by M. D. Cooper
Grayson checked the broader system scan. A dozen SSF ships that had been pushed out to the system’s Scattered Disk were on their way to reinforce him, but they were still several hours out.
The ISF lieutenant wasn’t wrong. The Fury would have to fend for itself.
The ISF destroyers focused their fire on clearing out the vector Grayson had indicated, and then he directed Helm to pull the Polis Fury back from the fray.
“We’re retreating?” Fallon asked, her eyebrow raised as she regarded the holodisplay.
“We’re getting out of the way,” Grayson replied. “The ISF ships can do this on their own, no need to hamstring them further.”
“What about the SSF showing our strength?” she asked.
Grayson laughed. “Trust me, Major. This is just the beginning. It’s going to take weeks to bring this system to heel—as much as it ever can be, that is.”
“Should just purge the whole fucking place,” Fallon muttered.
Grayson didn’t grace her statement with a reply. Once, he’d felt the same way…that Gedri was a cesspool. He’d believed it had no place in the Silstrand Alliance, and that the legitimacy they had as a member was little more than a bad joke.
But after spending time in the system, getting to know the people on multiple stations and planets, he’d come to learn that most of them just wanted to live their lives in peace.
“People just want to be people,” he said quietly.
“Pardon?” Fallon grunted out the word.
“Nothing.”
The pair watched in silence as the ISF destroyers waded into the fight, their shields flaring brightly as the impenetrable defense systems simply shrugged off all incoming fire. Even though he’d seen it before, when the ISF destroyed the Revolution Fleet in Silstrand, that had been with the I2 present.
It wasn’t at all surprising to see a thirty-six-kilometer leviathan of a ship smash an enemy fleet, but watching two small destroyers go up against hundreds of opposing ships was something else entirely.
He was impressed with more than just the ISF’s technology, the fact that their people were willing to help deal with Silstrand’s issues when it was thousands of light years from their homeworld boggled the mind.
He couldn’t imagine traveling hundreds of light years to engage in a war, let alone thousands—and Tanis had warned him that the battlefront would only get larger.
That’s not my concern. I have one job: secure Gedri. That starts with capturing Maverick. He paused, considering how that would go. Though I won’t shed a tear if he doesn’t make it.
“Look at that.” Fallon pointed at a group of privateer freighters that had been holding the planet-side of Valhalla Station. “They’re fleeing.”
As she spoke, an atom beam lanced out from the Kent, cutting a cruiser in half, while another streaked out from the Perdition, boiling away a railgun mounted on Valhalla.
“Can you blame them?” he asked. “They don’t stand a chance.”
Without needing to protect the Polis Fury, the pair of ISF ships waded right into the midst of the defenders, fighting in a fashion Grayson had never seen before. It was like watching reenactments of battles between ancient ocean-going fleets, ships broadsiding one another across a few dozen kilometers.
With the ships holding the planet-side of the station fleeing, Valhalla’s defense began to crumble. Grayson estimated that in fifteen minutes, the station would surrender.
“Satisfaction is on the move,” Scan announced. “They’ve pulled away from Valhalla Station. Looks like a vector that will take them down to Laerdo Station.
“Acknowledged,” Grayson replied.
Grayson’s lips drew into a thin line.
The colonel nodded silently, considering his options, as one of the ISF destroyers holed another of Maverick’s privateer cruisers.
“Helm, take us down on an intercept.”
“The Satisfaction is a fully outfitted warship,” Major Fallon warned. “It can go toe to toe with us.”
Grayson nodded. “And even if it won, it wouldn’t get a light second out before our two friends caught up with it. Maverick’s not going to take the time to engage with us, though.”
“No?”
The colonel shifted, standing arms akimbo as he regarded the dot that represented the Satisfaction. “He’ll run. He’s not the sort to engage in a straight-up fight.”
TO GROUND
STELLAR DATE: 10.14.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: GFS Satisfaction, approaching Laerdo Station
REGION: Gedri System, Silstrand Alliance
“What’s our ETA?” Maverick demanded as he strode onto the Satisfaction’s bridge. “Those fuckers aren’t going to be too far behind us.”
“Seventeen minutes,” Captain Lawrence said, rising from his command seat and offering it to Maverick.
Ignoring the man’s gesture, the president swept past, striding to the forward display, glaring at it as though he could change the course of events by force of will alone.
Jerrod said.
Maverick replied.
They watched the battle unfold for a few seconds before Maverick blurted out, “Where the hell did that stupid puke get those ships? How can hulls that small have shields like that?”
“I don’t know,” Lawrence said in a quiet voice as he approached. “Nothing we throw at them gets through. But their fleet ident—”
“Intrepid.” Maverick slashed a hand through the air. “I know. Like the ship that wiped out the Mark and Pedro at Bollam’s World. But why are they here? Why now?”
Even though he’d asked the question, Maverick already knew the answer. It was the nanotech he’d sought. There had always been whispers that it was from Tanis Richards, the famed leader who defeated the five fleets at Bollam’s. She’d been seen in Silstrand months earlier.
Something Maverick could personally confirm.
And now Grayson was attacking with ISF ships at his beck and call.
Fuckers want payback. The both of them. Well, they’ll have to find me to claim victory, and that’s something they’ll never do.
Maverick had climbed his way up to the top of the ladder on Jericho. He knew of a thousand boltholes where he could avoid capture, leading a resistance that would wear down the SSF until they ceded Gedri as not being worth it.
So far as he was concerned, the fight was just getting started.
“If you want to get to Laerdo or the surface faster, you could take a pinnace,” Lawrence suggested. “Then we don’t have to brake to match v with the station.”
Maverick turned, glaring at the captain. “Are you kidding? Out there in just a pinnace? Those ships have atom beams. I’d be a sitting duck.”
“Yes, sir, but a pinnace is highly maneuverable. At that range, even they won’t be able to track—”
“No.” Maverick said the word with a note of finality that caused the captain to swallow and nod wordlessly. “You have twelve minutes to get me onto Laerdo.”
“Yes, President,” the captain replied meekly.
Maverick turned and strode off the bridge, his voice filled with rage as he shouted, “Francis!”
* * * * *
“Holy shit!” Major Fallon exclaimed. “Did you see that? The Satisfaction probably fried three decks of Laerdo, pulling that maneuver.”
Grayson wondered what else Fallon thought he would have been looking at. “I saw it. Looks like Maverick is in a hurry.”
“And he doesn’t care who he hurts.” The major seemed strangely put out.
“Uh…yeah.” Grayson nodded. “He’s a crime lord. That’s sort of how he operates on the regular.”
“But he’s the president of Gedri now.”
“I don’t think that alters how he sees things.”
Fallon didn’t say anything in response, but Grayson could tell she disapproved—a sentiment that seemed foolish. Maverick was a scumbag. Expecting something noble out of him was ridiculous.
“Helm,” Grayson turned to the woman in the pilot’s seat. “Alice is going to pass you a course. We’re going to do a drive-by.”
The woman’s eyes widened, but she nodded without hesitation. “Aye, sir.”
“Major Fallon,” Grayson addressed his XO. “You have the conn.”
She regarded him with steely eyes for several long seconds, and he wondered for a moment if she was going to debate his decision in front of the crew.
“Aye, sir,” she said at last. “I have the conn.”
Grayson walked off the bridge, knowing that, while Fallon may not like the plan, she’d execute it. If nothing else, the woman was a stickler for the rules.
Grayson chuckled.
Grayson nodded to a pair of ratings exiting the lift before he got on.
Seven minutes later, Grayson was armored up and strapped into the dropship with Commander Maureen and her platoon’s first squad. Sergeant George was haranguing a corporal over the condition of his armor, and the colonel suppressed a laugh.
Grayson chuckled at the idea.
Alice brought up a view of Jericho, with Montral’s position marked on the surface.
Grayson leant back as Sergeant George checked his gear. “Looking good, sir.”
“Thanks, Sergeant,” Grayson replied. “Keep up the good work.”
“Have to. If I don’t, these greenhorns would all be dead on the next drop.”
“Thank stars we have Papa George to keep us safe!” a soldier called out from the far end of the assault ship.
“Who said that?” the sergeant spun. “Gael, if that was you….”
Grayson laughed and shared a look with Commander Maureen.
“You ready?” she asked as the counter on the bulkhead ticked down past the two-minute mark.
“Hell yeah.”
Grayson was more than ready. After what Maverick had done to Kylie, to all of them, the man was going to find out what retribution looked like.
* * * * *
“Let’s go!” Kal said, striding through the group of refugees. “We’ll get up to the caves on the north slope and hope they don’t check that far.”
“And what if they do?” Karen asked.
“I’ve set up a few traps out there,” Kal replied. “Should be enough to thin their numbers.”
“Ha!” A voice came from right behind Kal. “Thanks for letting us know.”
Kal spun to see a man standing behind him, three others materializing around the refugees, weapons leveled at the crowd.
Barry reached for his rifle, but the man who had spoken only laughed. “Go for it, buddy. You wanna be responsible for us mowing down all these people? Bounty’s for ‘dead or alive’. Right now, you’re just lucky that it’s a pain to haul around this many bodies.”
Kal nodded at Barry, and the other man raised his hands.
“That’s a good boy,” the leader said.
“So…how big is the bounty?” Kal asked.
The man laughed. “Ten mil. Were you thinking you could offer something better?”
The thought had crossed Kal’s mind, but he knew there was no chance he could come up with that amount of credit. The bounty hunters knew it, too.
He was about to reply when a thooouuum shook the ground.
“What the hell?” one of the bounty hunters muttered, and Kal looked up at above the ravine walls.
The sound came again, the ground shuddering, and this time, he saw a bolt of light streak across the sky.
“City defenses are firing at something,” Kal said, his brow furrowing as he peered through the canopy overhead. “I—”
His words were drowned out by the thunder of a starship passing only a few kilometers overhead, its engines screaming even in the thin atmosphere.
Half the refugees dropped to the ground in terror, and one of the bounty hunters fell over as well, hands over his head.
Kal was moving a split second later. He swung his rifle around and fired a pulse blast at the leader, knocking him back, before flipping the rifle to its projectile mode and letting a trio of rounds fly at another of the enemies.
Barry had sprung into action as well and let a pulse blast loose at the guard closest to him.
Turning back toward the leader, Kal found himself face to face with the barrel of a rifle.
“You’re lucky we get more money if you’re alive,” the leader growled, as the sound of the starship passing overhead faded. “But maybe we should ice a few of your precious little slaves here. Then you can carry their bodies. How’s that sou—”
The man paused as a more thumps came from the city’s defensive emplacements.
“Now what?” he grunted.
There was another thump, this one followed by a bright light just to the west of the ravine. A thunder-like crack came a second later, and Kal hit the dirt.
“Down!”
STRAND
STELLAR DATE: 10.14.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Laerdo Station
REGION: Gedri System, Silstrand Alliance
“Let’s go!” Maverick motioned for the rest of his retinue and guards to get aboard t
he elevator car. “We drop in thirty seconds, whether your sorry asses are aboard or not.”
His pronouncement made, Gedri’s president strode across the elevator car to the observation windows that looked out over the planet below. He both hated and loved the barren world that hung against the black backdrop of space.
He’d been born down there two centuries prior, to penniless parents. They’d died young, but he hadn’t. Maverick had fought and clawed his way to the top of the heap, then he’d found a bigger heap and clawed his way to the top of that.
For the past ten years, he’d been the clear leader amongst the syndicates on Jericho—which had made him one of the most influential people in Gedri. The most powerful voice in the ear of the president.
Until Vaax had screwed it all up.
But he’d turned that to his advantage as well, becoming president himself. A title he should have had the time to enjoy before the SSF struck back.
“Grayson.” He muttered the word as though it were a curse. “You just had to make a beeline back here, didn’t you?”
The thought of the SSF colonel invariably led to thoughts of Kylie. Her ship had jumped out of Gedri along with a lot of other civilian vessels in the wake of the attack on The Futz by General Samuel.
That Grayson had come back without her told Maverick one of two things. Kylie was imprisoned, or she had gone off with her blue-haired lover, Nadine. Either way, stick-up-his-ass Grayson didn’t have Kylie either.
Small victories.
The elevator car shuddered slightly as it began to descend the strand to Montral below.
Maverick felt incredibly vulnerable riding down to the city on the elevator, descending the thousand kilometers from Laerdo Station to the surface on a fixed path. But shooting down the elevator to take him out would kill untold civilians, and Grayson was a by-the-book officer of the SSF. He wouldn’t endanger the people he was sworn to protect.
Which was why getting off a warship and into Montral was the safest option for Maverick. From there, he’d lock down the city and then disappear.
“Sir, you should step away from the window.”
Maverick turned to see Francis at his side. “Oh?”