Unknown Cargo (The Meridian Crew Book 1)

by Blake B. Rivers

  “A complication?” asked Amelia, breaking the silence.

  “That’s the goddamn problem with mercenaries, they don’t respect the chain of command,” said Drummond. “Always taking matters into their own hands that me, the boss, should know about. If there’s one thing the Federation did right…”

  He trailed off.

  “But you’re going to be sticking to me like glue, young lady, until we can wrangle up our little escapees and get this mess sorted out.”

  Amelia looked down at the durasteel bindings wrapped around her wrists.

  “Any chance on letting me out of these?” she asked.

  Drummond laughed as they turned a corner, the boots of the four clanging on the steel floors as they walked at their brisk pace.

  “Why, so you can disarm me and kill these poor mooks? Not a chance.”

  Amelia saw the pair of guards exchange worried looks out of the corner of her eye.

  “Hold on,” said Drummond, raising his hand.

  The air was still and silent aside from the omnipresent humming. But then, the sound of high-powered plasma shots could be heard from down the hallway. Amelia would recognize the sound of that particular rifle anywhere- it was Benkei.

  “Go, now,” said Drummond, picking up his pace.

  They soon reached the massive expanse of the security room that Amelia had been in only a short time ago. But this time, instead of the room being packed with activity, it was now still and quiet, the walls charred with black bursts of energy weapon impact and riddled with holes from errant gunpowder weapons-fire. Security team bodies were strewn here and there.

  “What the hell happened in here?” asked Drummond of no one in particular, his voice carrying through the vast, empty expanse of the room.

  But before he could get a response, a plasma rifle fired, the low, warbling whoomp filling the air. A seafoam-green burst flew through the air, connecting with the guard on the right, sending him flying backwards into the hallway that they had just left, where he landed with a clatter. Amelia and Drummond dove behind separate nearby computer consoles just as another bolt of green energy rocketed through the air and connected with the remaining guard.

  “Little one,” shouted Benkei from his position on the second-floor overlook, his deep voice resonating through the room. “If you’re looking to make an escape, now’s the time to do it.”

  Amelia didn’t waste a second. She jumped to her feet and began running towards the stairs leading to the second floor.

  “You get one warning before I shoot, my dear!” called Drummond from where he was hidden. “Ah, to hell with it!”

  Amelia heard the unholstering of Drummond’s twelve-millimeter-round pistol, followed by the deafening cracks of the gun being fired. The rounds hit the wall at head level, a few steps behind each time, the wall caving in under each round as though it had been slammed into by a great iron fist. Reaching the second floor, she saw where Benkei was crouched, and, with a long slide on the floor, positioned herself next to him.

  “You do all of this yourself?” asked Amelia.

  “You’d be amazed at what you can accomplish with a good vantage point, the element of surprise, and a high-powered plasma rifle.”

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “No argument here,” said Benkei, another round from Drummond cracking off and hitting the wall with a bang.

  “Amelia!” yelled Drummond. “You can run, but you won’t get far!”

  “What’s the plan?” asked Amelia.

  “We find Sasha and Sam, get to the ship, and fly it out of here, of course.”

  “And the cargo?”

  “No clue.”

  “We leave, and we could be signing the death warrant of everyone on the other side of the moon.”

  “Well, unless you want to clear out the entire city to find it, then we have no other option but to get back to the ship and figure the situation out from there.”

  Amelia knew he was right. But she also knew that Drummond would do everything in his power to keep the ship from leaving.

  The sound of dozens of footsteps near the entrance of the comms room drowned out her thoughts.

  “What the hell am I paying you for?” called Drummond. “Shoot the big one, bring down the girl!”

  Next was the aiming of dozens of rifles.

  “I think now’s the time to make our escape,” said Benkei.

  “Sounds about right to me.”

  The pair broke into a crouched run just as the barrage of laser rifle fire began, the air filling with ruby-red bolts that slammed into the wall and ceiling around them with hissing pops, the acrid smell of burning material filling their noses as they ran down the second-floor hallway.

  “Sasha and Sam both broke out of their rooms; I saw on the security footage,” said Amelia, the two of them taking a brief breather once they were beyond the security room.

  “Then where are they?” asked Benkei.

  “No clue,” said Amelia, trying in vain to get the durasteel bindings off her wrists.

  “We can get those off back on the ship,” said Benkei.

  A pair of footsteps sounded down the hallway from the direction that they were running in. Benkei raised his rifle, preparing to blast apart anyone who stood in their way.

  “Hey, hey!” called out the familiar voice of Sasha. “It’s me.”

  Benkei lowered the weapon as Sasha turned the corner. And at his side was a brunette with a frightened look on her face.

  “Another member of your fan club?” asked Amelia, looking at the girl, who looked at them with wide eyes.

  “Galentina, this is my captain, Amelia Durand, and our, muscle I suppose you’d call him, Kaito Benkei.”

  The girl raised her hand timidly.

  “We’re all introduced? Great,” said Amelia. “Then let’s get back to the ship.”

  “Ah, one problem with that,” said Sasha. “The ship’s gone.”

  “Gone!?” asked Amelia.

  “Yes, Galentina was kind enough to allow me access to the security feed, and the ship is gone. It looks like, ah, someone got in it, shot up the hanger, and flew it out.”

  “Sam,” said Benkei and Amelia simultaneously.

  “My thoughts, as well. I’m sure she’s waiting for us somewhere above the city. The Meridian’s cloaking is advanced, but it shouldn’t take more than an hour to spot her, especially since they’re looking.”

  “Then what?” asked Amelia.

  The footsteps from the security room could now be heard and were growing louder by the second.

  “There’s a maintenance airlock not too far from here. If we can make it there, we can get onto the surface and, with any luck, she’ll find us.”

  “Unless we get shot or run out of oxygen before that,” said Benkei. “But I suppose we don’t have any other options.”

  “Right,” said Amelia. “Then let’s do it.”

  As if on cue, the guards from the security room arrived in the hallway, Captain Drummond at their lead, stopping to draw a bead.

  “Now, go!” Amelia yelled, the group breaking into a run just as the guards began to fire, filling the air where they’d stood only moments ago with energy weapon blasts.

  Benkei blind-fired a few rounds as the groupran. They made it down the winding hallways, now moving into the more populated areas of the city, the guards in hot pursuit but not firing for fear of hitting civilians. The group kept up their pace, losing the guards in the dense throngs of people in the dome hub that they entered. Soon they arrived at the maintenance airlock, suited up, and stepped out onto the lifeless surface of the moon.

  Chapter 21

  Amelia’s steps landed on the gray, powdery surface of the moon with silent footfalls. Her hands still bound by the durasteel cuffs, the empty arms of her suit flopped at her sides, waving in the low gravity as though she were underwater.

  She turned back towards the airlock and saw no sign that they were being pursued. But she knew
it was only a matter of time before Drummond tracked them down and opened fire from the turrets that bristled on the sides of the city.

  “If Sam’s here, now would be a particularly good time to pick us up,” said Benkei through the suit comms.

  “No kidding,” said Amelia, looking up into the star-filled sky for any sign of the ship.

  “I doubt she took off without us, so we just need to keep getting some distance between us and the city.”

  “Um,” said the thin, small voice of Galentina. “I don’t think that the staff performed the requisite resupply in that particular airlock, because I’m at about five percent oxygen.”

  “Shit,” said Amelia, looking at the readout in her helmet. “Three percent here.”

  “Same here,” said Benkei. “How long will that last us?”

  “About five minutes,” said Sasha. “Assuming we don’t need to breath more than necessary.”

  “You mean if we needed to outrun a security team, for example?” asked Benkei, now stopped in his tracks.

  “Yes, exactly like that.”

  “In that case, I have some bad news.”

  The group turned and saw that a small garage-like door was opening on the side of one of the massive white domes. And out of the black of the garage came a silver rover. It was some distance away, but Amelia could see that it was manned by a pair of security troopers in the front and one standing at the bulky energy chaingun at the top. Once the first was out of the garage, another followed.

  “Shit!” said Amelia. “They’ll be on us in less than a minute.”

  “Then we’d better start running,” said Benkei.

  The group broke into a run that was as fast as they were capable of in the low gravity of the moon. But the rovers grew larger the closer they got, and Amelia knew that they’d be on top of them within seconds.

  The situation seemed hopeless. Aside from Benkei, they were unarmed targets waiting to be picked off. The rovers were now close enough to open fire, a red flash whizzing across the distance to the group as the passenger of one of the rovers took a potshot with his side arm. But once they opened up with those chainguns, Amelia knew they were done for. She stood in place, watching the rovers grow larger and larger against the backdrop of the huge sprawl of the city behind them.

  But before they could open fire, the rover on the left exploded in a brilliant blossom of orange and red, the bodies of the troopers and the debris from the rovers flying outwards in slow, low-G arcs. Amelia looked up, only to see that the blackness above was now filled with the shape of the Meridian, the invisibility of the cloak peeling backwards as though it were a cellophane wrapping.

  “Goddamn!” said Amelia. “There’s our girl!”

  Another concentrated burst of plasma erupted from the lower cannons of the Meridian, the light green of the energy fire turning the other rover into an explosion of hot slag, gray dust kicking into the air with the impact.

  The Meridian came to a halt above the four and the hatch opened, followed by a steel ladder descending. The group climbed into the lower deck of the ship, the hatch shutting once they were safely within.

  Each of the four pulled their helmets off, gulping in large swallows of air. Looking at the digital readout on her helmet, Amelia saw that she was at point-four-percent oxygen levels; Sam had come just in time.

  “That’s some timely flying, Sam!” said Amelia, speaking into the comms.

  “Uh, we might want to keep the celebrating to a minimum for now,” said Sam through the comms. “We got some fast movers coming on from the city.”

  “I would say that that had been too easy, but, well, it wasn’t, at all,” said Benkei, stepping out of his zero-atmosphere suit.

  “What’s going to happen?” asked Galentina, grabbing onto Sasha for comfort.

  “Sam, stay low to the surface,” said Amelia, shucking off her suit. “Fly around the city, and head towards the other side of the moon.”

  “The other side?” asked Benkei. “We may very well run into the New Edeners, should we go in that direction.”

  “It’s the only chance we have,” said Amelia. “Between the scientists that want to kill us and the hippies that don’t, I’ll go with the hippies.”

  At that moment, the ship shook with the impact of a weapon from one of the pursuing ships.

  “We just got winged, guys,” said Sam, worry creeping into her voice. “Anyone feel up for manning the turrets?”

  “I’m down,” said Amelia. “Benkei- you go high, I’ll go low?”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” he said.

  “And Sasha, uh, you keep our guest company.”

  “I can handle that,” he said, a smirk on his face, his arm wrapped around Galentina.

  Amelia and Benkei ran off to their turret stations, with Amelia only needing to run the length of the lower deck to reach hers. Through the angled window of the station past the row of cylinders that made up the plasma battery, Amelia could see the surface of the moon rushing past, the gray inky and dark. Settling into the seat, she knew that they’d reach Crater, the large chunk of the moon that had been blasted off in a Federation weapons experiment, and the light side of the moon soon after.

  Amelia whipped the guns parallel to the ship, now able to see the set of five egg-shaped ships that were in pursuit, each spitting a steady stream of plasma fire that Sam was skillfully weaving the ship through.

  “You ready, big man?” asked Amelia, her hands sweaty against the smooth rubber of the twin firing sticks.

  “Always, little one,” he said.

  “Then let’s waste these assholes!”

  Amelia squeezed the triggers on both sticks, sending a barrage of energy-weapon fire at the ships, the seafoam green of the plasma racing across the surface of the moon. The leftmost ship that she was aiming at moved out of the way of the weapons fire with a lazy tumble. Amelia saw the azure stream of Benkei’s laser fire spray against the top of the rightmost ovoid, connecting with harmless cream-colored splashes against the ship’s shields.

  “Looks like they’re working with some pretty advanced shield tech,” said Benkei.

  “No kidding,” said Sam.

  “Guys, I hope you’re buckled in, because we’re about to fly into Crater.”

  “Any chance we can lose ’em down there?” asked Amelia, training her sights on the center ship as Sam pulled the Meridian into a hard-left bank.

  Amelia could see Crater up ahead, which had the appearance of a deep, endless canyon that stretch for hundreds of miles, filled with nothing but inky darkness until the hole reached the light side of the moon. They were almost there.

  “That’s the plan, cap! Hold on!”

  With that, Sam dove the ship into Crater, Amelia’s stomach sinking as Sam flew the ship at an unthinkable trajectory that would be impossible to pull out of for any other ship. Amelia watched the murky bottom of Crater rush up to them, only for the ship to pull up perpendicular to the surface once again, right before they would’ve slammed into the ground.

  Amelia swiveled the chair back to face the pursuing ships, just in time to watch as two of them failed to pull up in time, slamming into the bottom of Crater, the ships exploding in crackling blue balls of released energy.

  “Two unfortunate crews down,” said Benkei over comms.

  Amelia trained her sights on the leftmost of the three remaining ships. She knew that, though the shields looked sturdy, with enough direct hits she could wear them down. The Meridian was flying at an incredible speed through the uneven topography of Crater, but Amelia, letting her reflexes take over, was able to squeeze out a sputter of plasma fire that connected with the ship she was aiming for. The shields lit up with the same creamy wash as before, but the last few shots managed to sneak through, hitting the hull of the ovoid and knocking it off its course.

  “Nice shot,” said Benkei. “But watch this.”

  Amelia felt a lurch in the ship, followed by a missile launch, which flew in a sideways arc to
wards the ship on the right. It connected, punching through the ship’s armor and enveloping the front in a terrific explosion. What remained of the ship dropped down onto the floor of Crater, exploding into nothingness.

  “A missile?” asked Amelia, disbelief in her voice. “Not only is that cheating, it’s expensive.”

  “Whatever gets the job done, I say,” said Benkei.

  Amelia let the remaining ship drift into the white “X” of her crosshairs, fired a volley of shots, and watched as the green blasts cut through the remaining shields of the ship, tore into the hull, and blasted the final ovoid into a million flaming pieces. With a sigh, Amelia collapsed into her seat, a trickle of sweat dripping down her forehead.

  “And that’s that,” said Benkei.

  Amelia turned in her seat just in time to watch the ship fly into the sun-facing part of Crater, the ship filling with bright white light.

  “OK, guys, we’re about to pull up outta this hole,” said Sam. “Hold on.”

  The wall of Crater now in sight, the ship pulled upward in a steep climb and pressed Amelia into her seat, followed by a leveling out of the ship once they were back on the surface proper of the moon.

  “Smooth sailing from here on out,” said Benkei.

  “Uh, guys?” asked Sam.

  “What now?” asked Amelia.

  “We got incoming!”

  Amelia looked through the turret window at the incoming missile. But the mot she was able to do was register its presence before it slammed into the ship, sending the Meridian crashing onto the lunar surface. And that was the last thing Amelia remembered before her head knocked into the turret station wall, sending her into immediate unconsciousness.

  Chapter 22

  The sweet smell of fresh fruit -strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries, to be specific; fruits she hadn’t had seen in months, let alone eaten- was the first thing that Amelia registered as she drifted back into consciousness.

  Next was the sight of the group of handsome men and women standing around her, all wearing outfits of muted Earth tones that fit sensually on their toned bodies, their hair uniformly lustrous and full, their faces all varying degrees of beautiful.