by JC Hay
Copyright
Copyright 2017, JC Hay and Metal Pig Press
Cover Design by Flirtation Designs, 2017
Editing by Sasha Knight
This novel is a work of fiction. The characters, places, and incidents are either fictional or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living, dead, or reconstituted from digital memories; actual events, or implanted memories; or organizations is coincidental.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Flare: Team Corona (Great Space Race)
Welcome to the Great Space Race
One
Two
Confessional - Ax Turner
Three
Confessional - Kayana
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Confessional – Ax Turner
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Confessional – Kayana
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Epilogue
Need more Great Space Race?
Also by the Author
Acknowledgments
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
They could go all the way, or go straight to hell
All Kayana wants is respect. Jilted by her fiancé, turned out by her family, and rejected by her crew – she's got nothing left but the clothes on her back. When she hears about the cash prize for winning the Great Space Race, she realizes it's more than enough money to get her old life back. Or buy herself an asteroid someplace where she won't care what people think.
Ax Turner just needs to hide, and the Race gives him the best opportunity to do so. In plain sight. Surely the thugs and criminals he's ripped off won't come after him while cameras are rolling on the galaxy's most popular reality competition. And if they do, well, having a partner who's able to fight and looks like a devil seems like a win.
They're on the run - from the past, from the lethal challenges of the Great Race, from their feelings, and straight into each other. They've got more than their share of problems, and those secrets could drive them apart, or be the key to winning the biggest prize of all: each other.
Welcome to the Great Space Race
Grab yourself some cricket chips and a pixberry smoothie, find a comfy chair, and settle in for another visit to the galaxy’s most popular reality contest. Special thanks to CJ Cade for starting the show and herding all the cats. Special thanks to all the other authors who let me play in their sandboxes, but especially to Sabine Priestly, who let me get her characters in a spot of trouble.
For more information about the series, and a complete list of authors and titles, check out GreatSpaceRace.info
As you read other Great Space Race books, bear in mind that race producer Octiron Media is willing to do almost anything to make the show more exciting and improve ratings. That includes giving each team slightly different parameters for winning, and changing the rules as they go along!
For F’ –
You’re the best writing partner a person could want.
Thank you for helping me remember what’s important.
One
Okay, Ax Turner thought, this probably looks worse than it is.
Darryn’s extremely dead body was pinned beneath a fragment of superstructure, his atmo-tank spilling air out of a severed hose. While Ax wasn’t dead, he was struggling to find ways the situation could get worse. Unfortunately, few options presented themselves.
Another explosion rocked the ship, the loss of inertial-negation systems causing the luxury yacht to lurch to one side just before the artificial gravity went out completely. “Sorry, buddy,” he said to the corpse. “Octiron wanted excitement. I guess pirate attacks fit the bill.”
He shoved himself down the hall, arrowing through zero-g toward the panic room at the core of the ship. When he got there, the door had already been sealed, the bright red X on the control screen indicating that the current occupants had locked down the door for protection. Nothing, including blowing the ship apart around it, was going to open the door.
Not that Ax wasn’t game to try. He gripped the handle to keep from drifting off and hammered his feet into the door as he shouted, “Berniss, you larf-licking slime eel! Open the thrice-damned door!”
No response came from inside, but a holovid drone floated up to film his outburst. On the tiny panel to the right of the camera lenses Ax could see Berniss’s smiling face and her curling blonde up-do. “Great footage, Ax. Give me a little more desperation though.”
“If the fans enjoy this, they’re going to love when I give you a drone-based colonoscopy.” He took a swing at the drone, but it dodged nimbly on a puff of gas, leaving him tumbling in weightlessness. A solstice ornament, dislodged during the attack, drifted past him as he spun.
Berniss sniffed as Ax grabbed the rail to right himself. “That’s unlikely. Demographics say scatologic humor is too small a market share to chase down.”
He gave her the finger. “Chase that down. It’s not going to be much of a show if I get killed right out of the gate.”
“On the contrary, there are dozens of other ships, and death sells very well. Yours will just be a footnote on a very special episode of the Great Space Race.” The drone maneuvered to shoot from a Dutch angle, though it stayed close enough that he could still hear the holocamerawoman’s voice. “Besides, the bombardment has stopped. They haven’t fired again since they knocked out gravity.”
Ax held his breath and listened, floating in the hall. As much as he hated to admit it, she was right. There weren’t any more explosions rocking the ship. “Does that mean you’re coming out?”
Her laugh was as fake as her nails. “Oh hells no. Fluff and I are safe in here. For all we know, they’ve stopped shelling to allow for boarding torpedoes. We aren’t coming out until those pirates are in another sector.”
Of course Fluff was in there too. Ax had no clue where the animal had come from, but it had two skills—knowing who had a lap it could occupy, and knowing how to get far away from anything dangerous. The damned thing had probably beat the holocam reporter in. Ax resisted the urge to growl as he pushed himself away from the door. It would only make for good holovision, and he wasn’t in the mood to do anything that might improve Octiron’s ratings. They were only two days in to the Race after all, barely the start of the competition. Besides, if Berniss was right and the pirates were boarding, there’d be plenty of ratings-boosting material coming up. He didn’t need to help them.
That said, getting to the armory seemed like an above-average idea. Ax swam toward the elaborate wooden stairs that led down to the lower deck of the ship. He might be glad to have Gobby in his rear-facing sensors, but her insistence that every member of her crew practice microgravity drills suddenly felt a lot less annoying. His fingers caught on the aquari-chrome railing that graced the stairwell, and he started to pull himself over when a low, magnetic thump reverberated through the ship.
It sounded a lot more like a docking rig than a boarding torpedo.
Panic clawed its way up Ax’s spine and dug its talons into the back of his skull. Boarding torpedoes would have meant raiders, content to smash the place up, grab a few valuable trinkets, and leave the crippled ship in their wake. But if the pirates were docking, they wanted the ship and everyone o
n it as a prize. There’d be no hiding until they left, because they wouldn’t be leaving.
The airlock at one side of the central hall began to cycle, and Ax pulled himself under the lip of the elaborate stairs to the lower deck. For the first time since he’d come aboard he appreciated the yacht’s spacious design. Octiron wanted the ships to look good on holocam, so instead of the typical cramped spaces and claustrophobic hallways, the ships for the Great Space Race were built with open spaces and plenty of light. Each was unique—a shiny product placement ad for the shipyards that built it. In their case, Corona Stellaris had outfitted the yacht with top-of-the-line fixtures, and covered everything with Rentallian hardwoods and Yestrian aquari-chrome. The lack of bulkheads and minimal pressure doors made it a deathtrap in the event of a hull breach, but at the moment, it gave him a great and unexpected vantage point from which to view the invaders.
The inner door of the airlock swung open, and an armored devil stormed straight out of hell and onto the ship. Flame wreathed one taloned red hand, casting orange highlights on the polished black armor, while enormous flaming wings unfurled behind her.
Her.
Ax had enough time to register that the demon was female before he heard the puff of gas that indicated the holocam drone was nearby. He ducked below the lip of the stairs and spotted the drone directly below him. Light flared from its housing as the drone illuminated his hiding space to get a better picture, which guaranteed he wouldn’t be able to hide for long. He shoved off the ceiling and barreled straight down into the drone. It tried to dodge like before, but Ax was ready and snaked out an arm to reel it in. Momentum carried him and the drone toward the far corner of the lower level, and he cushioned his advance by putting the drone between himself and the wall. The crunch of it smashing was too loud in the small space, but when he released the drone, it floated in place, lights dead on its control surfaces.
Berniss would be pissed. Hell, Octiron wasn’t going to be especially happy. Regardless, if they wanted a show, they could rely on the cameras that covered the interior spaces of the ship. They could bill him for the drone. Assuming he had any money left after paying off his debts.
And assuming Gobby left enough of him alive after he paid her. That wasn’t exactly guaranteed. Ax pushed it aside; he could worry about her killing him after he’d survived the current predicament, and that meant getting a weapon.
He looked at the drone floating nearby. Or improvising one.
Magnetic boots thunked as the boarders stalked across the upper deck. Ax had no doubt that they’d heard him, but with luck they might think it was damage on the ship settling, rather than a frightened survivor. He pulled open the door to the armory just enough to admit him, watching the top of the stairs the entire time. No one appeared, so he ducked inside and dragged the drone with him.
Certain he was alone, he tugged his electrical toolkit off his belt and removed the panel from the side of the drone. As he’d expected, it wasn’t too different from the unmanned remotes he’d played with as a kid, with only a handful of servos controlling the entire drone. Ax smiled. At least something was going in his favor. The pirates were going to find him sooner or later, but he planned to make damn sure that the surprise went both ways when they showed up.
IN THE NAME OF THE Nine Great Houses of Malebrank, this ship was a nightmare, designed by an idiot. Kayana stood at the edge of a wide-open space that dominated the center of the ship. An actual spiral staircase curved gracefully to the lower deck. The floors had been finished in polished wood, and blue metal rails gleamed on the walls. Very pretty, she supposed, if one enjoyed a certain aesthetic, and more money than brains. The sweeping expanse and empty areas made her skin crawl. One good hit and anything not locked in a room would get sucked out into space. No wonder the ship hadn’t fired back. It clearly hadn’t been designed for fighting.
She resisted the urge to quote Al’kheri’s thirty-second maxim out loud, but she couldn’t keep it out of her thoughts. If the ground provides both you and your enemy an advantage, then you are disadvantaged. Instead she shook her head and called out to her second-in-command. “Unbelievable. Who builds a ship this way, Braxas?”
When he didn’t answer, she deactivated the holographic wings. The human had been quick to point out the bounty prizes available from some kind of holovid game show being filmed in the Paragon galaxy. Sleek ships, laden with treasure and easy pickings for a skilled crew.
Which meant even her band of vermin might be able to squeeze a few credits out of it.
If humanity and the other species wanted to put valuable ships in out-of-the-way space lanes, and then fail to arm them appropriately, how was that her fault? She’d be a fool not to take advantage of their game. Then again, Malebranki like her weren’t particularly known for fair play. Or games. She supposed it was an unfair assessment, but her people had never been particularly invested in what other species thought of them. Kayana turned to see why Braxas hadn’t bothered to answer.
He still stood in the airlock, one hand tapping frantically on the panel that controlled the inner door.
She lost the focus needed to maintain her v’tana, and the flame she held sputtered and died. “Braxas? What are you doing?”
He jumped as though he’d had an electric shock, then ripped open the emergency panel and began to crank the airlock door shut manually. “Sorry, Kayana. Captain’s orders.”
“You and the rest of the crew voted for me to be captain, and this feels suspiciously like mutiny.” She pulled her pistol out and pointed it back up the short hall. “Stop cranking that hatch, Braxas, or by the Nine, I’ll wear your balls for earrings.”
“S’problem with voting. We got a new offer, and it necessitated a new vote.” He redoubled his effort and started to crank faster. “Red Garrett’s captain now.”
“I didn’t get a vote in these new articles.” She’d busted her ass for two years, done every shit job on the ship and off, earned the trust of enough of the pirates to grab a majority when time came to vote for a new captain. She’d be damned if she let them replace her so soon. Especially with an idiot like Red Garrett.
“Only crew can vote,” he said. “And since part of the action was to maroon you out here, well, we kinda assumed how you’d vote. If it matters, I voted against leaving you.” He stopped cranking to tug a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket. “I’m supposed to say this. Endarion of House Zolak sends his regards.”
She thought she’d been angry before. She was wrong. All it took was one name, that name, and all her emotions collapsed into a single, hyper-dense star made of white-hot rage. Whatever she’d heard downstairs could wait; first she needed to kill every last one of the traitors that had sided with her fiancé and against her. Kayana charged toward the airlock, but the magnetic boots cycled too slowly for her to make any speed. Each step required waiting for one boot to unlock, moving her leg, and then letting it cycle back on again. After a handful of steps, she knew she wouldn’t make it.
She kept going anyway. “Whatever he promised you, whatever lies he’s spun, he’s playing you for a fool.”
“I’m sure he is, but his money’s still good. If he double-crosses us, we can deal with him.” Braxas spun the wheel faster, clearly not able to calculate her speed versus how quickly he could shut the airlock.
The crew could barely manage her; there was no way they’d be able to handle a scion of one of the Great Houses, not that she said it out loud. Instead, she raised the pistol. “Last chance to reconsider, Braxas.” Before he could respond, she pulled the trigger.
He ducked behind the closing door with a yelp as one of the thin ceramic needles punched into his shoulder. “You didn’t even give me a chance to answer!” Scarlet spheres bubbled out of the wound and floated in the zero-g hall.
She couldn’t believe her ears. “We’re pirates, you mewling weakling!” Kayana pushed to close the distance to the airlock, firing again as she ran, but the projectiles shattered harmlessly on the
bulkhead as Braxas finished closing the door. She screamed her frustration and slammed herself into the metal, but it refused to give.
The comm unit on the door crackled to life a moment later, Braxas’s pock-marked face filling the screen. “It’s nothing personal, Capt—I mean Kayana. I thought you did a damn fine job. It’s like your proverbs say, ‘Follow the money’.”
That wasn’t even the point of the eighth maxim, not that she expected Braxas to understand. “It feels pretty damn personal to me.” She slammed into the door again. Through the elegant, chrome-edged viewplates next to the airlock, she watched him step from the docking collar and onto the ship—her ship—beyond. She continued to pound on the door, as the collar retracted and maneuver jets lifted the pirates out and away from the rear of the yacht.
All the hells damn Endarion. Thieving, pompous coward. The nineteenth maxim was clear – when the time came for betrayal, you delivered the blow yourself. You sure as hell didn't hire a gang of half-witted pirates to do your dirty work for you. The implication, that she was beneath even the basic rules of Malebranki society, made her scream and slam her shoulder into the hatch one final, futile, time. The floor of the yacht shuddered, and she held her breath, waiting for the pirates to open fire on the vessel.
She was still watching when the pirate vessel exploded.
The yacht tossed as the explosion’s shock wave hit, and the magnetic plates in her boots were the only thing that kept Kayana from being bounced around the corridor like a hyperball full of broken bones. She gripped the handle beside the door to brace herself as what was left of her ship turned into an ever-expanding ball of gas.
It was so unexpected that it took Kayana several seconds to process exactly what she’d just seen. One minute, the ship had been pulling away to a minimum safe distance, after which she’d fully expected it to open fire. The next it had ceased to be. Even without defensive shielding in place, only a lucky hit from a torpedo would cause that kind of damage. Or an extremely skilled one.