Rogue Starship: The Benevolency Universe (Outworld Ranger Book 1)

by David Alastair Hayden

  “Yes, Kyra.”

  “I can help you escape,” Siv said.

  Kyralla’s eyes narrowed as she studied him. “Escape?”

  “From the compound. Or reach your uncle if you like, though I’m not sure that’s wise.”

  “You’re thinking what I’m thinking, sir?” Silky asked.

  “That the uncle ratted them out? Yep.”

  “I won’t hurt you or your sister,” Siv promised. “You have my word.”

  “The word of a thief who came here to do the same thing two other groups of infiltrators are trying to do? A man…an addict…who’ll be punished if he fails his bosses?”

  The explosions had increased her mistrust of him. And unlike her sister, Kyralla wasn’t swayed by glowing amulets that levitated.

  “I’m not an addict by choice! And I wouldn’t be here if I’d known what I was sent to do.”

  “Oh sure. How convenient that you didn’t ask them.”

  Siv met her eyes. “I was given only a single day to plan for this job. And I thought it was practically a suicide mission. I could have refused it, but I didn’t because I was promised my freedom…from the Kompel and from the guild.”

  “That’s not a persuasive argument, sir.”

  “Was that supposed to convince me?” Kyralla asked.

  “Told you, sir.”

  “Kyra, he’s here to save us,” Oona repeated urgently. “He’s nearly a guardian, too. You can trust him. I trust him.”

  There was that term “guardian” again. If they survived, he was going to have to ask her what that meant.

  Kyralla seemed unswayed, and she was starting to fidget with indecision.

  “When I was eleven,” Siv said, “a special forces sniper shot my dad through a window in our apartment. Then they stormed in and finished him off—right in front of me. After that the soldiers stunned me and placed me in suspended animation. I would never do that to someone else. I would never harm your sister or take her from you.”

  Oona placed a hand over her mouth, and her eyes welled with tears. Kyralla’s face blanked, and her eyes softened somewhat. Still she said nothing.

  “Ballsack of the Benevolence!” Silky cursed. “What’s wrong with this girl? Shouldn’t she be freaking out right now?”

  “I think that’s exactly what she’s doing.”

  “You’re wasting time,” Siv told Kyralla. “The intruders will figure out where you are soon, if they don’t know already. And some of them aren’t far away. You’re going to need help.”

  “I’ve trained for this my whole life,” she replied defensively as she began to pace.

  “All it takes is one mistake. And you’re facing heavily armed, elite—”

  The data scrolling through Siv’s HUD caught his attention. His heart nearly skipped. “That’s what we’re up against?!”

  “Sorry to bear so much bad news, sir, but you might want to glance at the radar. The starship headed for us, that’s a known Tekk Reaper design. They’re not even attempting to hide from the planetary authorities.”

  “What are you detecting now?” Kyralla asked.

  Siv dug his fingers through his hair, dipped his head, and stifled a scream of frustration.

  “That bad?” she added.

  “The troops from the burst pods are wearing Centurion III power armor. They’re carrying plasma assault rifles and there’s thirty-six of them. Thirty more from the armored vehicles. But at least they’re only wearing combat mesh. And…and there are Tekk Reapers on the way.”

  Kyralla’s face blanched, and she swallowed hard.

  “I’ve fought a few of them recently, and believe me, they’re as bad as you’ve been lead to believe.”

  With her right hand, Oona touched her forehead, her chest over her heart, then her lips. It was a sign of devotion to the Benevolence. Thought, emotion, and expression united…or something like that. Siv had never embraced such reverence.

  Neither had his dad. He thought he remembered his mother being a believer in the divine origin of the Benevolence. It was not a philosophy he could accept. Especially since he suspected the Benevolence had either caused or allowed his father’s murder.

  “I seriously doubt your uncle’s guards will be able to fight their way over here to help. You need me.”

  Kyralla leaned down and offered him a hand. He took it, and she helped him up. “I’m trusting you because Oona does. Turn on us, and you’ll regret it.”

  Siv moved to the bed and gathered his weapons, tucking all of them except the plasma carbine back into their holsters. He noted Kyralla watching him carefully out of the corners of her eyes. She was going to get herself killed worrying about him while fighting.

  “Sir, enemy forces identified. The armored trucks are an alliance of the World Bleeders and the Star Cutters.” Both were rival organizations to the Shadowslip Guild. They had minimal presence in Bei, and Ekaran IV in general, but they controlled crime on many other worlds. “And I believe the burst drops contain Thousand World legionnaires.”

  “Kyra,” Oona said with alarm, “I’ve been trying to contact Uncle Pashta, but his communication system won’t respond to my chippy’s requests.”

  “I know,” Kyralla said, “but don’t worry. It might be protocol for the system to cut off like that if Uncle’s life is in danger. Or perhaps our communications are being jammed.”

  “This is so a setup, sir.”

  “Now’s not the time to convince them of that, Silkster. And there’s a chance we’re wrong.”

  Oona headed toward a display panel on the wall near the door leading to the hallway. “I’ll try the hardwired panel and see if that—”

  Siv leapt in between her and the panel. “No! The enemy could be monitoring that system to figure out where you are.”

  Oona’s eyes widened. “Oh!” She turned to her sister. “See, we needed a second guardian. He has skills you don’t have. You compliment each other.”

  Eyes smoldering, Kyralla ground her teeth. She gestured Siv toward the door. “Gendin, you lead the way. Oona, stay behind me. Keep your shield up. Watch your back.” Her voice lowered. “And keep your thoughts on guardianship to yourself.”

  Oona seemed to shrink under the criticism. With her head bowed meekly, she turned on her force shield. It was a weaker model than Siv’s, with a smaller circular field, but it could probably stop a plasma burst, maybe two weak ones.

  Siv activated his shield, then launched a drone.

  “Spy-Fly 03 deployed and active, sir.”

  Kyralla admired his shield for a moment then said, “We’re going to go to the central corridor and turn right. That should take us in-between both sets of enemies. The corridor will lead us to the north wing. There we can rendezvous with my uncle. His security forces will protect us until we can escape off-world on his emergency starship and meet up with our father.”

  “Do you trust Senator Pashta?” Siv asked.

  “He’s a lech, but I’ve never had any reason to think he’d betray us. He’s known who and what we are for years now. His employees don’t. We’re careful to keep our identities and capabilities from them—just in case. But they are all sworn to secrecy when it comes to all his doings anyway.”

  “Besides, Dad trusts him,” Oona added.

  “Where is your dad?” Siv asked.

  “Off-world, on a diplomatic mission,” Oona answered. “He’s an important ambassador for the Terran Federation. He specializes in bringing rouge worlds back into the federation.”

  Siv tried not to let his doubts show and simply nodded. “Okay then.”

  He stepped toward the door, but Kyralla put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him. “Maybe we should take the long way. We’d have to fight through the thugs from the armored trucks, but it would put us much farther away from the better equipped legionnaires.”

  Siv noted her hand was trembling. Adrenaline and nervousness was to be expected, but she continued to waste valuable time by questioning her instincts and the
data at hand. It was as if she had never—Siv mentally slapped himself in the forehead. Of course she hadn’t.

  “You’ve never been in an actual battle before, have you?”

  Kyralla nodded, almost imperceptibly. “I’ve simulated thousands.”

  “A real battle is different, but don’t worry. As well-trained as you are, you’ll get the hang of it quick. You’ve just got to get your feet wet first. Trust me. I’ve been doing live missions since I was thirteen years old.”

  “When you started you were younger than I am now!” Oona said.

  Kyralla glanced between Siv and Oona, then seemed to come to a decision.

  “You know, why don’t…” she cringed as if she’d just bitten into a sour lemon “…why don’t you take the lead. I’m just slowing us down.”

  “You’ve made the right call.” Siv turned around and headed back toward the garden courtyard. “The enemy doesn’t know I’m here, and they expect to find you two inside. I’m betting they got the same information I did, telling them you would be in the south wing.”

  “We actually changed our rooms this morning,” Kyralla said.

  “I wanted to be closer to the little courtyard so I could get some fresh air without anyone disturbing me,” Oona said.

  “Your enemies will expect you to flee through the main corridor toward your uncle,” Siv said. “But we’re not going to do what they expect.”

  Kyralla and Oona followed him outside.

  “We’ll use antigrav to jump onto the roof. And while our enemies storm through the building, we’ll run over and past them. The roofs are not that steep, so it shouldn’t be too much trouble. Just have your chippies monitor and constantly adjust the antigrav so that you can move quickly and safely.”

  “What about the Tekk Reapers?” Kyralla asked.

  “We have time to get back inside before they arrive,” Siv said, though he really had no idea.

  “Silkster, ETA on those Tekk Reapers?”

  “Two minutes max, sir.”

  Oona looked up at the edge of the roof with worry. The distortion field didn’t prevent seeing a clear view upward. “Is this safe?”

  “Safer than inside. Don’t worry. This is the sort of thing I do all the time, and you’ll do just fine.”

  “Any enemies outside?”

  “Negative, sir.”

  “Call up my skimmer bike and have it fly in close. I want it ready to go at a moment’s notice. With the compound under attack, it won’t draw attention.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  Siv activated his antigrav and leapt up, through the distortion screen and onto the roof. The girls followed warily, Oona first then Kyralla.

  “Sir, you have the advantage at the moment, and you know the hottie isn’t battle tested. You could—”

  “No.”

  “Sir, Boss D-Bag might not forgive you.”

  “Oh, he won’t. I just have to make sure he doesn't find out.”

  “But if he does, sir…”

  “One problem at a time, old friend.”

  With their antigrav lightening them, they bounded along the roof as it slanted gently upward. Siv studied the radar and readouts in his HUD. Senator Pashta, twenty guards, and a dozen security cogs clustered in the north wing, while a few stragglers were desperately fighting their way toward them. Neither the cogs nor the guards looked especially well equipped for battle.

  “Is this information accurate?”

  “I’m afraid it is, sir.”

  They crested the top of the roof for this section of the compound and ran downward.

  “You said your uncle has an emergency starship?” Siv asked.

  “Fueled and ready at all times.”

  “Good, cause you’re gonna need it.”

  They leapt across a wide gutter to the roof that covered the central part of the compound.

  “I don’t follow,” Kyralla said.

  “Your uncle doesn’t have enough manpower to defeat the legionnaires. And if there’s more than a dozen Tekk Reapers…it will be a bloodbath.”

  “Sir, have you noticed their uncle didn’t send any of his men to secure the girls?”

  “I noticed.”

  “Also, sir, I still haven’t located the senator’s starship. And—did you see that?”

  Siv groaned inwardly. “Yes.”

  On the sensor pack’s radar display in his HUD, each individual amongst the various forces around them was a colored dot. The black ones, representing the World Bleeders and Star Cutters, closed in on the south wing where Siv and the girls had been. Half of the Thousand World forces, as red dots, stormed the southeast wing. The other half charged into the central hallway, seeking to cut off any escape route to the north wing.

  None of that was surprising. What the blue dots of the senator’s forces were doing was inexplicable. They were steadily disappearing. And not because they were dying. According to the sensors, they weren’t even under attack.

  “You’re certain we’re not missing any enemies?”

  “I’m patched into the senator’s network now, sir, so the sensors have a good read on what’s going on inside.”

  “Are they cloaking themselves somehow?”

  “Possibly, sir, though I don’t know why they would.”

  “Underground passages, perhaps? Or a secure bunker?”

  “Nothing like that appears on the blueprints we were given, and I can’t detect anything on the network. However, a lot of power is being sent somewhere underground.”

  Siv stopped, and Oona skipped into him.

  Kyralla halted beside them. “What’s wrong?”

  “Where is your uncle’s starship?”

  “In an underground hangar. It launches out through the exterior garden attached to the north wing.”

  All the blue dots were nearly gone.

  “You know he sold them out, sir.”

  “We have to try.”

  Siv sprinted. “Come on! We have to hurry or you’re not going to make it.”

  “What do you mean?” Kyralla demanded as she an Oona raced alongside him.

  They topped the central section and raced downward toward the north wing.

  “The senator’s boarding his ship now.”

  “Why would he do that?” Oona asked, perplexed.

  Siv didn't say anything.

  “He would never abandon us,” Kyralla said, though there was a hint of doubt in her voice.

  “Maybe he thinks we’ve already been captured,” Oona ventured. “Or killed.”

  “More likely he sold you out,” Siv said.

  “He wouldn’t,” Kyralla said, doubt increasing in her voice, “would he?”

  “I didn’t detect any deception in him recently,” Oona said. “Though…I wasn’t looking for anything.”

  “Look,” Siv said, “I’ve worked with criminals for years now, and I’ve seen people sell out their families multiple times. Offer ungodly sums of money along with threats of violence and you can make a lot of men crack.”

  They approached the center of the north wing, near where the senator and his men had been only minutes before. Siv paused and reached into a hidden pocket.

  “It didn’t occur to me earlier,” Kyralla said, “but how do you intend to get us inside?”

  Siv grabbed the small bomb and tossed it ahead. It landed where he wanted, larger side down, and he triggered it with a remote command. The directed blast blew a hole in the roof, one just large enough for them to slip through.

  “You had a bomb the whole time?” Kyralla said.

  “You didn’t pat me down. Rookie mistake.”

  He stopped short of the hole and sent the Spy-Fly down. It verified what he saw on the radar. Everything was all clear. They were good to—

  The building vibrated beneath them, and a deep rumbling, like from huge engines, roared up from below.

  “No,” Kyralla said. “He wouldn’t!”

  A large section of the exterior garden beyond the north wing li
fted up like an escape hatch, and a small starship eased out—multi-colored running lights blinking—and climbed into the night sky.

  “Uncle!” Oona shouted, jumping up and down and waving her arms. “We’re here! Right here!”

  The ship’s aft engines flared, and it burned toward orbit.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Siv Gendin

  The senator’s starship was on course to fly directly past the descending Tekk Reapers. Either the senator’s crew didn’t recognize the reaper ship for what it was, or by arrangement it posed no threat.

  “We’re stranded,” Kyralla said dejectedly. “I can’t…I can’t believe he’d abandon us.”

  “Only one thing left to do, sir. Get them out of here and take them to the guild.”

  “Bring in Spy-Fly 03 and call in my skimmer bike.”

  “Sir, you’re going to take them to the guild, right?”

  Siv’s gut wrenched. He knew that was the safe play…really it was the only one that wouldn’t leave him dead in the end.

  Tears welled in Oona’s eyes. She wasn’t much older than he’d been when his father was murdered…when he was frozen…when he woke up a century later and fell into the clutches of the Shadowslip…when everything he knew and valued was ripped away from him.

  “I can’t, Silkster. Kyralla and Oona still have a chance. Their father is still out there somewhere, and if I can get them to him, then maybe…”

  “Maybe what, sir?”

  “Maybe they’ll be free. The Shadowslip will just do to them what it did to me. I can’t let that happen, not if there’s a chance…”

  “What about you, sir? You took this job to earn your freedom. When the Shadowslip finds out you took the girls and ran…”

  “I know.”

  “But, sir, the Shadowslip will hunt you down. And once the Kompel withdrawal symptoms kick in, you know what will happen.”

  “I have to do this, Silky. It’s my chance to make things right.” He touched the amulet. “Besides, Dad told me to protect the hyperphasic messiah, and I’m guessing Oona’s it.”

  “Making decisions based on dreams and visions seems unwise, sir.”