescue. It’s an iron-clad plan.”
Finn watched him through narrowed eyes. “Okay, fine. Where do we find laser cutters? I haven’t seen any wings under construction so far.”
“We’re not going to waste time looking for job sites. Instead, we go to the one place that’s sure to have laser cutters with the power we need.”
“And where’s that?” the brown-haired man asked.
“The recycling center, of course.”
Finn rubbed his forehead. “I’m already regretting going with your plan.”
That makes two of us. Birk shook off the doubt, cracked open the closet door, and peeked out. The hallway was as empty as it’d been when they dragged the Jader into the small room. “It’s clear,” he said and went to push open the door all the way.
“Wait.”
Birk looked over his shoulder.
His partner motioned to the crumpled body on the floor. “Leaving him here like this is a risk.”
Birk turned to face his fellow crew member and shrugged. “What do you think we should do with him?”
Finn grimaced and pulled out a knife.
Birk frowned. “No. We don’t kill people we don’t have to kill.”
“We have to kill him. He jeopardizes our plan and puts our lives at risk.” Finn’s frown deepened; then he held his knife out for Birk. “Here, you take care of it. Pirates kill people all the time.”
“I’m reformed,” he said in a rush. “I can’t believe you want to kill him. He’s unconscious.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to kill him, but it’s him or us. He can report us, and that would put our entire team in danger.”
Birk waved him off. “Just leave him here. We’ll be long gone before he wakes up.”
Finn eyed the unconscious man before slowly sheathing his blade. Relief seemed to have washed over his tight features.
Birk shook his head. Pirates got a bad rap. Sure, he’d killed more than a few people in his career, but most of those kills were done out of self-preservation. It turned out that most of the public world found pirates to be a bad thing. Those kills didn’t bother him—it was either him or them. But he still regretted the ones that hadn’t been made in self-defense.
Soldiers, on the other hand, had killed far more people than all the pirates in the Trappist system had. Plus, soldiers had the law on their side. To them, death was the main part of the job. Birk never agreed with that notion, and he wondered how ingrained that way of thinking was when it came to Finn.
Birk pushed open the door and stepped into the hallway. Finn followed, and the pair headed to the nearest wall screen. Birk brushed over the menus to pull up a map of Jade-8. Recycling drop-offs were located on every wing of the colony, though he found no indicators of a recycling center. He zoomed in on their area and pointed at the nearest drop-off. “We start here.”
A thump sounded from the direction they’d come from, and Birk grimaced.
“He’s awake,” Finn said drily.
Birk shot a glance at his partner and then strode down the hallway in the opposite direction of the closet. He knew if he hadn’t moved, Finn would’ve returned to the closet and finished the job, and Birk wasn’t so sure if Finn would’ve been in the right to do so. At least Finn had seemed troubled by the idea of killing an unconscious prisoner. Birk had problems with people who found killing easy. His old pirate captain had tried to teach Birk to take a utilitarian approach to death. Luckily for Birk, many of those teachings hadn’t stuck.
The pair entered the main hallway and walked quickly, but not too quickly, as Birk knew the cameras stationed every few hundred feet in the main hallway were recording them. His nerves calmed as he put distance between the Jader and them. They couldn’t hear the man’s pounding anymore, which meant no one else could either. They continued until they reached a dead-end hallway with a green recycling triangle sign above the entrance to it.
The pair entered to find an old woman emptying her refuse into a large opening in the wall. She was stooped over and dropping containers into the opening one at a time, moving at a frozen snail’s pace.
The two men eyed each other, impatient.
Birk stepped forward. “Allow me to assist, ma’am.” He picked up her bag and dumped the contents through the opening and handed the bag to her, giving her a warm smile. “Here you go.”
Instead of taking her bag, she reached out and wrapped her hands around his. She gave a wide smile, revealing yellow, rotted teeth. “Thank you, my dear young man. Not many kids these days show any care. It’s nice to see there are a few good ones still out there.”
Birk continued to give her a warm smile even though the stench of her breath nearly made him gag. He pulled away and slid the bag onto her arm. “Well, you take care of yourself.”
She patted him and waddled away. The pair watched her as she departed the small hallway using the slowest gait Birk had ever seen. As she entered the hallway, she was nearly plowed over by two security guards.
“Watch it, lady,” one of the men said before continuing in their rush.
“Watch yourselves!” she clamored out behind them.
Birk shot a glance at Finn, whose features had grown tight. “I think someone found our friend.”
The two men rushed to the opening.
Finn frowned as he scanned the walls. “There’s no door.”
“Yes, there is,” Birk said and motioned to the square opening in the wall.
Finn’s eyes widened. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m always serious. Okay, well, maybe not all the time, but right now, I’m completely serious.”
“We don’t know what’s down there. We could get shredded or incinerated,” Finn said.
“Nah. All the garbage goes to a central processing unit to be separated and recycled.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because I’ve been down a garbage chute before, back in the gardens on Darios,” Birk answered.
“You’re talking about a completely different place. A completely different star system,” he exclaimed.
“I’m sure they’re all the same. After all, how many different ways are there to sort garbage?”
Finn shot him a dubious look. Noise in the hallway caused him to tense and look over his shoulder.
“Come on. We have to move,” Birk said and hoisted himself up to the opening. He sat in the opening and winced at the stink of garbage before shooting a quick glance at his compatriot. He turned back to the garbage chute, slung his backpack around to hug it to his chest, and pushed himself forward before he changed his mind.
The garbage chute was slicker than he’d expected. What did they line the metal with? His body raced down the chute, and he clutched his backpack to his chest to keep from breaking his wrists against the sides. He could hear Finn right behind him but couldn’t look. Everything was going by too fast, though he couldn’t see anything in the dark. Soon, a light glow in the distance brought a dim light back into the chute.
Birk looked over his pack, and his eyes grew wide. He held out his feet to the sides, trying to slow himself down, but the lining on the chute was more slippery than anything he’d ever encountered. He twisted and ended up turned around, diving head-first at the growing star of b
rightness. The chute became warmer as he zoomed toward the fiery gold light.
Birk fumbled with his pack until he found the tool he was looking for. He shot the rappelling hook the instant he had a grip. A clang sounded when metal cut through metal, and he locked the cable. He didn’t have time to connect the other hook to his waist and instead gripped onto the tool as it yanked him to an instant stop. He was swung right side up in time to see the man-sized torpedo dive into him. He held onto the grappling tool with both hands and bent at the hips to try to fill the tunnel and keep Finn from sliding past Birk.
“Whoa!”
One hundred and eighty pounds of speeding muscle slammed into Birk. The air shot from his lungs, and pain rammed his torso and thighs. A sharp pain in his hand let him know that his grip had been imperfect, but he didn’t let go. Finn outweighed Birk by a good thirty pounds, but somehow Birk had managed to not only stop the other man’s descent but hold them both. The pair had come to an immediate stop, but it took a few seconds before either could speak.
They’d stopped less than five feet from a laser shredder.
Finn began with a grunt. “That was…”
“Fun?” Birk finished as his muscles shook under the constant weight.
“No. That was not anywhere even close to fun.”
Birk hazarded a glance below him as a roll of tape from his bag tumbled out of his open pack. The tape rolled down the chute and was sliced by the bars of a laser shredder less than five feet from where they’d stopped.
“Oh hell,” Finn muttered.
Birk gulped. “I can’t hold us much longer, so I hope you have a bright idea and fast.”
There was a pause longer than Birk liked.
“Try not to move.” Finn pulled out his blaster.
“Trying,” Birk gritted out.
Finn aimed at the ceiling of the chute just before the shredder and fired several shots. “Okay. I’m going to climb down you. I need you to hold on just a bit longer.”
“That ‘just a bit’ had better be not very long at all,” Birk countered. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his entire arms and stomach were now shaking as he tried to hold both their weight in a garbage chute that provided no friction whatsoever.