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

by David Alastair Hayden

  “Only if you’ve already got the right signals,” Silky replied.

  “Good,” Mitsuki replied. “The frequency I’m sending to you worked ten years ago. Seems worth a shot.”

  “Can we scramble both at once?” Siv asked.

  “One burst at a time, sir,” Silky replied.

  “I can adjust it to hit both,” Karson replied. “But it will fry the emitter’s circuits.”

  “Do it,” Mitsuki and Siv said simultaneously.

  Something exploded overhead, and a piercing whine followed. According to the expanded locator in Siv’s HUD, the Terran strike-fighter had taken a hit and was now careening out of control. A number of smaller explosions rattled the house as the burst drops struck outside. Debris pattered onto the roof of the house, plaster rained from the ceiling, and tools fell from the walls.

  Seneca raced into the garage, alarmed.

  “Damn it, I can’t leave him behind,” Siv said.

  “We can’t afford to carry the extra weight, sir.”

  “Seneca, go to the basement!” Siv shouted. “You’ll be safe there.”

  Seneca looked as if he might disobey, but then turned around to head back in.

  Silky deployed the skimmer’s force field. “Take cover!”

  Everyone ducked down into their seats as the damaged Dagger Fist slammed into the opposite side of the house and exploded. The shockwave hurled Seneca back from the door. He thudded into the force field and squealed in fear, which wasn’t real emotion but a function of his self-preservation protocol.

  “Get in!” Siv told him, popping the trunk and opening a section of the field to allow him in.

  The cog climbed inside, somehow finding room amidst the food supplies and all the extra tools and cog parts Bishop had greedily packed. The trunk slammed down, thunking into Seneca’s side. He crushed himself into the supplies, and triggered it again. This time it shut all the way.

  As fire spread through the house, the walls and ceiling began to collapse. So far, the garage was intact, but it wasn’t going to hold up much longer.

  “The pulse burst is ready,” Bishop said. “On your mark, Siv.”

  “We’ve got to get moving!” Kyralla said as flames engulfed the house.

  “Wait,” Mitsuki said.

  “You want to wait?!” Kyralla shouted. “This house is going to collapse in on us.”

  “The force field will protect us,” Mitsuki replied.

  “But for how long?” Kyralla asked.

  “The longer we can stay in here, the better,” Mitsuki said. “The two groups out there are killing one another. That’s to our advantage.”

  Siv didn’t like that normal Terran Federation soldiers were dying outside. They weren’t the bad guys like the invading Thousand Worlders. They were just following orders in a confusing situation. And based on what he was seeing in his HUD, right now they were taking heavy losses.

  “Change of plans,” Siv said. “Just scramble the Thousand Worlders.”

  “We don’t have time for playing favorites,” Mitsuki said.

  “Would you rather have Thousand Worlders winning out the there?”

  Mitsuki’s jaws set. “Hell no. Scramble the bastards.”

  “You’ve got it,” Bishop said.

  “Hey, that’s my line,” Silky complained. “And my job.”

  Bishop ignored Silky. “Pulse triggered.”

  “Once the Federation troops have the upper hand and start chasing us, we’ll scramble them,” Siv said.

  “The structural integrity of the garage is approaching zero,” Silky said.

  “Time to go,” Mitsuki said.

  Siv activated the garage door, but nothing happened. The house’s electrical system was shot. Flames erupted along the wall leading into what remained of the rest of the house, and ceiling tiles began to pelt the car.

  “Just drive through the door,” Mitsuki said.

  Kyralla slammed the car into drive.

  “Wait!” Silky said. “That door’s reinforced!”

  A beam fell from ceiling and landed just behind the car. It was too bad the car didn’t have a ram or a plasma cannon mounted on it.

  “We’ve got shields,” Kyralla said.

  “And we’re going to need them,” Silky replied.

  “We don’t have a choice! And we’re wasting time.”

  Crashing into it was going to weaken the car’s force field, but there was nothing they could do about it. With a reverberating boom, a beam fell onto the bed of the old farm truck parked beside them.

  Siv smiled. “Silky, take over the skimmer truck. Use it to bash through the garage door.”

  “You’ve got it, sir.”

  Like with everything else he owned, Siv had rigged the old skimmer so that Silky could interface with it. He’d only used the truck once. He hoped it still worked.

  The old truck’s engines howled as it woke and rose from the ground.

  “If you can send it careening into some Thousand Worlders, all the better,” Mitsuki added.

  Under Silky’s control, the farm truck barreled forward and plowed through the garage doors. Kyralla didn’t wait for suggestions. She drove the skimmer car directly behind it.

  “Activate the shimmer veil!” Mitsuki said.

  “Done,” Silky replied.

  From inside the car, hardly anything changed. The shimmering mirage effect was nothing more than a blur so faint you could blame it on a light mist. But from a distance it would work much better, and in the midst of a chaotic battle, it should be extremely effective.

  Silky activated the jamming functions within Siv’s sensor array, as well as the more primitive system installed in the car.

  As the two vehicles shot out into the driveway, the garage and what remained of the house collapsed behind them in a gush of flames. A moment of sadness thrummed through Siv, only to be replaced by a mix of terror and awe.

  As a procurement specialist he’d participated in a lot of scrapes, including a few brief gunfights involving several combatants. The incidents of the last week with the Tekk Reapers were the largest engagements he’d ever been a part of. None of that had prepared him for the chaos of the small battle taking place on his farm.

  A Thousand Worlder starfighter crashed into the orchard and exploded, destroying all the zii trees in a wash of flame. The remaining four Solo-Nines careened through the sky as they evaded fire from three of the five surviving Federation Hammer Strikes.

  Under a hail of fire from the other two Hammer Strikes, centurion-armored soldiers streamed out from four burst drops. The fifth pod was a fiery slag, destroyed by railgun fire as it landed.

  Most of the centurions returned fire with their plasma rifles, while their heavy weapon specialists ducked to the back, apparently unable to do anything while their brothers were chewed to pieces. One took a plasma cannon shot directly to the waist. As the man fell into two smoldering pieces Siv looked away. Oona shrieked and covered her face. Bishop gagged. Mitsuki was unfazed.

  Silky piloted the skimmer truck toward the nearest group of Thousand Worlders who hadn’t even noticed it barreling toward them. It plowed through four men then crashed into their burst pod.

  Siv noted the Solo-Nines continued to evade the Hammer Strikes without fighting back.

  “I take it the jamming’s effective?”

  “Mitsuki’s frequency was gold,” Silky replied.

  Kyralla cut a hard right and took the car across the fallow back field where the remnants of the destroyed burst pod still burned.

  No one followed them, and no one shot at them. Either they had passed unnoticed, or they simply weren’t a priority at the moment.

  “We have incoming,” Silky said. “Two more Federation Dagger Fists.”

  Siv expanded the locator. The strike fighters, represented by blue triangles, soared in hot, launching air-to-air missiles at the Solo-Nines. At the same time, the drop ship high above unleashed a hail of plasma bolts at the Hammer Strikes. Siv guessed it
was too high to be affected by the emitter.

  A Hammer Strike exploded behind them as the skimmer car crossed the field unscathed and headed toward an abandoned road that wound through the countryside. They were quickly escaping the battle, though it hardly seeming like it with the reverberating booms of cannon fire, missile hits, and explosions still shaking the frame of the car.

  A fireball erupted high overhead.

  “What the hell was that?!” Bishop cried.

  “The drop ship just sustained a heavy hit from the planet’s orbital defense laser batteries.”

  “No hornets?” Siv asked.

  “Guess they haven’t figured them out,” Silky replied.

  “What’s the effective range for the jamming pulse?” Mitsuki asked.

  “Less than three kilometers,” Bishop replied.

  Mitsuki gave Siv a meaningful glance. “The Federation boys have the upper hand now.”

  Siv nodded with a reluctant sigh. “Do it, Silky.”

  “Do you want me to scramble both or switch?”

  “Switch,” Mitsuki said. “I don’t want to burn out the device. We may need it again.”

  “Scrambling the Feds,” Silky said.

  “You’re taking orders from her now instead of me?” Siv asked.

  “In battle, sir, you don’t always have the luxury of following the chain of command. And judging from your vitals, your due for another wave of withdrawal symptoms any moment now.”

  “Adrenaline’s all that’s keeping me going."

  In the distance, pieces of the drop ship rained down like fiery meteors. The battle continued, but the sounds and sights faded behind them as the skimmer sped across the broad fields far faster than Siv would have imagined. Karson’s upgrades were impressive, and Kyralla kept the accelerator floored with no concern whatsoever for safety.

  The old road faded away, and Silky directed Kyralla to keep driving in the same direction. As they sped across the countryside, Kyralla dodged stands of trees, flew over a farm house, and whipped around a moving tractor without slowing down. Apparently, her reflexes were as good as she claimed.

  “Wouldn’t we better off, and safer, if we got on the highway?” Bishop asked as Kyralla slid the car around a rocky outcrop. He was holding a hand over his mouth. His eyes were watery, his skin pale.

  “Harder for them to find us off-road,” Mitsuki said.

  “We’ll eventually have no choice, though,” Siv said. “The terrain’s going to get rough soon, and we can’t climb to a high enough altitude to go over the mountains. That means going through, and there’s only one tunnel.”

  “And that’s a big problem,” Mitsuki said. “Even if they don’t catch us going in, if they have the slightest clue where we’re heading, they can land forces on the other side of the tunnel and wait for us.”

  Siv restrained a sudden wave of tremors. “Not…not much we can…do about it.”

  “Kyralla, just how confident are you in your piloting skills?” Silky asked.

  “I’ve gotten the hang of this thing, why?”

  “I know another way through the mountains. It’s treacherous, and I can’t guarantee that none of the sections have collapsed. But I can promise you they won’t expect us to use it. Because I doubt they know about it.”

  “Might be worth the risk,” Mitsuki said. “If we can’t make it all the way through, we can at least hide in there for a while.” She turned to Siv. “Your call.”

  Siv buckled as the withdrawals symptoms returned full force. The car seemed to fold in around him as he began to shake violently, foam dripping from his mouth, his insides boiling.

  “Take Silky’s route,” Mitsuki said quietly.

  Siv faded in and out as the car headed up into the mountains. Every bump and turn, even the slightest adjustments to the course sent his brain swimming.

  “Hang in there, sir. It’s not the end…not yet.”

  Siv had been through this part before without dying, but it was only going to get worse from here, and fast. He wished he would fall unconscious, the stupor left him feeling every pain of the symptoms. And Silky couldn’t give him a sedative. They had learned the hard way, with a trip to the emergency room, that doing so would only make things worse.

  There was the Awake stimulant, but he would wait until the last moment before taking that, because it would only buy him a little quality time while hastening the end.

  The skimmer climbed into the mountains, its engines skirling as it followed along the remnants of a long-abandoned road through an uninhabited area. Siv heard Silky telling the others something about a chemical accident that poisoned the ground here centuries ago, but he missed all the details.

  The symptoms began to abate. The convulsions faded to tremors. The fire within him cooled. His heart rate slowed. Oona gave him a sip of water, then he slumped over and laid his head across her shoulder.

  The skimmer’s engines quieted as the steep climb ended, then it plowed through a boarded entrance, and plunged into a pitch-dark tunnel. As the darkness swallowed them, Siv fell into a fitful sleep, even as the amulet warmed against his skin.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Oona Vim

  Oona smiled as she kept smoothing Siv’s hair back. He was cute, almost handsome. If he had a flaw, he was too ordinary looking. That was a trait she liked a lot. She saw exquisitely rare in the mirror every day, and unusual was the theme of her life.

  “How’s he doing?” Mitsuki whispered back.

  “Asleep,” Oona replied. “He’s not trembling, though. I guess that’s a good sign.”

  “For now,” Silky replied in a quiet voice over the comm. “His vitals are erratic, but they haven’t started to crash…yet.”

  Oona sighed sadly. Poor Siv. He was dying, and it was all her fault. If she were brave enough to turn herself in, she could avoid anyone else getting hurt, like all the people who had died today while trying to capture her. But she didn’t have the courage to give up on the idea of who she was supposed to become.

  From the time of her transformation until now, she had been taught that her purpose was great. Her father, a believer in the divine origin of the Benevolence, had secreted her away on her uncle’s estate on Ekaran IV, a backwater planet where no one knew she had ever existed.

  Oona had been taught that she was perhaps the most important being in the galaxy, that she was the latest in a series of hyperphasic messiahs, and that she would one day be the one to survive and restore the Benevolence.

  Never mind that no one knew how she was supposed to do any of that, or what she was capable of. Or even what the term “hyperphasic messiah” truly meant. There were scraps of lore passed down from unknown sources, and the lore did match what little she could do, like shaping the amulets and being able to read people better than a third generation empath could, only without training. And the lore also described her transformation and her awakening. But not much else.

  It was difficult to believe she was the most important person in the galaxy when she felt miserable and trapped all the time and was treated like a delicate piece of china. And her abilities were effectively useless. The others could all fight, except for Bishop, though he had already saved them by remodeling the car in a single night. All she could do was be endangered and wait for her awakening.

  It would come, suddenly and without warning, days or weeks or maybe years from now. Her father was certain that she would survive, safe and sane. That it was her destiny to bring back the Benevolence. But only one other anointed one had ever survived.

  Two weeks ago, she had thought her awakening had begun. She was meditating while floating in her sensory deprivation chamber when suddenly it felt as if she had moved from the seeming void of the chamber to…somewhere else.

  This elsewhere was a formless vortex of thoughts and musings, ballads and diagrams, theories and waltzes. She could taste every piece of knowledge. She could smell every emotion. It was as if humanity’s every product of creation had been dumped i
nto a higher dimension.

  And yet, she couldn’t pin down a single poem or musing. She couldn’t listen to one melody or analyze an individual picture. So many things rushed by at once. She couldn’t see the trees, only the forest. But it was all there, if only she had the skill to reach out and pluck one thing free.

  She drew a deep breath and focused. She reached out with her hand—or mind, the difference was impossible to tell—and tried to latch onto a single thought as it swirled past.

  As her fingertips brushed the idea, she withdrew, having realized it was a tainted, twisted thing. Among the poems slithered screeds of hate, among the dances lurked bloodied knives, within the diagrams of machines spun terrible treacheries.

  Then she sensed, suddenly, two other entities in the elsewhere with her. One radiated fear. The other madness. And they were moving toward her.

  Oona pulled her mind free, threw open the deprivation tank, and stumbled naked out into the hallway…crying…bewildered…dazed by the lights of the real world.

  Uncle Pashta had found her, curled in a ball, crying in the corner of the library. He’d wrapped her in a towel and taken her back to her room, with such soothing care and tender words that she still couldn’t believe he had betrayed them.

  “It was a nightmare,” he’d said to her.

  And the more she had thought about it, the more that had seemed likely. In the deprivation tank she’d lost the ability to tell the difference between meditative pondering and lucid dreaming.

  Kyralla had been asleep when it happened, and Oona hadn’t told her, because it was a harmless event and Kyralla worried too much already.

  Afterward, Oona hadn’t been brave enough to return to the deprivation chamber, fearing the same thing would happen again.

  Siv shifted, and Oona realized she’d stopped stroking his head. He settled down once she started again. She wished she could be normal, have an ordinary life. She would grow up, get a job and find someone brave and strong, like Siv, to be with. But that would never happen.

  But maybe Kyralla could have a future. Maybe with Siv. He obviously liked her. Who wouldn’t? Kyralla was beautiful and brave. Oona smiled. It was nice to think that maybe Siv would somehow miraculously survive this and then the two of them could escape to another world and find a nice, quiet life together.