Genetic Purge (The Galactic Outlaws Book 2)

by Bradford Bates

  All I wanted to do now was get what I came for and get back to the ship. Maze still needed help, and while the doc was ok, he still seemed a little too shaky for me to leave him alone. I didn’t want them there alone. The ship was locked down, but if someone tried to break in, they only had Samantha for protection, and as far as I knew, she was unarmed. I guess that didn’t actually make a difference when it came to her. Maybe they would be ok after all.

  That got me thinking about how fast she had me pinned against the wall and was able to hold me off the ground without a struggle, and yet something told me she wouldn’t hurt the crew. I didn’t know if we were connected somehow or not, but I felt like Samantha had claimed us as hers and we were under her protection. Ok, so maybe I wasn’t leaving them completely defenseless, but still the sooner I got back, the better I’d feel about it. I turned off the strip and started working my way further into the bowels of the station. Even a rich slimeball like Max couldn’t afford to operate off the main drag. Not that he would anyway, he preferred to stick to the shadows. In his line of work, it was probably a good thing.

  The station started to lose a little bit of its luster a street away from the strip. Where I was now, it was downright dirty. Trash piled up against some of the buildings, and I hadn’t seen a security officer for the last ten minutes. Continuing down the street Max lived on, I saw a man stumble out of a building and throw up in the alley, and then move a few steps away before taking a piss against the side of the same building. I didn’t even want to know what he had just gotten up to in there. If you could say one thing about Max, he liked to buy houses in the classiest neighborhoods.

  Max’s three-story building came into view a moment later. The man must have paid a fortune for it even back here in the slums. The outside didn’t look like much, but I knew from experience the inside was much nicer. He would have at least two guards inside and maybe even a droid. He took the whole almost getting his leg cut off thing seriously. While an android wouldn’t have been cheap, it offered him the best protection money could buy.

  Stepping up to the door, I turned my head to look directly into the camera and hit the comm. “Max, it’s Drake, open up.” The door buzzed and I gripped the handle and stepped inside. The place was a disaster. Max was running around the room, shoving expensive looking electronics into boxes as his android loaded them onto a hoverpad.

  Max stopped for a moment to shoot me a quick glare and then continued packing. “I’m not sure what you’re into or who you’re after, but you stepped into some shit this time.”

  “Max, slow down. What are you talking about?”

  “Listen, whatever you had me digging for popped up files in section five. I managed to grab some of the data you wanted, but then I got humped. Those motherfucker’s humped me. Can you believe it? I’ve got the best tech in the verse, and they just ran over it like it was nothing.”

  “I understood about fifty percent of that, Max. I’m taking it you got most of the info.”

  He finished loading the last of the boxes and then turned and handed me a datastick. The panicked look on his face didn’t fill me with confidence. “What I’m saying is they traced me back to my home, and now I’m getting the fuck out of here before they come looking to finish the job. If you were smart, you’d toss this stick out in the black and forget about whatever scheme you’re working on. It’s not worth it.”

  It’s not worth it. Well it was fucking worth it to me. The lives of me and my crew were at stake, and the information in that file might be exactly what we needed to pull our asses out of the fire. “What are you saying? That the N.E.A. is coming here?”

  “I’m saying whoever these guys are, they make the N.E.A. look like a bunch of pussies. I for one am not sticking around to be questioned. Jesus, Drake, you really dropped me head first into a pile of shit.”

  If anyone could survive a good dunking in a pile of shit, it was Max. I pocketed the datastick and rubbed one hand against the stubble on my chin. None of this was good news, and if we were here when the N.E.A. showed up they might detain us or worse yet, try and reacquire the box. The box that was exactly one vampire short on the list of contents. Damn, we needed to get out of here now. This wouldn’t be the kind of thing they sent a battle cruiser to take care of, this was something they would send agents to handle, and that was worse, much worse.

  “I’m sorry, Max.” It wasn’t much in the way of an apology, but there really wasn’t anything else I could say. I just hoped that he would be able to get away and set up shop somewhere else. His kind of skills weren’t easy to come by, and he didn’t deserve to die for looking into this for me.

  “Take your sorry and shove it up your ass.” He turned towards his android. “Get that to the ship and get it ready for departure. I’ll be there shortly.”

  The android moved the hover pad through the building towards the back. I assumed Max had an entrance back there most people didn’t know about. In his line of work it made sense to plan ahead. I looked over the room at everything he was forced to leave behind, and I started to feel sorry for him.

  “I’ll find a way to make it up to you,” I said without thinking. When in the hell had I become so noble? It wasn’t like Max was a real winner of a person. He could track down anything, that didn’t mean he used his powers to help people. In fact, he wouldn’t have an issue selling you out to the highest bidder in a second. That’s how he ended up in the situation I had found him in last time I visited. Let’s just say selling information about the whereabouts of a drug lord’s wife, only to have her assassinated days later, didn’t exactly put you at the top of people’s friend's list.

  It did put you on top of the 'I owe Drake a huge fucking favor for saving my life' list. I still felt bad for destroying whatever Max had built here with his business, but I needed the data and he was the only one that could have gotten it.

  “I don’t need your sorrys, I just need you to get the fuck out.” Max pointed me towards the door.

  I knew when to take a hint. If I stayed around here much longer, Max might try and put a bolt through me just out of spite. Like I said, he was a real winner. There wasn’t anything else to say, so I turned and started heading for the door. Five steps away from Max, and I was already running back towards him as a canister of gas flew into the main room. I dove behind a desk and flipped it over just in time to have a blaster bolt slam into its surface. The desk held up to blast. Inside of my coat was a breather, I could use to filter out the smoke. It wouldn’t do anything to protect my eyes though.

  Leaning out from behind the overturned desk proved to be a bad idea. More bolts slammed into its surface. The thing wouldn’t hold up to a continued assault. I had to find a way out of here. I slipped my rifle over the top of the desk and fired back towards the door. It stopped the incoming fire for a moment, and that was all the time I needed to get moving. Four steps into my run for the back of the house, I stumbled over something and hit the deck.

  Bolts flew over my head, slamming into the walls and furniture all around me. I flipped onto my back, shooting towards the door. I kept trying to aim where the bolts originated from, but the smoke was finally starting to make my eyes water. Sparing a glance to see what I tripped over I saw Max’s body on the ground. He had been hit at least four times, the high powered plasma bolts tearing through his body. There wouldn’t be any coming back from those type of injuries.

  Firing towards the door and trying to weave through the room, I finally made it to the back of the house. The smoke hadn’t reached this far back yet. I’d be able to hold them off for a bit, but I was going to need help, and soon. It was just my luck, nothing in this line of work was ever easy. Firing back into the smoke, I heard a scream. Well if nothing else, at least I got one of them.

  CHAPTER 12

  SAMANTHA RIPLEY

  Richard had shown me to my quarters, but it hadn’t taken me long to get bored staring at the four gray walls. The captain had left the ship, and I decided I’d much
rather spend my time with Richard than alone. I still felt off. I wasn’t sure if it was the cryosleep I had been placed in for twenty years or if it was my connection to the three people I had healed. It could just be that I needed to adjust myself to this new time. A lot can change in twenty years. Technology gets updated, and it’s easy to felt left behind.

  When I walked into the medbay, Richard was busy straightening things up from our surgery. He still had bags under his eyes, and the flesh on his right hand was blackened in places. It appeared that being free hadn’t come without a larger cost than I had known. I was sure there would be a way to fix this, the least I could do was start by helping him clean up.

  “Mind if I give you a hand?”

  He jumped and spun to face me, the items in his hands falling to the ground. He looked embarrassed as our eyes met. “That would be nice.”

  I took his arm and led him over to the chair in the far corner of the room. “Take a seat, and let me see that hand.”

  He held up the wounded hand. I felt my nose wrinkle at the smell of it. He had covered the burns in some kind of cream. I wondered if the smell made it work better or just gave you that impression. No one would put something that smelled that bad on themselves unless it worked wonders.

  The burns looked bad. I wondered how he was even functioning until I caught the faintest hint of painkillers in his sweat. The doctor looked like he wasn’t used to being taken care of, so I made a show of looking over his wounds and telling him about how tough he was.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you if you’re hungry. I have some blood in here that I removed from the crate that we found you in. It also came with a little device. I believe it could be used to warm up the contents.”

  Now that I thought about it, I was starving. I had lost a lot of blood when Gabe had stabbed me, and a tiny bit more healing Drake. It was just like the doctor to think of everyone else before himself. I wondered how Richard would take it when he watched me poke a hole in a bag of blood and drink the contents. Most humans didn’t take it very well, but the doctor seemed different.

  “Just point me in the right direction, Richard.” He pointed towards a cabinet on the other side of the room. I opened it and found a device that I had grown used to seeing. A bag fit neatly into it, and I set it to warm before turning back towards the doctor. He was already trying to get up. Having his medbay in such disarray must have been bothering him greatly. “Just sit back down and let me take care of this.” I pushed him gently back into the seat. “But first let’s see if we can’t do something about that hand.”

  It took me a moment to find a stainless steel dish, but once I had it in hand, I was pretty sure my idea would work. Handing the doctor the metal dish, I cut my arm with a fingernail and let the blood drip into the dish before licking the wound closed. The doctor watched the whole process in silence. I could tell he was fascinated by what was happening. I moved the dish to the side and placed the doctor’s hand over it.

  “I’m not sure how this is going to feel, Richard. But it should be able to heal your hand.”

  He looked shocked as I slid his hand into the dish. I used my own to gently cover his hand in my blood. He let out a sigh of contentment, which eased my mind somewhat. I had been worried that the process would hurt, but he was also medicated.

  “Just keep your hand in there and covered. I’ll clean up the rest of this mess.”

  I went about tidying up the room. The only thing I was loathe to touch was the implant he had removed from my head. Picking it up seemed like a bad option, what if it was still active in some way? There was no way I was going to leave it there, a jolt from it could hurt someone on this ship. I thought about it for a moment, and then I slammed the heel of my boot down on the chip. I felt it shatter to pieces from the impact. Using a broom, I swept up the remains and tossed them in the trash. The room was finally put back together, maybe not up to the doctor’s standards but put together none the less.

  Returning to the doctor, I lifted his hand from the dish and waited for some of the blood to drip back in. “Flex your hand.”

  The doctor made a fist and then smiled. “It’s amazing. Do you have any idea how it works?”

  I just shook my head. “I had no idea I could do that until I used some of my blood to heal the captain. I’d already given you a little bit of my blood orally, but placing it directly on the wound seems to work better.”

  He stood up and moved towards the sink against the opposite wall. He washed off his hand, flexed it a couple of times, and started to smile. The skin was pink as if newly healed after a cut, but I didn’t see any kind of scarring from where I was.

  “It’s remarkable, simply remarkable. Thank you, Samantha.”

  “Thank you, Richard. I’ve had that thing in my head waiting to kill me for almost my entire life. Without you, I wouldn’t have a future to look forward to.”

  “I could say the same thing. Without this hand, I wouldn’t have been able to perform surgeries anymore, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem now.”

  A beep sounded from the warmer. “Do you mind if I drink in here or would you like me to go somewhere else?”

  He thought about it for a second. “Be my guest.”

  I popped the bag out of the warmer and sat on the counter next to it. There wasn’t a straw handy, so I just used a nail to rip open a corner of the bag and started to slowly drink its contents. The blood rushed through me as I drank it and I felt more and more like myself. I hadn’t realized just how much today had taken out of me until now. The doctor kept his eyes on me, he looked more intrigued than disgusted. He didn’t stop watching until I pointed over his shoulder. Maze had entered the room.

  Richard slowly broke his gaze from me and turned to greet our new arrival. “Maze, my dear, how can I help you?”

  She handed the doctor a machine to look over. I could make it out from where I was sitting, but the numbers and words meant nothing to me. Richard just looked it all over as if he was reading something interesting. Finally, he looked up from the data. I could see a smile just on the corner of his face. He flexed the hand I had healed again before speaking.

  “Would you like to take care of it now?”

  Maze looked angry. “I don’t know how we could. I don’t have any of the parts we need.”

  Richard turned away from her and moved over to a set of cabinets. He opened them and poked around for a few moments before turning back towards her. “I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of requesting a few things when we were aboard that alliance ship. I should have everything we need to fix you right up.”

  “You’re shitting me.” Maze looked confused.

  “I figured while we were there I might as well ask for a few things we didn’t have. I knew you had special needs so I requested a few additional items. I have everything we need to fix your cybernetics. In fact, this stuff is a generation or two ahead so you’re going to come out of this better than ever.”

  Maze rushed across the room and embraced the doctor. “Thank you.”

  “Let’s save the thanks for when you are back in tip-top shape.”

  It was funny, if you watched the doctor long enough, you noticed a few things. An air of sadness seemed to cling to him most of the time, and he was jumpy despite being safe on this ship. But when he had to take control of a situation medically, all of that faded away and a cool mask of detachment dropped across his features until whatever he was working on was completed. That was the surgeon in him. He was ready to operate, and nothing else mattered. It was that ability to cut himself off from his emotions to perform the task that probably made him great at his job.

  He helped Maze onto the table as I finished my drink. I tossed the empty bag in the trash chute and started to make my way out of the room. I made it about four steps before I fell to one knee. Drake was in trouble, I could almost feel his heart racing with fear from here. Maze and the doctor both moved to help me up.

  The doctor’s face was white
with concern. “What is it?”

  “It’s Drake, he’s in trouble.” I said standing.

  “How could you possibly know that?” Maze asked, a slow fury burning behind her eyes.

  “Ever since I healed him, we’ve been bonded somehow. I can just feel him, and right now he’s in trouble.”

  “You should have mentioned this before,” Maze growled. She made a face that let me know exactly how she felt about me having a bond with the man she loved and then shoved past me heading towards the door.

  The doctor jumped in front of her blocking the doorway. “You’re in no shape to go out there now.”

  Maze turned back towards me pulling twin pistols from behind her back. She spun them around and handed them to me butt first. “Just go get him.” She threw herself back onto the exam table looking pissed off. She glared at her arms and then looked at me before speaking again. “And Samantha, just a friendly reminder. Drake is mine.”

  I tucked the guns against my back and then pulled on my coat. We’ll see about that. I thought, walking out the door. It took it a moment to sink in that I cared about Drake. Was it the blood bond we shared because I sure as hell hadn’t known him long enough to feel possessive about him. I was going to have to find a way to let those feeling go. All of these people had been good to me, the last thing I wanted to do was cause them any more problems.

  The ship’s ramp went down, and I started to jog across the station. I could feel Drake, he was in big trouble. His heart was jackhammering in his chest. Without a thought, I burst forward, covering four times the ground I could have without calling on my power. A man in white robe caught my attention for a moment, but then he was gone. All that mattered now was getting to Drake and making sure that he was safe.

  His energy pulled me towards him like a beacon. The only problem I was having now was the damn station's walkways weren’t organized. After hitting my second dead end in a row, I decided to throw caution to the wind and use my powers. I scaled the hundred-foot tall wall in front of me and leaped from the top onto the dingy street below. My boots barely left a mark as I touched down and continued on.