“Always.”
“Now let’s go get our people.”
“You read my mind.”
Drake tried to take the lead, but I pushed him behind me. He was injured, and I didn’t want him to end up adding a plasma round to his list of injuries. Plus, I had the big gun. Girls with big guns always get to go first.
Drake took up point behind me and slightly to the left. I knew he’d be watching our backs as well, it allowed me to focus on what was in front of us. I peeked around the corner surprised to see only one man in the room. He didn’t even get the chance to turn around before my blaster bolt took him through the back. As his body hit the ground, Drake was already rushing forward to make sure they were ok.
Gabe didn’t look bad, but the Doc had been hit in the face a few times. The bastards must have wanted him to remove their chips. Fuck them, if they didn’t want to be here, they wouldn’t have signed the damn contract. Selling yourself into a five-year deal was just about the stupidest thing you could do. I came from the military, so I knew a little something about doing stupid things. I got the Doc free, and he pulled me into a hug.
“They were going to take me, and he stopped them,” he managed to whisper through his swollen lips.
I held him for a moment. “I know Doc, he might pretend to be made of stone sometimes, but he’d die for any one of us.”
“I have a feeling his gesture wouldn’t have bought me too much time if you hadn’t come for us. Thank you, Maze.”
I gave the Doc another squeeze. “Anytime.” I led him over to where the others were standing. Drake looked over all of us and then nodded to me before speaking.
“Let’s not waste any time congratulating ourselves for surviving, we got some boxes to move.”
“You’re all heart, Captain.” I couldn’t help but smirk at him. He’d always pretend not to care. It was his defense mechanism, but I’d broken through that armor and seen the man underneath. I knew he was already beating himself up for the fact the Doc got hurt. He wouldn’t let that feeling go for a long time. This time I’d be there to help him through it, whether he wanted me to or not.
Chapter 19
Captain Drake
The bridge was quiet as I walked in. Ice had some kind of electronic music on but at a low volume. She was sitting in her chair drinking a cup of coffee. She looked relaxed. Why wouldn’t she be? The stealth generator had held up for the entire trip, and the Talon hadn’t been ripped away from the mining vessel during our extended stay in FTL. Anytime now the mining vessel would drop out of FTL. Then it would be time for us to disengage. After a quick flair from our thrusters, all we had to do was wait for them to move out of sensor range. Then it was payday.
“Here we go, Captain,” Ice said as she set down her coffee cup. “You’re going to owe me some chocolate after this run.”
“When do I not bring you chocolate?”
“I mean, like a lot of chocolate. You saw how I nailed the slingshot with no power and with two fighters watching. Not just any pilot could pull something like that off.”
The ship shook slightly as we disengaged and Ice fired the thrusters once. We drifted away from the mining vessel, and she picked her cup of coffee up again. “It’s true, there isn’t another pilot in the verse like you. You’re basically irreplaceable.”
“Now you’re starting to understand what I’ve been saying.”
“So lots of chocolate,” I said smiling down at her.
“Yep, mountains of chocolate.”
“Just get us to the drop point, and I’ll see what I can do.”
“You got it, Cap. It will be at least an hour before we can make the jump. Then three days until we hit the drop point.”
“Good, I’ll send Connor a message and let him know we are on schedule.”
I walked off of the bridge and back towards my bunk. Connor was going to be happy we pulled off the impossible and not only that, but did it on time. Too bad he wouldn’t give us a bonus. It wasn’t like Connor. He’d say something like. Doing a good job is its own reward. That and the money I already paid you. Predictable, but that was nice in our line of business, and it didn’t happen often.
I slid down the ladder into our bunk. Maze was still asleep where I left her to go check in with Ice. I shrugged out of my clothes and slipped back into bed. I pulled her against me and nestled into her neck. Her warmth spread into me making me feel more comfortable than I had in years. Sleep washed over me with Maze’s warmth helping to keep the worst of my memories at bay.
“Captain, we have a problem?”
Ice’s voice came over the comm. Of course we did? When didn’t we have fucking problems? “I’m on my way.” The ship was silent as I moved through her. Most of the crew was in the rec room enjoying a vid. This was supposed to be the easy part, just dropping off the spoils of our hard labor.
When I ran onto the bridge Ice gave me a look like calm down it’s nothing we can’t handle. “This better not be some kind of joke. I was about to join the crew watching the vid.” If I missed the beginning of the stream for nothing, I was going to be pissed. “You’ve already seen Bloodsucker’s From Hell Five, right?”
Ice gave me a look that said why and the fuck would I watch that, then hit me with some of her trademark sarcasm. “Trust me when I tell you the first five minutes is the best part.”
“I knew it!” Damn it. I knew that was when Misty Tucker got killed in the shower, and now I was going to miss it. “Seriously, Ice, why am I here?”
“It may be nothing Captain, but the sensors aren’t picking up any life on the station.”
No life? Well, that was interesting. Who was going to unload all the damn boxes? Something about this didn’t feel right. It wasn’t like Connor not to have someone there to make sure the merchandise was attacked. Connor had never stepped out of line, unless you counted trying to under pay us for jobs. So just what in the hell was going on? “And there isn’t another ship docked?”
“Hence the no life readings.”
It was a first for Connor to be too cheap to hire a crew to inspect and unload the goods. I hoped this wasn’t something he planned on doing more consistently in the future. Our job was to secure the cargo and drop it off, not to unload it. If he thought we were just going to leave it there without getting the other half of our payment first, then he had another thing coming. If you didn’t pay on time, we kept your cargo. Simple as that. I knew someone that would deal in just about any kind of stolen merchandise, so I could unload whatever he had us steal somewhere else.
It had been a while since I had to dump off some goods from an unresponsive client, and it wasn’t like Connor not to want the spoils of our labor. “Bring us in slow. I’ll call Connor.” I slipped into the co-pilot’s chair and hit the feed for the monitor. Connor better have a damn good reason he didn’t have a representative here to meet us. The call bounced until our ship settled against the airlock, and then Connor picked up.
“Captain Drake, it’s good to hear from you.” Connor almost purred.
Well, this wasn’t going to be good. Connor never purred. Ice pointed towards a blinking light on one of the other monitors. We were attached to the airlock, but it had also clamped onto our ship. I muted the screen in front of me. “Can we tear free if we have to?”
“Not without damaging the ship.”
Fuck. I opened the channel again. “Connor, you’d better have a damn good reason why I haven’t received the other half of my payment, and that this fucking station is clamped onto my fucking ship.”
“I’m sending your payment over now. Just leave the boxes inside of the station.”
“And the clamps.”
“Just a precaution.”
What in the hell did that mean? A precaution against what? As long as he had the payment, I’d leave the merchandise behind. We’d done enough business together that things between us should never get this messy. He was up to something.
“An exploding precaution,” Ice said.
I shot her a look, and she nodded. Jesus, just what did Connor want from me? No one screwed with my crew or the Star Talon. Putting my ship in danger was one of the fastest ways to climb up my shitlist. “Are you trying to fuck me here, Connor?”
“Just check your account.”
It always came back to money for Connor, but that isn’t all that made me tick. He broke the only rule that mattered to me. He put my crew in unnecessary danger and for what? If he was sending the payment and I was leaving the boxes, then there was no reason for the show of force.
Threatening the life of my crew and possibly catastrophic damage to my ship was unacceptable. I pulled up my account and the amount in there was substantially more than it should have been. At least we weren’t going to die. If he had intended to kill us, he wouldn’t have sent the guilt money for whatever was about to happen. Now all we had to do was wait for the other shoe to drop. Connor wouldn’t have opened up his tightly clenched purse strings just to ease our hurt feelings over the exploding clamps.
“So what’s going on here? I know you, Connor. You’d never throw around extra credits like this.”
“Just get my cargo on the station, and I’ll tell you what’s coming next.”
Muting the channel I motioned towards Ice. “Get Gabe and the Doc on it.” Ice got up and left the room. A few groans echoed through the ship when Ice let the light into the rec room. God, what I wouldn’t have given to just be watching a vid instead of dealing with this shit. The airlock opened on the monitor, and I watched Gabe deliver the first of the boxes.
“I’m sorry about this, Captain.”
The bastard had the gall to actually sound pained by what he was doing. “All you need to know is that we won’t be doing business together again.”
“I’m sorry that you feel that way. I was hoping that when you saw what was coming next, you would understand I had no choice.”
“Connor you always have a choice.” Unless it was the N.E.A. It couldn’t be…even Connor wouldn’t go that far. They must have had something on him. I didn’t know what was worse the thought of all of us dying when my ship exploded, or them taking my ship and sending all of us to prison. At least if we blew up the ship, Connor wouldn’t get his hands on his precious fucking cargo.
I put my hand against my chin kneading the flesh there to calm myself. This couldn’t be fucking happening. Not now, when we were so close to getting things back on track. “Tell me you didn’t sell us out.”
“I hope you’ll understand that when they tell me to jump, like everyone else in the verse, I can only say how high.”
Fuck. That meant he really did betray us. I was going to make it my personal mission in life to find some way to get even with that pink bellied sack of shit. “I hope it was worth it.”
“I won’t lie and tell you that there wasn’t a monetary incentive, but even I can’t stand up to the Alliance, Drake. No one can.”
He had a point. Standing up to the Alliance directly was like letting a tidal wave wash over you as you screamed defiantly that it couldn’t possibly knock you down. Every year it got harder for men like me to move around unnoticed. As both sides of the conflict pushed into the midrim. We were losing our independence. Soon there wouldn’t be anywhere to hide from the mighty grip of the N.E.A. and I fucking hated it.
All we could do now was hope that once he let us go we could slip away before they got here. “So, how long do I have?”
“They are heading towards you now. My station will release you and fly away as soon as the cargo is loaded. For all of our futures, don’t try and run,” Connor said.
I closed the channel as Ice walked back onto the bridge. She nestled into her seat and hit the sequence to close the airlock. Gabe and the Doc moved back into the rec room to join the others. The station released from us and its engines cycled up as it drifted away.
“What was all that about, Captain?”
I didn’t address her directly. Instead, I opened a channel to the entire ship. “We are about to have visitors. Any contraband or weapons need to be brought to the armory. Everyone should be dressed and ready for an Alliance inspection team to come aboard.” It probably wouldn’t be enough to save us, but the less they found on our ship the better.
“Captain, we need to run,” Ice rattled off, fear dripping from every word.
“We can’t run from this. If they knew about Connor, then they’ll know about the others. We have to face this head on.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Not even remotely.” Going toe to toe with my former employers was never a good idea. “Power down everything that isn’t needed to keep us alive, and meet me in the cargohold.”
I already stored everything of consequence in the armory, but I knew the others would have things they wanted to hide from the Alliance. I kept the door open and watched as they piled in a bunch of miscellaneous junk. Kyra brought in her stash, Maze had a few extra guns, Gabe had his knife collection. All told it wasn’t anything to write home about, but it was ours, and the Alliance wouldn’t get their grubby little paws on it.
The panel slid closed, and then we replaced the wall over it. Gabe stepped forward to drill it into place. They’d never be able to detect the armory on the scans, at least they had failed to detect it on the few random inspections we had been forced to endure over the years. Gabe returned the drill to its place on the rack and then rejoined our group. Everyone stood still, and I could tell that they were nervous.
The screen by the bay doors beeped and I opened the channel. “Star Vessel code named Star Talon. This is Alliance patrol six seven niner. Please power down all non-essential systems and prepare to be boarded.”
“Alliance patrol six seven nine. The ship is powered down, and we are ready for your arrival.”
The ship shivered slightly as the tractor beam took hold of her. It wouldn’t be long now until they had us in their hold, and then they’d board my baby. Who knew what in the hell they wanted, but we’d be lucky if all of us made it back off that cruiser. We were outlaws, after all, freshly delivered to the Alliance from someone we just stole cargo for. None of this added up to us having a pleasant day.
Chapter 20
Samantha Ripley, A.E. 3104
I lived for days like today…well sort of. There wasn’t much to look forward to in my current situation, so the bar was set pretty damn low. The reason I savored today was because I got to test my metal against people just like me. It was too easy to kill the humans, and it still made me feel sick to know I needed to feed on them to stay alive.
Today wasn’t about my guilt, today was the day I could make the subjects that didn’t have any guilt pay for their crimes. It felt weird to say it, but not all vampires were created equal. Some people took to it like they’d never been anything else, others like me struggled with the moral implications. Most of the ones that struggled washed out of the program early. If you couldn’t kill, then you starved. If you starved long enough, you went into a frenzy. The scientists had long ago decided that after the third day of refusing to feed, you were given the choice to feed, or be decommissioned. Guess how many vampires walked away from that conversation.
While I felt a sense of guilt over killing another human, it wouldn’t stop me from feeding. I wanted to live, to feel alive, to be free. I wasn’t sure how long it had been since I had seen the outside world, ten, maybe twenty years. Time moved differently for me now, faster, it was almost as if I could blink and a year had gone by. Winning today’s competition would give me a chance to see the sky again. Failure was not an option.
I was damned sure everyone else had been promised the same chance at freedom. So we all knew what was on the line. A chance to go out in the field and get the hell out of this box we called a home. The others seemed agitated, almost feral. I could hear them in different parts of the warehouse banging against the bars of their cages. In some cases throwing themselves against them. No one was going to give up, and onl
y the winner would be walking out alive.
Failure wasn’t an option, I wanted to live.
The game was simple. Kill everyone that stood between you and freedom. Weapons would have been scattered around the warehouse, some of them were bound to be stronger than others, but the sadistic people that ran this place wouldn’t let it end too early. A gun might contain one round, while a metal bat studded with barbed wire might last a bit longer. They liked to watch us, to record these fights to study how we thought and reacted to certain stimulations.
Today they were most likely trying to determine if I was obsolete. They had started adding in mutations and advanced cybernetics into the newer models. What could I say, the science had come a long way in the last fifty years. Not that any of that mattered to me. It didn’t matter if they were faster or stronger, I was going to win.
Failure is not an option, I want to live.
The lights in the warehouse went out. Maybe they were trying to give a show to someone. Watching us fight in the dark always seemed to bring in new donors to the program. For us, it didn’t change a damned thing. All of us could see in the dark. We were predators that preferred to hunt from the shadows. The speakers above us crackled, and Dr. Marcom began to speak.
“Test Class A, simulation number one hundred and forty-three will begin in ten seconds.”
He was older now, and while he looked forty on the outside, the quiver in his voice showed his true age. He had to be almost ninety now. He’d been the one that recruited me into the project. Recruiting was the word I used now because getting angry about it after fifty years seemed unseemly. I wondered if he had come hoping to finally see me fail. That would get me out of his hair without him having to fulfill his promise to me.
The doctor had made me a promise five years ago that he would deactivate the chip inside of me before he died. Fifty years was a lot of history to have shared together even if most of the gratification was one sided. With the chip deactivated, I would be able to make a bid for my escape. I had a sinking feeling he had been looking for a way to escape that moment of weakness since it happened. Hence why I was here today and he was wasting time on a simple test.
Forced Compliance (The Galactic Outlaws Book 1) Page 15