Scorpions (Star Runners Book 4)

by L. E. Thomas

  Austin frowned. “Sir, I’m not being sent in to save them?”

  “No,” Nubern said, shaking his head. “We’re not even sure if the Star Runners are on the planet or the orbiting station. If we have any hope of rescuing our people, we have to know for certain where they are. We’ll only get one shot at this.”

  “You have to leave within the hour,” Wilkos said. “The lives of many Star Runners are resting on your shoulders.”

  Feeling like a weight was pressing down on his chest, Austin gazed out the porthole. The image of Lieutenant Janas flashed in his mind, her frail body slumped over. She seemed so weak a small breeze could have knocked her to the ground. Somehow, he knew it would be Ryker’s fate if he didn’t succeed in this mission.

  “You want me to pilot a Trident on a spy mission to the far reaches of Zahl Space without any weapons and listen in on their transmission,” Austin said in a monotone voice. He looked at Nubern and smiled. “I’ll do it. You just be sure you’re ready to move when I get back.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Ryker Zyan blasted through the Tridents, eradicating the enemy force. The Legion fighters vaporized into dust clouds of debris and gas.

  Another wave entered the system. Turning her Interceptor, she switched to her remaining missiles. In eight seconds, she had a lock on the leading Trident. Moving like a robot, she pulled the trigger and moved to the next bandit. Tridents exploded, unable to react to her swift and lethal execution.

  Hours passed, the kills racking up on her HUD. The skill of the simulated Legion Star Runners increased, but it didn’t matter. Ryker moved through the waves of enemies like a vengeful spirit, untouchable as she weaved through the enemy fire.

  When the last Trident exploded, her HUD went dark.

  A hissing surrounded her, and the cockpit raised. Bright lights beamed down on her face, and she stood from the simulator without blinking.

  Applauding, Captain Rufino Rampa and Daren Suh stood in front of her.

  “That was incredible,” Rampa said. “Best you’ve done yet.”

  Suh nodded, an approving smile on his face. “I saw none of the hesitation you demonstrated in your previous missions.”

  Ryker bowed. “I live to serve, Captain.”

  Folding his arms over his chest, Rampa shook her head. “Marvelous. Just beautiful.”

  Suh leaned toward him. “I believe we have the treatments perfected now. We should be able to move beyond trial and error. The next batch will be ready much sooner.”

  “I know.”

  Rampa took a step toward Ryker. She stared at the wall. He looked at her with his brow wrinkled.

  “Tell me one thing, Pilot,” he said, enunciating each word with precision. “What do you think of the tensions between the Zahl Empire and Galactic Legion?”

  “Sir!” Ryker shouted. “The Zahl Empire is the light of the galaxy. The Galactic Legion is an anarchistic collection of worlds spreading dissent and disorder throughout the galaxy. The Legion must accept control by the Zahl or the galaxy will descend into chaos.”

  Smiling, Rampa shot a glance at Suh. “And what do you believe we should do with any resistance?”

  “Sir! Kill them all! Sir!”

  “Oh, now that’s good!” Rampa clapped his hands once and laughed. “Pilot, you will be the leader of a new squadron once they are here. And you’re going to be great. Dismissed!”

  “Sir!”

  Ryker snapped a salute, spun on her heel, and left the simulator room.

  “This is our standard fighter used for carrier defense and basic ship-to-ship combat,” Captain Tul Dapar said, walking around the flat craft that looked like a massive vice squashed it. “Unlike the multi-use Interceptor, this fighter is a two-seater and used for training. It has no bombing capabilities and is not appropriate for ground support.”

  Ryker stared across the ship, her eyes unblinking. She heard the captain speaking as if from a great distance.

  “This will allow her to continue her flight hours while being under your command?” Rampa asked.

  Dapar nodded. “If you want me to spend my time babysitting a stoned pilot, then this will be the right fighter for the job.”

  Rampa lowered his gaze. “She’s not a ‘stoned pilot.’ Defector Three is one of the greatest pilots in the Zahl Navy, and we are about to create a whole lot more like her.”

  Rolling his eyes, Dapar offered a half-hearted salute. “Whatever you say, sir. I’m here to serve.”

  “Me,” Rampa said.

  “I beg your pardon?” Dapar asked.

  Rampa took two steps toward the captain, his eyes ablaze. “I said, you’re here to serve me. Do not question my authority at every turn. Is that clear, Captain?”

  Dapar grew rigid, standing at attention. “Understood, sir!”

  “Excellent.” Rampa spun around and strolled toward Ryker. “Today, you will get back into a cockpit again. Despite your obvious growth as a pilot and your renewed sense of loyalty, I will not give you an Interceptor again. You’ve lost that privilege.”

  Ryker offered a shallow bow. “I understand, sir. I was in the wrong and deserved the punishment I received. I will never again question your authority, sir.”

  Clicking his tongue against the top of his mouth, Rampa grinned. “I couldn’t have said it better myself. Begin your patrol. I look forward to reading your report.”

  Rampa marched away, his boots echoing in the Enforcer’s hangar.

  Dapar gestured to the front seat of the fighter. “Have a seat, Defector Three.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She hopped into the cockpit. The interface was similar to the Interceptor, yet even more rudimentary. “Starting preflight.”

  “Captain Rampa always like that?” Dapar asked, putting on his helmet.

  Ryker froze and stared without blinking at the control board. “The captain is a fair and excellent officer of the Zahl Empire. I am honored to serve under his command, as I am honored to fly with you today.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Dapar mumbled. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Putting on her helmet, Ryker closed the canopy and methodically prepped the fighter for her patrol.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Austin jumped the remaining rungs to the steel catwalk above the launch tubes. Major Nubern climbed down to follow him. They moved past the line of Tridents and hissing gasses below as they hurried toward his fighter at the end of the row. As promised, Commander Mitchem Horace had diverted all carrier activity from the port launch tubes to keep the mission secret.

  Austin had told no one of the mission. Immediately following his discussion with his commanding officers, he dressed in his flight suit and hurried to meet Nubern at the launch tube.

  “Here you go,” Nubern said, passing over a flight tablet. “Everything we talked about has been programmed.”

  Austin grabbed it and tucked the device under his arm. “Thought you always preached the importance of programming your own flight plans into the tablet, sir?”

  “There isn’t time,” Nubern said, ignoring Austin’s attempt at lighten the mood. “If Janas is right, the new Star Runners will soon begin their rounds of torture. It might have already started. If it hasn’t, you are their only hope. You have to get there so we can stop this.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  At the end of the line, he saw his Trident covered by three maintenance crewmen. The crew removed the lasers and he saw no missiles bristled from underneath the wing. Instead, long cylindrical fuel pods extended beneath the fighter.

  As they reached the ladder descending to his Trident, Nubern grabbed his arm.

  “You know I’m proud of you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Listen to me, son,” he said, his jaw muscles flexing. “Please.”

  “Major?” Austin asked, his jaw dropping. “Are you okay?”

  Nubern closed his eyes for a heartbeat. When he opened them, he suddenly looked older. “I’m not supposed to say this.” />
  “Say what?”

  He pursed his lips. “You find our girl. You hear me? Find her.”

  Austin’s chin quivered. “I will, sir.”

  “But you have to come back, understood? You … you just have to come back.” His eyebrows arched and his lips parted as if he wanted to say more.

  “Sir,” Austin said, “I have to go.”

  Nubern bit down on his lip, appearing as if he needed to tell Austin something. Instead, he said, “Go, son.”

  Austin stepped over to the Trident. He slid his fingers on the fuselage. Climbing into the cockpit, he tapped the open canopy and collapsed into the seat.

  “Hello, sweetness,” he said with a smile, remembering the first time he’d arrived in the Formidable’s launch tube.

  Taking one last glance behind him, he saw Nubern give him the thumbs up. Austin returned the gesture and closed the canopy.

  Don’t worry, Nubern, I’ll find her.

  “Tower, Rock, up and ready!”

  “Copy, Rock. Cleared for takeoff. Stand by to launch.”

  “Roger.”

  The Trident’s engines rumbled. Two seconds later, the catapult shot Austin into space.

  Space normalized around his Trident. Austin pulled back on the curvature drive lever and allowed it to cool while the flight tablet loaded new coordinates into his computer. While he waited, Austin surveyed his location.

  The Trident, or “flying gas can” as Wilkos described it, settled into low orbit of a barren moon in a remote and uninhabited system. Staring outside his canopy, Austin saw the information on the system had been correct. Wilkos had said the first two curves would bring him into remote areas with no presence of the Zahl Empire. The third and final curve would, well, be very different. Off to his left, a gorgeous green planet loomed in the distance. Farther away, the system’s star glowed. Most importantly, his sensors showed no contacts.

  Taking a deep breath, Austin leaned back and tapped his control board.

  “You did good, girl,” he said with a smile. “Real good.”

  The curvature drive pinged, and he cracked his knuckles. Three more curves to go until I’ve reached my target, he thought. With any luck, the Trident would slip in and out of Nesteel without anyone knowing.

  Fighting back the realization he was now farther away from Legion Space than he had ever been before, Austin passed through the curve. When he came back out again, he gasped.

  The Trident sailed over a golden ring encircling a planet the color of sand. While his curvature drive powered down and the computer ran its calculations for the final location before Nesteel, Austin shook his head and gazed at the wonder of the universe. He thought of telling his friends of the beauty of the ringed gas giant, but words would never do it justice.

  Shaking his head to bring himself back to the present, he reminded himself the Trident was now deep in unfriendly territory. He checked the computer and saw he orbited CCB one-three-one in the Wodhas System along the edge of Zahlian space, far from Legion territory. The path was tracing the border of Zahl Space, keeping him far from the normal space lanes that were so heavily patrolled by the military.

  The curvature drive pinged again. He sighed, wondering about the next waypoint before he arrived near Nesteel. Wilkos had said the Naroovian Salvage Yard was the most efficient location for his final curve before making it to Nesteel. The salvage yard, he had been told, was the place old ships from the Zahlian Merchant Marines went to die. The ships were stripped and distributed across tens of thousands of MUs where they awaited their fate of being scrapped or melted down. The vessels floated by the thousands like a ship’s graveyard around the barren rock of Naroovia. Wilkos said no one would pick up something as small as a Trident popping into the middle of it.

  Austin sighed. I hope you’re right, he thought. I don’t see you out here in the middle of nowhere.

  Think of Ryker.

  Nodding, he activated the curve and entered.

  Space normalized, and his jaw dropped. A dark and blackened hull floated just above the nose of his Trident. Swiveling his neck around, he surveyed his surroundings and saw floating hulks of spacecraft hulls stretching into infinity. Ships of all shapes and sizes floated around a small moon, the waste and excess of an entire civilization. He imagined the thousands of crews who had poured their sweat and blood into these magnificent vessels to give them life, only to result in the craft dying here.

  Focus, he thought. He held his breath as if something would hear him and ran a sensor sweep.

  One active signal.

  Twelve thousand MUs from his position, lurking beside an impossibly large hulk of a freighter, he picked up a small vessel with four inhabitants. The ship didn’t move onto his position. Instead, it moved into a docking position on the stern of the dark freighter.

  Austin exhaled. It didn’t matter what the vessel in the distance was doing—they weren’t after him.

  The curvature drive finished plotting the final leg of his journey. He eased back on the lever and watched as space shimmered. The artificial lightning crackled around his fighter and powered through the hole in space.

  The fighter jolted, and he felt his stomach drop. Two seconds later, he was through.

  A green planet loomed ahead. White swirls of clouds moved across the emerald surface. On the far side of the planet—

  Oh, no!

  Panic surged from his stomach to his throat as he stared at an enormous space station in orbit. Without looking at his navigational computer, Austin activated the shroud. The Trident’s wings sparkled like diamonds for an instant before they disappeared. His HUD dimmed, indicating the Trident’s shroud was now active. He started his timer set at twelve hours.

  Okay, he thought, the clock is now ticking. I have to be on my way out of here before that reads zero.

  Surveying the navigational signal, he pinpointed his location. Exhaling, he nodded as the computer confirmed the world in front of him was Nesteel. He tapped the control board again, thanking the Trident for taking him this far.

  The long-range sensors showed a capital ship docked with the station along with an impressive number of Interceptors flying patrols around the planet. Plotting a course to take him through the enemy fighters and onto the planet, Austin eased forward on the throttle to conserve fuel and brought the Trident toward Nesteel.

  As he soared through the patrols surrounding Nesteel, Austin activated the listening devices. If he were going to find out whether Star Runners were being held captive on Nesteel or the station, he had to start listening now.

  The familiar Zahlian language translated into his ear. A flood of transmissions crackled through his earpiece, most of it announcements of flight patterns and clearances to land. He heard two gruff voices discussing disposal of a revolutionary cell in the mountains of Carak.

  The transmissions ceased as the Trident burned through the Nesteel atmosphere. The fire and intense light dissipated around his cockpit. Blinking away the light burned into his retinas, his eyes focused on the ground.

  Rolling hills of thick forests stretched in all directions. Deep scars marred the surface in several places. Impressive machines cut into massive trees. Off to his right, he saw a blue sea stretching to the horizon. Large fires sent clouds of black smoke into the air on his left. Austin wondered if this was the result of the failed revolution.

  Directly ahead, a collection of buildings reached for the sky. He eased left, away from the city and toward a mountain range. Much better location, he thought. Checking his navigation, he verified the mountains would be a proper place for him to set up his listening post behind enemy lines.

  Maintaining a high altitude, he ran a sweep of the ground beneath him. He passed over logging equipment and small settlements in the dark woods but saw no military presence. After ten minutes of soaring high over the mountains, he picked up no presence of human life.

  This is the spot.

  Raising the wings into the fighter’s landing position, he
brought his Trident down into a clearing in the dense forest near the summit of a rocky mountain. The landing skids settled onto the soft surface, and he killed the engines. Leaves fluttered around the canopy as the engines shut down and went on standby. The tall trees, some as thick as a house, surrounded the clearing. Mossy vines the color of blue cotton candy draped down from the massive branches, reminding him of the trees he’d seen on the streets of Savannah when his parents took him in the fifth grade. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t risk getting out and stretching. While inside the Trident he was protected from sensors; getting out could alert the entire Zahlian Navy to his position.

  “Make sure you come back.”

  Nubern’s strained words burned in his mind. Austin shook his head. Stay frosty.

  Glancing at the clock, he winced. From the moment he’d arrived in the system and activated the shroud, it’d taken him eighty minutes to arrive at this position. He had less than eleven hours left before the shroud would run out of power and he would be swatted down by the Zahl forces orbiting overhead.

  “All right,” he said, tapping the side of his helmet. “Talk to me.”

  Stretching his legs, he continued listening to the flurry of transmissions. He leaned against the canopy and watched as a tiny lizard with the wings of a butterfly fluttered past his view. Sitting up straight, he shook his head as he watched the strange alien creature scurried from the grass to the trees. He surveyed the forest around him, searching for any other living creatures.

  Nothing. For all he knew, his arrival on Nesteel had gone unnoticed. So far, anyway.

  The hours passed, the communications ranging from complete gibberish to more official talk of patrols. If these listening devices were as powerful as Wilkos made it sound, they sliced through the encryptions of all Zahlian military forces on the planet. If they didn’t, well, he might have cut across Zahlian Space for nothing.

  He sighed. At least the listening devices were working.

  This was going to be a long ten hours.