Zeta Hack: A Paranormal Space Opera Adventure (Star Justice Book 3)

by Michael-Scott Earle

  “I understand,” I said as the beast in my stomach roared up from my stomach.

  My chest swelled against the expensive suit I wore, my legs bulged and pushed against my pants. Every disc in my back popped when my spine elongated, but then they reformed around the joints. My feet cried out in pain when they pushed against my leather dress shoes, but then the stitching broke, and my pawed toes ripped free of the tattered shoe.

  “Arrrgghh,” I groaned as I moved my arms forward and felt the seams of the coat rip a bit. Somehow, the suit was still on me, but I imagined it wouldn’t last for more than a few minutes of me fighting in my tiger-man form.

  My human teeth popped out of my mouth with a gush of blood, and they clattered to the floor at the same times as the bullet in my chest and shoulder both did. The pain from both of those wounds was now gone, replaced by the hot agony of my transformation and the animal hunger coursing through my blood.

  My vision shifted on the color spectrum a bit so that everything had a yellowish-red hue, and my eyes darted between the blood covering Eve and the pulse of blood I saw throb in Juliette’s slender neck.

  “Let’s go killlllll them,” I growled as I stumbled toward the door. The tattered shoes were too awkward to walk in, so I reached down and tore them free of my feet with a flick of my retractable finger claws.

  I reached the stairwell door and ripped it off its hinges with a push from my hands. The hunk of metal smacked against the railing of the steps and then tumbled down the center space of the stairs with a series of thunderous bounces. The men down below would know I was coming, but I didn’t care. I wanted them to know.

  I wanted them to fear.

  “Two floors down!” Juliette shouted as I rushed down the stairs ahead of the two women. I grunted a reply, passed the next floor’s door, and then leapt the remaining four sets of stairs. I heard the men down below shouting, probably because of the sound of the door falling, and one of the crooked cops had opened the door to the lower level so he could investigate the noise.

  He saw me leap down the stairs, and he opened his mouth to scream. The sound never left his lungs, though. I shoved the pistol in my right hand into his opened maw and pulled the trigger twice. Then I stepped past him into the security room and shot the face off another man who had turned away from his set explosive.

  The room looked like a military command bridge of a carrier class vessel. There was a center bullpen of metal cubicle bays with terminals. This area was raised above a small sea of rowed terminals that all faced the main screen. I guessed each of the stations would manually control a plasma cannon, but the room smelled of forgotten dust and old computer parts.

  There was movement on the far side of the room, and I ducked behind one of the terminals before the other trio of assholes could aim at me. One was directly across the room and took up a similar place of cover as I had. The other was off to my left, on the other side of the raised control platform in the middle of the vast room. The last was positioned by the front screen of the command center, and he was angling further to my right so he could flank me.

  The last one was probably going to be the biggest problem if I stayed in my current position. He’d be able to get a cross-shot angle on me while the first one kept me pinned. These were the kind of problems that were easily solved with a grenade, but I didn’t have any on me, so I just threw my furry bulk over the side of one of the terminals, and angled myself to run to the far side of the room.

  The first man shot at me, but I was running much too fast, and his bullets hit the cubicle walls three meters behind me. The second man down by the screen also tried for a shot, but he was a good sixty meters away and shooting upward at an angle. He was just wasting ammo.

  I slid behind one of the last terminal stations and then ducked out around the far side of it. My opponent realized I was moving to flank him, so he’d backed around his terminal to get more cover. He leaned around the other side, and we both exchanged shots. They both bounced off the metal we each hid behind, but he ducked back around his cover to avoid my next bullet.

  I had hoped he would do that, and I sprang around my terminal wall instead of shooting at him a second time. Then I rushed his position while the man down by the screen cried out a warning. It was too little too late, and I leapt over the wall of the first man’s terminal before he realized I was upon him. My twin pistols barked together, and the bullets tore gaping holes through the top of his skull.

  I rolled through my landing, popped up onto my feet, and then jumped down the stairs that connected the various levels of rows in the command center. I leapt toward the man by the screen, and the bullets left his gun like frantic screams of distress. He didn’t expect a giant tiger-man to be charging down at him, and his bullets didn’t come anywhere close to hitting me.

  I made a long jump over the row of tables three meters from his position and pulled the triggers of my guns while I was in the air. These pistols were half the caliber size of my usual weapons, and they almost felt like toys in my giant cat hands, but they were accurate, and both of my bullets took the crooked cop in the chest. He tumbled back against the stair railing with a muted cry, and I fired once more to put another pair of bullets in him.

  The last man hadn’t shot at me when I charged down toward the screen, so I guessed he intended to flee. My prediction was proven correct a few seconds later when I heard him unleash a blood-curdling scream. Then there were two gunshots, and the scream went silent.

  “We are clear up here!” Juliette yelled.

  “Clear down herrrrrrree!” I growled back. Then I looked at the feet of the man that I just killed and saw the bomb.

  A few minutes later we found the rest and disarmed them. Then we moved back up to the jail floor, and Juliette hid them away in the lockers.

  “Three more to do,” she said as soon as we returned to the stairwell and began our climb back up to the main floor.

  “There will be more men up here, and they will be ready for us,” Eve said.

  “I’ll kill them all,” I growled. Disarming the bombs and hiding them hadn’t been enough activity for the monster in my soul, and it wanted to kill again.

  We reached the top level door, and I motioned for the two women to step away while I checked the hallway. I didn’t know what to expect on the other side of the door, but I should have expected what I saw: Ten cops in full battle armor positioned at the far end of the hallway.

  “Down!” I yelled as I slammed the door closed. I heard a thwump sound from the other side of the door and wrapped my arms around both of the women.

  Then I threw myself down the stairs away from the exploding door.

  Juliette shouted as we fell down the stairs, but Eve knew I was trying to protect them, and she wrapped her arms around the flailing redhead so that both stayed in my grip. My shoulders, back, ass, and legs smacked into the sharp edges of the stairs, and then my head collided with the wall at the bottom of the switchback.

  The air was filled with smoke, fire, and shouts from the men upstairs. I figured they would either follow up with another shot from their rocket-propelled grenade, or they would throw a few offensive grenades past the destroyed door. Either way, laying here wasn’t going to do the three of us any good.

  “Up,” I said as I pushed them from my chest. The women didn’t need much encouragement, and they moved back down the stairs a few steps while I stood. I found one of my dropped pistols at my feet, but I couldn’t see the other one. There was a third in my belt, but the bouncing sound of two grenades interrupted my plans to draw the weapon.

  “Eve!” I shouted, but as soon as the words left my mouth, both of the bouncing metal balls reversed their trajectory and launched them back the way they had come.

  There were a series of screams from up above, and then twin explosions.

  “Good job,” I said as I sprinted up the stairs.

  “My pleasure,” Eve replied.

  I turned into the smoky hallway and then finished
yanking my other pistol out of my belt. The pair of grenades did all the work I intended, and all but two of the armored men appeared to be dead.

  Do not kill yet. I can question them.

  Eve’s voice came into my mind as I prepared to execute one of the survivors.

  “Got it,” I growled and waited for the two women to join me.

  “These fucks,” Juliette sighed when she looked at the bodies.

  “Know them?” I asked.

  “Know them? I’ve worked with them for ten years. Most of them didn’t like me, but I thought I had their respect. I thought they cared about Queen’s Hat enough to want to protect it. They are traitors to their uniform, and the oath we swore to.”

  “Not all people can resist the call of money and pleasure,” Eve said.

  “I guess not,” Juliette said as she reached into her coat. She pulled out her pack of cigarettes. Looked at them. Looked at us, and then put them back in her coat.

  “This one looks the most alive,” I said to Eve as I grabbed one of the men that looked more stunned than injured by the explosions. I yanked his helmet off his head and then sat him upright against one of the walls.

  “Do you know about the bombs?” Eve asked the man. She smiled at him, but I could see the anger in her red eyes.

  “Fuck. You.” He coughed and then spat on the beautiful woman’s face.

  I didn’t even have time to think about my actions. The pistol in my right hand kicked four times, and the man’s head seemed to vaporize.

  “Adam,” Eve turned to me and frowned as she wiped the spit from her bloody face.

  “Sorrrrrry,” I growled. “Let’s try the other asshole.” I pointed to the other man I thought was alive, but on cue, he coughed, and blood poured out of his mouth.

  “Uhhh. That was Briggs. He’s rather dead now,” Juliette said with a sigh. “This level of the station has thirty offices, four bullpens with twenty desks each, and eight interrogation rooms. Finding those three explosives will be like finding a lump of frozen shit in an asteroid belt. There is no way--”

  The doors leading from the hallway to the lobby swung open, and Juliette and I pointed our guns down the hall. I had expected more crooked cops in armor, but Byron walked through the door instead.

  And he was followed by a swarm of hand sized helicopter-style drones.

  “Oi! I heard you have a problem with some bombs? Maybe we can be of assistance?”

  Chapter 17

  “You were the fucker that planted them!” Juliette stomped toward Byron with her pistol leveled at his chest. He was wearing the same suit from when he had been shot in the head, and he gave the redhead woman a crooked grin.

  “Yeah, girl. I’m a changed man now. I’d like to help.”

  “Changed man? Changed man?” Juliette’s face almost matched her hair, and her arm trembled with anger. “You’ve bought half of my security force, dealt drugs, illegally trafficked weapons, murdered people, and committed acts of slavery. Telling me, you are a changed man is--”

  “Hey, hey, hey. Listen, Commander Larns, I never did any slave trading. My sister was sold as a slave. I just found out that Huyan Kar was the man who did it, and I put a nice shiny bullet through the space between his ears. Just ask--” Byron pointed at me as he spoke, and then his head tilted a bit. The movement mirrored a human’s look of confusion so closely; I had trouble believing he wasn’t alive. “Mate, there’s something different about you. No, don’t tell me. I wanna figure it out. Is it the suit? Did you get a new suit?”

  “Ahhh. I understand,” Eve whispered under her breath, and she shot me a sideways smile. I guessed she couldn’t read his thoughts, and then read mine to get the back story on the bald gangster.

  “The shoes? Those look like fuzzy slippers, but that’s not it.” Byron continued. He was actually tapping his chin now, and the drones fixed their camera eyes on me as they hovered behind him. They almost looked like little dragonflies, only they had spinning tops instead of wings.

  “Did you see any of the cops you hired at the front of the building or in the lobby?” I asked.

  “Naw, Mate. New belt? What am I missing here?”

  “Are you fucking kidding?” Juliette groaned. “He’s a walking tiger, and you are under arrest for the--”

  “Hey, hey, hey!” The bald man waved his hands and stepped back from the policewoman. “I wanna help you find these bombs. Then I wanna help you stop Nebula Gammon. Arrest me afterward. Okay?”

  “Do you know where they are?” Juliette growled her question.

  “Yeah, girl. Well, I told them where to put them on this level. One’s in the main bullpen in the front. One’s in your office. One’s--”

  “My office?” she seethed.

  “Yeah. I thought it was kind of funny yesterday, but now I realize that it might not endear me to you so I--”

  “Where are the others?” Eve asked, and the android man seemed to notice her for the first time.

  “Oiiii. Hey, girl. You’ve got this whole bloody vampire thing going on. I dunno if I’m aroused of terrified. Let me ask my wanker.” He grabbed his crotch and then tilted his head sideways.

  “Where are the other two?” Juliette demanded as she pushed her pistol into the gangster android’s chest.

  “One in the evidence room and one in the data server room,” he said to Juliette. Then he pulled his hand off his crotch and looked at Eve. “My wanker says he’d like to try out all your holes. What ya say we get a room after all this is over?”

  I growled, and the android looked at me in surprise. “Ahh shit, Mate. She yours also? I need to learn your secrets. Only pretty girls I can get to hang out with me are my sisters, and that’s practically masturbation at this point.”

  “The one we already found was heading to evidence,” Juliette said. “I’ll get the one from my office. You,” she pointed at Byron. “Get the one from the bullpen.”

  “I can get all of them. You three just wait here.” The bald android moved to walk past us, but Juliette grabbed his arm.

  “Nope. You aren’t going anywhere.”

  “He’s fine,” I said to the policewoman.

  “You trust this asshole? Didn’t you hear the list of crimes that he has committed? You have no--”

  “I trust his sisters,” I interrupted her, “and they sent him.” I turned to look at the swarm of floating drones, but I got no reaction from the robots.

  “Right oh, Mate. I’ll be back in a flash. You all guard the door in case more of the men that used to work for me realize I’m not gonna pay them. Ha!” The gangster skipped past us, blew Eve a kiss, and then made the first turn down the hallway.

  “Z, do you copy?” I said once I fished Persephone’s transponder out of the front pocket of my coat. The thing made a tearing sound every time I moved, and I guessed the stitching in the back was about to disintegrate.

  “I copy, Captain,” she said. “I’ve almost cracked the wall between District B and A, but it’s taking forever. I think I can crack the other ones a bit quicker, but I won’t know until I run up against them.”

  “How many minutes has it been?” I asked her.

  “Uhhh. Seventeen.”

  “That’s not going to work,” I groaned. “We won’t give anyone enough time to find the bombs. We need to tell them now.”

  “We also have to get the auto turrets on-line so they can defend us against Nebula Gammon,” Juliette reminded me.

  “I can’t do both at once,” Z said.

  “You said there was a master switch in District H?” I asked Juliette. “How long will it take us to get there?”

  “Ten, maybe fifteen,” she said with a smirk. If Baccala’s or Kar’s grunts don’t think that we’ll think about that and have men guarding the outpost.”

  “Do you have any shotguns or rifles here?” I asked.

  “Yes. We’ve got a small arsenal in the armory,” Juliette’s smirk turned into a full smile. “I think I’ll have to deputize you.”

/>   “Aren’t we already deputies?” I laughed, but it sounded like a growl coming from my cat mouth.

  “Now you are.” She winked.

  “Z, come to the security station in District B.”

  “Got it. I’ll leave--”

  “No,” Juliette interrupted me. “It’s too dangerous. Blondie couldn’t hit the broadside of a carrier class ship from two meters away with a shotgun.”

  “Hey! You haven’t even seen me shoot! How do --”

  “I can tell by the way you fly,” Juliette interrupted the hacker as she looked at Eve. “She’ll need an escort.”

  “I am only a bit better at shooting than Z is,” the vampire admitted.

  “Okay, I’m not that bad. Why are you guys picking on me--” Z started to say through my transponder, but Juliette ignored her.

  “Someone needs to show you where to go in District H, and someone needs to get Blondie here,” the police woman mused. “I can’t be in both places at the same time.”

  “Just give me directions. I’ll find it. It is important Z gets here so she can try to get the auto turrets online. If she can’t do that, it’s not going to matter if we stop all the bombs from going off, Nebula Gammon will still take the station,” I said.

  “No. You’ve never been. Even if I give you directions, it will take you too long to find it, and if there is anyone guarding the place you are going to have a hard time getting through.”

  “Oi!” Byron called out, and we turned around to the android. He was carrying the three bombs, and he wore a large grin on his face. “I know where the outpost is in District H, Mate. I can take you there.”

  “It is settled then,” I said as I turned back to Juliette and Eve. “You go get Z and get her back here to fix the auto turrets. Byron and I will manually open the firewalls. Then you’ll communicate with all the commanders of the other stations and your parliament.”

  “When we are all gone, the station will be unprotected,” Juliette said.

  “My sisters will guard the place with these crafty buggers,” Byron said as he gestured to the swarm of drones. It was hard to count them because they shuffled in the air, but I guessed there were over twenty. “Anyone comes in, and they will shoot them with their little needle guns.