Prometheus Rescue
Page 1
Prometheus Rescue
Star Streaker #4
T.M. Catron
Antimatter Books
Prometheus Rescue and “A Conversation” are works of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
2017 Antimatter Books ebook
Copyright © 2017 T.M. Catron
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
www.tmcatron.com
Book/Cover design by T.M. Catron
Ship design by Allen Grippin
Phoenix Prime Logo used with permission.
License Note:
Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from Amazon. Thank you for your support.
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Created with Vellum
For Dad
who made me a lifelong reader
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
A Conversation
Author Note
Also by T.M. Catron
Looking for more works by Phoenix Prime authors?
Acknowledgments
About the Author
What is Phoenix Prime?
Chapter One
A narrow street meandered through the eastern portion of the city, branching off like the limbs of a gnarled tree. Bright green ivy from Old Earth thrived in the yellow sunlight that glowed with the brilliance of liquid gold. It was midday for the planet Ares. A large merchant ship drifted across the sun, casting a momentary shadow over the street before fading away on its journey into space.
Captain Rance Cooper watched the ship with a twinge of jealousy. At least the large, clunky freighter had cargo—cargo it was being paid to carry. Rance and her crew had spent the last two months in hiding without a job, and without the money that came with it. They’d already spent more time on Ares than she’d planned, and Rance was becoming impatient at their self-imposed seclusion.
She sighed and focused on the marketplace around her. Vendors’ stalls made of poles and brightly colored fabrics crowded both sides of the road, leaving a narrow walkway down the center. The flags didn’t flutter in the close, still air, but the warm smell of yeast bread floated along the street, causing Rance’s mouth to water. It wasn’t the kind of bread that had to be rehydrated, either, but freshly baked goodness straight from an oven.
Rance’s stomach grumbled, and she paused to look at the purple and yellow water vegetables Ares was famous for growing—vagrappes. They looked like squids with no heads, with long roots protruding out of both ends like long, squishy tentacles. At the back of the stall, older, slightly rotten vegetables were heaped together for bargain prices. What would the crew say if she came back to the ship with wilted vegetables?
Irritated that she had such limited options for feeding her crew, Rance wound her long braid around her hand. Realizing what she was doing, she dropped her braid and sighed.
On the opposite side of the stall, a dark-haired boy of about eight ran a dirty hand over the vegetables. The merchant shooed him away. The boy scampered off down the street, revealing torn, dirty clothes, skinny arms, and bony knees sticking out from his too-short tunic.
As Rance watched him go, she spotted something that made her stomach growl even louder. Two stalls down, a merchant sold lantess from the deep river nearby. The monster fish had four fins, a long tail, and beautiful silver scales covering its body. Lantess were delicacies across the galaxy. Rance had grown up eating them on Xanthes, but only on special occasions. The sight of the fish made her drool in vain. Even here, lantess were ridiculously expensive. With only fifty credits to split between a crew of six, the captain had to spend her money wisely. And fifty credits wasn’t enough money to purchase an eyeball, let alone a whole fish.
Two months on Ares had forced the crew to tighten their belts. Rance had taken local jobs, transporting goods back and forth between the planets of the system. But they hadn’t ventured further beyond it—her father, Davos, would still be looking for her.
And Unity, the military arm of the Empire Triton, would still be looking for Solaris. But Triton couldn’t police the entire Galaxy—not yet. Since arriving on Ares, Solaris had stood directly beneath a large picture of his face projected onto the city’s holograms.
No one had noticed. The planets of the Outer Colonies had a more relaxed military presence than the Core Worlds.
Eventually, Unity had even stopped broadcasting Solaris’ face all over official channels. He insisted that they hadn’t given up and were merely rethinking their strategy. He could change his face at will, after all. How would they catch a man like that?
Rance stared at the lantess. The last time she’d eaten it, she’d been sitting in her home on Xanthes, listening to her father drone on about her betrothal to Harrison McConnell. Seeing the fish should have made her gag from the memory, but she was hungry enough to forget that particular unpleasantness associated with the fish.
Then, she had an idea.
“Excuse me, sir,” Rance asked the merchant.
He turned. The merchant was a skinny, weathered-looking man with leathery skin and squinty eyes—the appearance of one who spent days out on the river, catching a food source he couldn’t afford to eat himself.
“Ah,” he said, gesturing to his fish. “Does the captain wish to buy today?”
“No, thank you, but I have a question. Do you need to send any lantess out of the system? I have a ship.”
“Ah. Alas, I wish to know if your ship is big?”
Rance tried to hide the sigh that threatened to slip through her lips. “It’s small, but maybe you need a special delivery somewhere?”
“Ah.” He shook his head and smiled. “I only make big deliveries.”
The merchant spread his arms wide and smiled.
Oh well. Rance hadn’t been eager to stink up the cargo bay of the Star Streaker with fish, anyway. But she was hungry enough to do it.
“Ah. Do you wish to buy?” he asked again.
Rance shook her head. “Not today.”
She moved on down the street, trying to forget about the sweet, salty taste of lantess or the ache in her stomach.
Whether Unity was still looking for them or not, the crew didn’t have a choice but to find a job soon—a good job. They’d starve to death otherwise, or be forced to sell the ship, and Rance would sooner cut off her own arm and eat it for breakfast than lose the Streaker.
Ahead of her, Solaris walked down the street from the opposite direction. His face and hair were dark—different from his customary pale skin and shaggy brown hair. To blend in with the local population, he wore a brown shirt and loose slacks instead of the crew’s navy flight suit. Rance recognized him, anyway. Since meeting the Galaxy Wizard two months earlier, she had learned to recognize Solaris’ tall, lean body and confident bearing whether she knew his face or not.
He was empty-handed. Apparently, the food didn’t get any cheaper farther down. Solaris saw her and nodded to the fish.
; “Maybe we can rent a boat with our credits and catch some lantess for ourselves.”
Rance frowned. “James would probably fall into the water, and we’d have to pluck him from the jaws of a man-eating lantess.”
Lantess were famously dangerous. If provoked, one live fish could shred a man to the bone with its wide mouth and razor-sharp teeth.
“Really? James?” Solaris asked in surprise. “He’s not a bumbling idiot.”
“You’ve never seen him try to swim. James is a great pilot—skillful, confident—”
“A bit over-confident.”
“—fearless. Great qualities when we’re running from Unity Dark Fighters or angry pirates. In water, he sinks like a star being sucked into a black hole.”
“It’s just as well,” Solaris said ruefully. “Ares’ fishing industry is protected by local thugs who are paid by big fishing corporations. They brutally guard their territories with heavy weaponry, armored mercenaries, and a tendency to throw would-be fishermen to the lantess.”
“No fishing, then.”
“No. Guess not.”
“Why did you suggest it?”
“I’m hungry.”
Solaris wandered away toward another stall and asked the merchant about his prices. Rance began searching for the seller of the bread she’d smelled earlier.
Maybe she should beg for food.
Rance had never begged for anything in her life. She wasn’t that desperate yet, was she?
After a moment of deliberation, the captain decided she was too hungry to care what anybody thought. But begging wasn’t an option, either. Rance’s position aboard the ship wasn’t a secret. No one in his right mind would believe that the tall, composed captain of the Star Streaker couldn’t afford her own supper. She sighed.
After two months, the Streaker still attracted attention. Passersby gawked in amazement like a bronze statue had been placed on the landing pad. It sort of had. Except for two small runs, the ship had baked in the sunshine of Ares day after day, serving no purpose other than to provide a home for Rance and her crew.
What a failure she’d turned out to be.
Before Rance could sink deeper into her misery, a commotion upset the quiet, orderly marketplace and interrupted her self-pity. Buyers shifted out of the way as the dark-haired boy she’d seen earlier sprinted down the street. The vegetable seller ran after him like a dog chasing a rabbit.
The boy’s arms overflowed with purple tubers. They flew out of his arms as he crashed into the crowd and maneuvered around the stalls. The faster he ran, the more vagrappes tumbled to the ground.
The chase had almost reached Solaris, who was watching with interest. The merchant’s hand reached out to grab the boy’s tunic, but the boy narrowly dodged him. Then, the kid took advantage of an opening between two fishermen, and the chase headed right for Solaris.
She half-wished Solaris would stick out his foot to trip the merchant.
Instead, Solaris reached out and grabbed the boy by the arm.
Rance cringed. Apparently, her CO couldn’t forget twenty years of upholding the law. Why couldn’t he just let the boy run away? She hurried over. The last thing they needed was to draw attention to themselves.
The kid wriggled and kicked at Solaris’ shins. But Solaris’ long arm held the boy’s feet well out of range. The merchant arrived, panting and red-faced. Without pausing for breath, he began shouting. The boy cringed and tried to pull away. The last of the vegetables fell out of his arms, except a lone tuber that he clutched firmly between his shaking hands.
Solaris kept his grip firm. “Give it up, lad.”
“The boy must be turned over to the authorities!” the merchant said, pulling a communicator from his robes. “He’s ruined my vagrappes!”
“Wait,” Solaris said. “I’m sure he’ll pick them up and return them.”
The man’s face turned three shades redder. “I don’t want them returned! He’s touched them with his grubby hands! There’s no telling what diseases he carries.”
“He’s just hungry,” Rance said, coming up beside them.
The merchant glared at her. “Then he should pay for them like everybody else!”
“He obviously can’t pay for them,” Solaris said, his own face growing red. “Or he would have done so.”
“You Core Worlders don’t know anything about life on Ares. He can pay for them. He can work like everybody else and pay like everybody else. Instead, he chooses to steal for a living.”
“Yes, because he looks like he does so well at that!” Rance snapped. “Look at him. He’s starving!”
With the three adults towering over him, the boy’s eyes widened in fear. He still gripped the vagrappe like his life depended on it. Maybe it did.
“There’s no need to call the authorities,” Solaris said, his voice growing cold with anger. “He’s been frightened enough.”
“Hmph. He needs to be taught a lesson.” The merchant grabbed for the boy, but Solaris let go of the kid and stepped between them. Seizing his chance, the boy scurried away with his one lonely vegetable.
A vein bulged in the merchant’s forehead. “You idiot. You let him get away!”
A crowd had gathered, encircling Solaris, Rance, and the furious merchant in what was clearly the day’s entertainment.
Rance thought the man’s attitude was disgusting, but she held back from telling him exactly what she thought. They had already drawn too much attention.
“We’ll pay for it,” Rance said, desperate to get out of the limelight.
“The boy must pay! He stole! I work hard to support my family, and he has spit all over our living.”
“He did no such thing!” Solaris said. “We are offering to pay for the vagrappe in his stead.”
The man sniffed and fixed them with a cold stare. “All of them.”
“All?”
“Yes. You will pay for all the vagrappes he ruined, or I will call the authorities now.”
Solaris stood up straight, using his superior height to tower over the man. “What do you charge?”
“Fifty credits.”
“Fifty?” Rance choked out. That was all they had left. All she had left in the world—unless she wanted to siphon fuel from the Star Streaker. Without fuel, she might as well sell the ship.
“We’ll pay it,” Solaris said.
He pulled out his handset and transferred the funds to the merchant. Rance shook her head. If Solaris had just let the boy run by in the first place, they wouldn’t have just lost their ability to buy dinner for the crew.
Even though Rance was annoyed, buying dinner would only have delayed the inevitable. They needed to leave Ares and find a real job. She repeated this fact to herself as the merchant stormed off, mumbling about interfering off-worlders.
She looked around at the dispersing crowd, many of them frowning and clearly disappointed the argument hadn’t escalated to something more exciting.
Solaris spun around to Rance. “Why did you get involved? Don’t think I can handle it?”
Rance gaped at him, shocked that he was mad at her. “Oh yes, you handled that spectacularly. Why didn’t you let the kid run by? He was just hungry, Roote,” she said, using Solaris’ alias. They always used it in public.
“Being hungry doesn’t give him the right to steal.”
“And being poor doesn’t mean he deserves to starve!”
“Says the woman who’s never been poor in her life.”
Angry heat rose to Rance’s face, dampening her ability to control her temper. “I’m feeling pretty poor right now since we just paid our last fifty credits for one vagrappe.”
“No, eight vagrappes. And you’re the one who suggested we pay for them!”
“Only because you turned into a law-abiding citizen all of a sudden!”
She squared off with Solaris, daring him to say something else stupid so they could continue the fight. But he didn’t, so they silently fumed in the middle of the street, glaring at each
other while foot traffic made a wide berth around them.
The argument was inevitable, the result of two months of inactivity. Small rations and little work had made the crew snippy with one another. Rance and Solaris had not been immune to the struggle, but they had held off at actually shouting at each other.
Until now.
“We’ve got to find work anyway,” Solaris said, shooting Rance a dirty look before breaking the staring contest. “We could stay on Ares and debate it until the river dries up, but eventually we just have to leave and see what happens.”
Despite Solaris’ practical advice, they continued to argue all the way to the Star Streaker. Rance was cross at Solaris for interfering with the boy. Solaris was angry at Rance for interfering with him. When he blamed her for losing the fifty credits, she’d had enough.
“Just forget it,” she said. “That’s an order. We’re getting off this rock.”
Solaris closed his mouth, but she imagined he was silently continuing his rant all the way across the landing pad. The expression on his face left little doubt about his thoughts.
The sight of the Star Streaker improved Rance’s mood only a little. The streamlined, bronze space cruiser gleamed, and the setting sun sent just the right angle of light bouncing off the cockpit window.
Rance’s chest swelled with pride, and she sighed with relief at seeing her home. Their situation wasn’t as bad as she made it out to be. They had the Streaker and the best crew in the galaxy. If that didn’t count for something, nothing did.
Solaris wasn’t experiencing the same fuzzy feelings, however. As they entered the cargo bay, he sniffed in annoyance.