“Burning hot into orbit, sir.”
“What the hell’s going on?”
“At the moment, all I can say freely is the starfighters are human in origin. And they’re a type the government uses for— Sir, Tal is in pursuit.”
Blaster fire sprayed through the trees around him. “You don’t say?”
“I do say, sir.”
A shot blasted a hole in a tree ahead. Gav ducked as splinters sprayed across him. As he weaved the bike, a plasma shot whizzed past his hip and scorched the side of the skimmer. He was glad he was wearing the battlesuit. He wished he’d brought along his plasma carbine, but Gav only carried it when he thought there would likely be trouble.
A plasma shot tore into the back of the skimmer. It lurched and whined. As he tugged it back on course, he heard something spewing out the back end.
“Damage report?”
“I’m not connected to the skimmer, sir.”
“Check the control panel with my peripheral vision.”
“Right, of course, sir. We’ve got a leaking coupler between power and antigrav, sir. Propulsion is fine. Antigrav will fail in five minutes.”
That should hold long enough to get back to the ship, but the skimmer couldn’t take another hit like that.
“Steering control?” he asked as he strained to keep the course triangles aligned in his HUD.
“The skimmer rerouted the power, sir. Assisted steering should return any moment.”
Two blaster shots blazed past his ears. The shots were becoming more accurate as Tal closed in. If only he had set the disruptor to kill.
Trying to outrace a pilot wasn’t a winning proposition. And he couldn’t return fire without crashing into a tree. He was going to have to outthink him. A dozen crazy maneuvers popped into his mind, ways to circle back on Tal or to brake, spin, and return fire. They all sounded great. But they were the sorts of things only a skilled pilot, like the one shooting at him, could do. He needed something simple.
He checked his HUD. Only half a kilometer to the ship.
“Is the Ranger’s shield up?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell Octavian to transfer control to you.”
Another shot glanced off the side of the skimmer. As full steering control returned, Gav resisted the urge to start zigzagging. That would only let Tal close in faster.
“Got it, sir.”
“Extend the shield as far to the rear as you can.”
“That will drastically weaken it, sir.”
“I only need it to be strong enough to stop a speeding skimmer.”
“Roger that, sir. Operation Bug Splatter commencing.”
“You want to name it?”
“It only seems fitting, sir.”
“There really is something wrong with—”
Gav cried out as a fiery plasma bolt struck his shoulder, burned through his battlesuit, and scorched deep into his flesh.
He slumped over onto the skimmer’s controls. The front end dipped toward the ground then bounced hard as the weakened antigrav prevented a crash. The skimmer nearly flipped over, but despite his darkening vision, Gav managed to pull back on the steering wheel and straighten the skimmer’s course with only his left hand. His right arm hung useless and completely numb. Searing waves of pain radiated through his shoulder, up his neck, and down his spine.
Despite beginning to drift in and out of consciousness, he kept the throttle open. “Silky…you…you understand…the plan, right?”
“Operation Bug Splatter, sir. I understand fully. And I’m looking forward to it.”
Another blaster shot grazed his left leg.
Groaning, he tried, and failed, to move his right arm. “Can you control this thing?”
“Remember, sir, I’m not connected. If you tap the control options, you can set it into return home mode.”
“That will…reduce the speed.”
“Sorry, sir.”
The shots ceased. Tal must have drained his power pack. Gav tapped the control options button. “Activate autopilot. Return home.”
The speeder adjusted course, and the arrows in his HUD matched perfectly. That was the good news. The bad news was the skimmer began cutting the throttle to a safe speed immediately.
He tapped the control button again. “Override safety speed. Maintain at half throttle.”
Was that even an option? He couldn’t remember. The speed did seem to be holding though, even if it was a lot slower than before.
A shot flared past him. Tal must’ve reloaded his blaster’s power pack. Gav hunkered down into the seat of the skimmer to reduce his target profile. Overwhelmed by the pain, his head spinning, he couldn’t look up. He was only barely aware of the shots zipping by.
He should be dead now. Tal was an excellent shot. But maybe the neural disruptor hit had numbed him.
The blaster fire ceased, and the skimmer again slowed beneath Gav. A distinctive thwum sounded behind him. His skimmer moved upward, skidded, and banged to a halt against something solid.
Behind him an explosive crunch sounded.
Then he passed out.
Chapter Three
Gav Gendin
Gav woke, facedown on a cold metal floor. He rolled over to see Octavian’s mechanical face and bulbous eyes looming over him. The cog spoke with a questioning bleep-bloop.
“I’m…okay,” Gav groaned as he sat up. “Alive, at least.”
Octavian trilled with satisfaction and scooped up an expended emergency medkit.
Gav was at the top of the boarding ramp, just inside the main corridor of the Outworld Ranger. His skimmer was farther inside…dented, blaster-scorched, and leaking fluid.
With a triple ding, Silky booted up.
“I see we made it through another dust-up, sir.”
“I thought you could stay on without me being conscious.”
Most chippies couldn’t, except in emergency standby mode, but Silky was incredibly advanced and had spent a hundred and eighty-seven years alone with his thoughts, functioning in low power mode while rewriting all of his programming from the ground up.
“When you lose consciousness, sir, I go through a forced reboot—in case I am the cause. But I remain active so that I can record whatever transpires around me after my bearer dies. I’m a sort of clever black box, if you will. I’m working on an override but I haven’t finalized it yet. I have explained all of this before…”
Gav rubbed his aching head. “I’m sure you have.”
He craned his neck to look at his wounded shoulder. A hole had been burned through the battlesuit. No wonder Tal had to switch power packs on his gun. He must’ve been firing his pistol in overcharge mode. Octavian’s quick application of medibots had healed the worst of the blister, leaving tender, pink flesh behind. It would take a few weeks to fully heal, but it probably wouldn’t leave a scar. Gav moved his arm and rotated his shoulder. It hurt like hell deep in the muscle tissues and joints, but it was functional.
His heads-up display returned. A warning sign showed he was under the influence of two strong painkillers and a stimulant. Octavian had used everything in the medkit. He cringed. His shoulder was going to hurt a hundred times worse later. And he was going to need a lot of rest once the emergency stimulant wore off.
“Sir, shouldn’t you be attending to some rather important matters? After all, we do have an urgent life or death situation on our docket for this afternoon.”
“We what?”
“We survived an explodey-shooty incident, sir, but there are probably more people gunning for us.”
“Of course.” He hadn’t forgotten. It was just hard to care or focus on anything at the moment. “I remember.”
“Sir, you are okay, aren’t you?”
“I’m just…” he shook off a wave of dizziness “…a bit dazed, apparently.”
“Knocking your skull against a wall can do that, sir. I did tell you—on multiple occasions—to always deploy your helmet when riding the skimmer
.”
“I don’t think the drugs are helping me think.”
Gav stood shakily and discovered he’d suffered a number of bruises and a few minor cuts in the crash. He took deep breaths and forced himself to focus.
“Where…where are the starfighters?”
“Waiting in orbit, along with the corvette that dropped them off.”
A corvette…starfighters…none of this made sense. Moments ago he had been at the top of his game, making history. Now everything was falling apart around him. Though to be fair, alien amulets leading archaeologists to discoveries through visions didn’t make much sense either.
“Tal?”
“No idea, sir, though since you’re alive I’m guessing Operation Bug Splatter was a resounding success.”
Gav stumbled down the boarding ramp and looked out to see Tal’s wrecked skimmer just beyond the haze of the Outworld Ranger’s force field. Tal lay amidst the wreckage…unconscious or dead.
“Vital signs?”
“Scanning, sir…”
Octavian walked up beside him and blooped sadly.
“I have detected life signs, sir, but they are weak.”
Gav headed down the ramp.
“Sir, shouldn’t we beat a hasty retreat?”
“I need some answers.”
“But the ships in orbit—”
“Could have killed us already if they wanted.”
Silky lowered the force field, and Gav walked out into the wreckage.
Dozens of cuts and force-field burns scored Tal’s shattered body. His right arm was bent awkwardly behind him, the left was obviously dislocated from the shoulder, and one leg had snapped below the knee. He had coughed up blood and was now scarcely breathing.
With his neural disruptor in hand, Gav squatted and touched Tal’s shoulder. The pilot's eyes flittered open and locked on Gav, then he went unconscious again.
Octavian skittered excitedly down the ramp, squawking in concern, a medkit in hand. He leapt through the wreckage, then knelt on his back legs while using his arms and forelegs to open the medkit and sort out the things he would need.
“Octa-dummy says he scanned Tal earlier but didn’t detect any vitals, sir.”
Silky rarely translated for Octavian like most chippies would. He found it demeaning. Of course, Gav could have enabled Octavian’s speech mode. But he couldn’t stand to listen to the cog’s constant fussing.
Before Octavian could administer the medibots, Gav put a hand out to stop him. “Just give him a stimulant.”
Octavian cocked his head and squelched.
“I know your protocol says to save human lives, but this man betrayed us.”
Octavian clucked his opposition.
“He tried to kill me. And he’s somehow responsible for two other team members getting blown up.”
Octavian buzzed as he studied Tal, then he made a sad bloop, put away the medibot tube, and took out the stimulant injector. He placed the business end against Tal’s neck and triggered it.
Tal’s eyes flared wide open, and he screamed. Octavian injected him with a painkiller. As the screams faded to moans, Gav shoved the cog backward.
“Thank you, Octavian. That will be enough.”
Chittering, Octavian slipped a few meters away, then rubbed his arms together as if he were a giant, metal cricket.
“Octavian, go see to it that everything is stowed away on the ship. We will be taking off soon.”
The cog squawked heatedly a moment, then stalked into the ship.
Gav holstered his pistol. Tal wasn’t a threat anymore. He touched Tal’s shoulder, and the spacer pilot winced.
“Sir, if you’re going to interrogate him, you need to neutralize his chippy first.”
“Remove your chippy. Now.”
Tal tried but couldn’t reach the eject switch. “I disengaged it…was malfunctioning anyway. Damaged in the crash.”
Gav hit the eject, and the chippy popped out into his hand. He tossed it aside. “Why, Tal?”
Tal grimaced and chuckled. “That’s a…good question.”
Gal squeezed Tal’s dislocated shoulder. He didn’t move, but the pain showed in his eyes. “I want an answer.”
“I don’t…know why.”
“Fine. What was your price?”
“The Outworld Ranger.”
“You killed two good people for a ship?! Damn it, Tal, I would’ve gladly loaned it to you after we returned home. You could’ve paid me back over time.”
“I didn’t…arrange this, Gav. They did. The Outworld Ranger…was my reward for…helping them track you…keeping them up-to-date…reporting in on what you found…but I didn’t…have a choice.”
If the government was behind this, they could have tracked and monitored Gav through Silky, unless they didn’t trust him anymore. Silky was running a program so that he could keep his communications with Gav and anything else secret whenever he desired, but it should have been impossible for the government to know he was doing it.
“You could have said no.”
“And then they…would have killed me too…”
“Who are they?”
“Military I assumed. They had the attitude…and the resources." Tal tried to shrug. “They did all the talking…and wouldn’t answer…my questions.”
“Sir, how was he contacting them? I monitored every communication in and out of the Outworld Ranger, and I haven’t detect any signals since we landed.”
“How did you keep in touch with them?”
“Echo space transponder embedded…in the base of my skull.” Tal coughed up bile and blood. “Gives me…awful headaches.”
“Silky?”
“Scanning him, sir. I still can’t detect anything. Let me adjust my filters… Ah, there it is. That does seem to be a direct link out. And I will note that device was designed to avoid detection by someone exactly like me.”
Tal winced. “I notified them…as soon as I could identify the pod…on the crashed ship and…get myself clear.”
“So they knew about the stasis pod?”
Tal nodded painfully.
“Sir, ask him how they knew the stasis pod would be on this ship. You didn’t know anything about it, so it wasn’t in your report.”
That was a damned good question. He repeated it aloud to Tal.
“You think…I know?” His chuckle devolved into a wheezing cough. “All I know…they wanted that pod destroyed…bad.”
“But the pod wasn't on the Ancient ship when they blew it up,” Gav said. “You waited until after we had it loaded onto the Outworld Ranger to contact them. Why?”
“Double crossed them. I’m not…stupid. They were going to…kill me anyway. The ship was…an empty promise.”
“And the double-cross?”
“A third party. They knew about…the pod too.”
Silky groaned. “Are we the only ones who didn’t know? I’ve got a bad feeling about all this, sir.”
“So that’s why you waited until you had it on the Outworld Ranger?”
Tal nodded again. “Supposed to take the pod…to a rendezvous point. I was afraid the starfighters…would do a scan…pick up the pod in the Ranger…guess this planet’s nutty magnetic field…kept them stumped.”
“They haven’t even attempted any scans, sir. They couldn’t hide that from me.”
“What third party?” Gav asked.
“The bloody Krixis…through a human agent, if you can believe it.”
“You’d trust a deal with them?”
“If you can’t even trust your own…why not? They didn’t care about anything…but the stasis pod. They made that clear. It was…at least a chance and…that’s a damn fine ship. I was going to go into orbit…make a run for it…to the Krixis rendezvous point. If any ship could get me there…”
“So you figured you’d roll the dice?” Gav cursed. “If you had told me, maybe I could have done something…different.”
“The only option was…to never come he
re. I couldn’t…have kept you away. And they made it clear…I couldn’t quit…being your pilot.”
Gav clutched at his forehead and groaned. “Shit.”
Tal retched again, then pointed at Gav’s chest. “That amulet…I was supposed to…bring it to them after…”
“Which them?”
“Both…they both wanted it.”
“Circuits of my makers. Sir, I think…I have an idea what’s…”
Gav waited a moment for Silky to continue, but he didn’t. “You planning on finishing that statement?”
“No.”
“Is it possible for the Krixis to use a human agent?”
The Krixis were incredibly alien, telepathic, an unable to communicate with humans, except through math and pictures, when they could be bothered to try.
“Not to my knowledge, sir. Eyana managed it, but with extreme difficulty and under unique circumstances.”
Tal groaned. His injuries were already starting to overwhelm the painkiller. “Gav…I can buy you…a few minutes…but I want something in exchange.”
“What?” Gav hissed.
“Two sedative injectors…so I don’t have to die in pain.”
Gav nodded. “What do you propose?”
“You told me…orbital scans…couldn’t detect you." He paused and gasped for breath. "Is that true?”
“I have a military-grade jamming device in my sensor array. So very few scans of any kind can detect me. Besides, they’re not scanning the planet anyway. And Silky can probably come up with something extra, I’m sure.”
“Good. Tap the subcutaneous activator…under my jaw. It will let me talk…to the corvette’s commander over…a secure channel.”
“Silky, what do you think?”
“I think we made a mistake coming here, sir.”
“Silky!”
“I can’t be certain of the activator’s function, sir. It could be for what he says, or it could activate a kaboomy device tucked away on our ship, or it could signal them to atomize us from orbit. At this point all our options stink, but I should think dying men with nothing to gain would be more trustworthy than not.”
Gav touched a slight bump on Tal’s jaw, activating the secure-link implant.
Rogue Starship: The Benevolency Universe (Outworld Ranger Book 1) Page 2