Pirates of the Dark Nebula (Hearts in Orbit Book 2)

by S. C. Mitchell

  “Ms. la Cross, take command.” He rose, leaving her the captain’s station.

  “Aye, Captain,” she said. “Good luck.”

  As she passed him she added in a lower voice. “Bring them all back safely.”

  All? Is that even possible under the circumstances?

  It would be all out war, once they hit the surface. Kristin certainly had posted lookouts. For sure, they’d hit hard and fast, but there would be defenses to breach. So much could go wrong.

  These were good people. Unfortunate enough to be trapped in a cesspit of a system but willing to fight their way out. Untrained as they were, Rik realized he couldn’t have asked for a better crew.

  Chapter 20

  Luna’s heart sank. Is anyone even coming?

  She closed down the program and removed the connecting cable from the asteroid avoidance device. It was complete. Now they’ll have two, but what choice do I have?

  She hadn’t seen Carter since that one brief encounter. Was the man even still alive? He’d looked like hell. Still, she had to cling to the hope Markus had given her.

  Someone will come.

  As if in answer, explosions rocked the building.

  She ran to the one small window in the room. Up above a dark, ominous shadow coalesced into a familiar form. The Starboard Mist hovered overhead, blasters and photon torpedoes peppering the grounds around the building.

  As she watched in awe, two shuttles launched from the craft. They were coming.

  She shifted her gaze to the guards at the door. The two pirates stood alert, their eyes darting nervously.

  Luna moved back to the workbench, reaching under it to feel for the canister she’d lovingly crafted just for this instance.

  “Get ready,” she whispered to Ian.

  He nodded, though fear displayed clearly on his face.

  The canister housing was the same as they’d used for the tractor beam device, but the internal circuitry was vastly different. This is what you get when you leave stupid thugs to guard scientists.

  She hit the activation switch, and threw the canister toward the doorway, then grabbed Ian by the collar and dragged him down behind the workbench with her. “Close your eyes.”

  Even through her tightly closed eyelids, she saw the flash that lit up the room. One, two, three. She opened her eyes to find the two guards unconscious. She ran over to where they lay and relieved them of their weapons.

  She and Ian would stay in the lab, because that’s where their rescuers would come looking for them, but that didn’t mean they had to stay guarded and helpless.

  “Here.” She handed Ian one of the blasters.

  He looked at it dubiously. “I don’t even know how to use one of these.”

  She tapped the barrel end of her weapon. “Point this at your target and pull the trigger, and for the gods’ sake, don’t point it at me.” Hadn’t he even played with toy blasters as a boy?

  Ian nodded, sinking back down behind the workbench.

  Rik knelt by the body, the first of his landing party to go down. It had looked like a grazing shot, and he desperately felt for a pulse. He sighed when he felt the strong beat at the side of the woman’s neck.

  “Get her back to the shuttles.” He directed two of his party to take the woman back through the corridor he hoped his team was holding behind. As they’d blasted their way into the building, he’d planted people in strategic positions along the route back to where Thurban Pinder guarded the two shuttles.

  So far, so good.

  He crept down the hallway, crouched and ready to fire, checking doors as he went. He wasn’t about to leave any of the enemy behind them.

  “Stand back.” Rik waved his party away from the doorway he’d just tried, the first locked door they’d come to as they searched the pirate’s bunker. This was the second floor, and not the lab where they’d found Ian von Alderamin before.

  He thumbed his blaster to the kill setting, aimed at the lock, and fired. The phase bolt sizzled the metal knob to slag. He kicked the door open.

  The room was dark and empty except for a limp form lying on the cold floor. A low groan was the only indication that there was a person under the heap of rags. Rik moved to the man and rolled him over.

  The bloodied and bruised features were familiar. “Carter.”

  His eyes flickered open. “Captain Mazar?”

  The man was a mess. Black and blue bruises covered every inch of exposed skin. Rik knew Kristin’s work when he saw it. One day you will pay for this.

  “Get him back to the shuttles,” Rik ordered, indicating another two of his people. He’d be down to four, but they’d encountered few pirates since ascending the stairway and he’d be damned if he was leaving Carter behind again. Hopefully the pathway to Luna and Ian’s lab would be clear.

  Gods, Luna. What had Kristin done to her? He had to find her. Had to know she was safe.

  As his two team members gently lifted Carter into their arms blaster fire erupted out in the hallway behind. He reached the door to find one of his people on the floor, blood oozing from a wound at his side. The others were returning fire on two pirates who’d taken up position behind an overturned table at the other end of the corridor.

  Rik dragged his crewman’s body into the room to protect him from further injury, then returned to the doorway, blaster ready. As a head peeked over the tabletop, he fired. His shot struck the man, throwing him back.

  The second pirate, scuttling on all fours, attempted to make an escape, but was taken down by a member of Rik’s landing crew.

  Rik knelt by his downed crewman. This time there was no pulse, when he felt for it. No breath. Rik sighed. He didn’t even recognize the face of the man in the red shirt who’d volunteered to fight with him.

  He fought the grief that threatened to overwhelm him. The emotion seemed foreign. “What was his name?”

  “Trendon, sir,” a woman answered.

  Rik gritted his teeth. They’d recover the body on their way back out. He’d be damned if he was leaving anyone, alive or dead, behind in this hellhole.

  Luna scrunched lower behind the workbench, hearing voices shouting and the sounds of blaster fire just outside the doorway.

  She edged around so she could keep the closed door in sight, then checked her blaster to make sure it was on the stun setting. She’d set Ian’s when she’d handed the man his weapon. She hoped he hadn’t fiddled with it. He’d be dangerous enough to friend and foe if he needed to use it.

  As much as she hated these people, she still wasn’t ready to take a life if it wasn’t necessary.

  But I am getting out of here, one way or another.

  A blast hit the door and it swung open.

  “Luna?”

  It was a voice she didn’t think she’d ever hear again. Deep, rich, sexy tones that thrilled her to her core. “Rik?”

  He stood in the doorway outlined in the smoky haze of the hallway. Luna jumped up, wanting to fling herself into his arms, but knowing this wasn’t the time or place. His eyes lit with sensual fire and a genuine smile spread across his lips as he held his hand out to her. “I said I’d come for you.”

  Her breath caught as she reached out and placed her hand in his. He tugged her against his chest and pressed an all too quick kiss to her lips.

  Rik met her gaze, raising an eyebrow. “What say, we get the hell out of here.” He turned back to the hallway

  Luna grabbed up the asteroid avoidance device and tucked it in the crook of the arm that held the blaster. No way are they getting another one.

  Then she helped Ian up. The man seemed petrified by the violence of the constant blaster fire. “Come on, Ian. We have to go.”

  Blaster in one hand and Ian in the other, Luna made her way toward the do
orway pulling the wide-eyed scientist after her.

  She took a deep breath, then launched herself after Rik into the smoky hallway.

  Rik was the first to disembark as the shuttles touched down in The Starboard Mist’s shuttle bay.

  “Get the injured to sickbay, and secure the shuttles.” He grabbed Luna’s hand and assisted her down the ramp. She’d held up pretty well, but he noted how her legs shook. “Come on. We need to get to the bridge.”

  He grabbed the com unit from his belt. “We’re in, Ms. la Cross. Get us out of here.”

  The rumble of the ship’s ion drives told him Tina’d received his message.

  On the elevator ride up to the bridge he slipped an arm around Luna’s waist and brought her close. The warmth of the connection helped ease the pain of their losses.

  They’d achieved their goal, but had the cost been too high? They’d lost another crewmember fighting their way back to the shuttles.

  He separated from her when the door sprung open, guiding her to a vacant workstation seat before making his way toward the captain’s station.

  Tina was up and roaming, probably hadn’t sat at all during her turn at command. Glancing at him, she shooed the person at the navigation station out and took her seat there.

  Markus turned toward him as Rik sank into the cushioned captain’s chair. “Casualties?”

  Rik sighed. “Two.” An empty chill gripped his gut. “Five more injured and on their way to sickbay.”

  “Rik, we don’t have a medic.”

  He forced a smile. “We do now.” He’d escorted Magda to sickbay before they’d left on the mission, telling her to get comfortable with the equipment.

  “Ms. . . .” He didn’t know the woman’s name at the scanning station. “Any sign of pursuit?”

  There were four people at stations on his bridge that he couldn’t come up with names for. Gods, I’m the galaxy’s worst captain.

  “There’s a fleet that appears to be organizing near the Pluton moon, Captain. But they’re not moving toward us.”

  Rik turned toward Tina. “Ms. la Cross, find me the nearest jump point. I don’t care where it takes us.”

  “Aye, captain.” The woman’s hands flew over her console keyboard.

  Chapter 21

  The two closest jumps had only taken them a few parsecs from the Dark Nebulan system. Rik hoped it would be enough to shake any pursuit off their tail.

  Luna was back at the communications station. The canister shaped device she’d brought with her from Pluton lay at her feet. He hadn’t had time to ask her what it was.

  The blonde woman sitting at the scanning station, whose name Rik now knew was Kyra Jansky, shook her head. “They followed us, Captain.”

  Frack. He needed to find a sector with Galaxynet connections so he could contact the galactic marshals and call in some backup. The Starboard Mist didn’t stand a chance against their pursuers.

  Rik checked his display. Kristin’s Umberhulk led a fleet of over a dozen other ships. The pirates must be figuring out how to use the nextgen scanning on the big planetary destroyer to track his ship.

  “We can’t seem to jump away from them, and they’re closing on us.” Rik eyed the calculations that predicted the fleet would be within weaponry distance in less than an hour. “At least we still have the cloaking device.”

  “Ready to activate on your command, Captain.” Despite their desperate situation, Luna’s silky tone brought a hardening to his groin.

  “It might not work,” a voice said from behind him.

  Rik hadn’t even noted the elevator door opening. Leaning against the wall, Carter Arcturus dragged his wounded body forward.

  Blood still trickled from a wound somewhere under his shaggy, dark blond hair, down the right side of his forehead. Purple shadows under his eyes told a haunting story of abuse at the hands of the pirates.

  “Carter, you should be in sickbay.” Rik went to help the man, seating him in the nearest available seat.

  Carter shook his head. “Had to warn you. That Umberhulk, The FFSS McCaffrey, has the new Adaptive Precognitive Radar. The A.P.R. learns as it scans. We cloaked under it once. We might not be able to again. I should have told you earlier.”

  A tingling sensation at the base of Rik’s neck accompanied a realization. Carter knew more than he should have . . . for a pirate.

  Rik eyed the man. “Who are you really?”

  Carter’s eyes came up. He drew in a deep breath and expelled it. “Ensign First Class Carter Arcturus . . . Federation Fleet.”

  “You’re Fleet?” Rik rocked back on his heels. “Fiery faculae, how the hell did you get here?”

  Markus nodded his head. “Knew there was something different about you.”

  “I was stationed on The McCaffrey. The night before her maiden voyage, the pirates took her, right from the dry-docks. It had to be an inside job. The launch was classified. They had the ship before general quarters could even be called.”

  Rik didn’t put it past Alixander Zartosovich to have greased some palms to give his pirate band access to top-secret information.

  “We fought and lost.” Carter shook his head. “When they overwhelmed my position I managed to escape and find a place to hide onboard. They were spacing those they captured. Throwing ‘em right out airlocks. Most of them just kids, fresh out of the academy.”

  A cold knot twisted in Rik’s stomach. “Kristin Devenport?”

  Carter nodded. “Yeah. She led the assault.”

  With the pirates moving so boldly throughout the galaxy, the marshals and the fleet needed the new technology Luna and Ian possessed even more. They had to get away.

  “I managed to get off the ship when it docked at the Pluton Space platform. That’s why I knew my way around there,” Carter said. “I eventually made my way to Port Hubble by stowing away on a freighter. That’s where I found Markus.”

  Rik shook his head. “And you didn’t trust me when I was looking for my bridge crew.” Carter probably knew how to run every station on the bridge.

  “Hell, Captain, I didn’t trust anyone. You can’t in that place, or you end up dead. You probably know that better than me.”

  That was true enough.

  “Good point, Ensign.” Rik eyed the man. “Do you trust me now?”

  “Implicitly,” he responded.

  Yeah, definitely not a pirate. “Good, then get your ass back to sickbay, Mr. Arcturus, and get well. I have a feeling I’m going to need you.”

  He directed Jase Cameron, one of the new stand-by bridge crew, to help Carter back to sickbay.

  As the elevator door closed, Rik turned to his crew. “Okay, so that’s not good. What are our options if we can’t cloak?”

  “I’ll just have to take ‘em all out, won’t I?” Quatrain’s bluster didn’t completely mask his insecurities. Though, from Tina’s report, Quatrain had done an exceptional job taking out the pirate’s bunker defenses during the rescue of Luna and Ian.

  “You just might, Mr. Tyson. You just might.” Rik’s gaze swept the others, pleased to see an absence of panic in their eyes. They trusted him to get them out of this. But was their trust misplaced?

  He had nothing but the brash bragging of a thirteen-year-old boy.

  “Wait!” Luna scooped the canister up from under her feet. “Maybe we could use this. It’s the asteroid avoidance device.”

  “That’s it?” All this over a unit she could hold in her hand.

  “I just need to wire it into the ion drive system.” She was already out of her seat.

  Rik motioned her toward the elevator. “How long will that take.”

  “Less than an hour I think, with Ian’s help.”

  Rik looked at the projected interception time by the pirate flee
t. An hour would be cutting it close. “Do it, Ms. Callista. Where do you wire it in?”

  The elevator door hissed open, and Luna looked back at him over her shoulder. “Engineering.”

  Rik hit the intercom button on the captain’s workstation. “Mr. Pinder. Ms. Callista is bringing down an object to install. Assist her in any way possible. This is top priority.”

  He nodded to Luna. “Go.”

  She stepped into the elevator and the door closed.

  “We need to give her as much time as possible, and find an asteroid field to escape into if she can get that thing working.” He looked at Tina. “What have we got, Ms. la Cross?”

  Tina studied the star maps in front of her. “The Lachesis asteroid belt is about an hour and a half away, at our current speed.”

  Close, but not close enough. “Can we micro jump?”

  Tina blew out a slow breath. “A lot of space junk in this sector. It’s risky.”

  Rik plunked back into his seat. “Shoot me the best coordinates. We may have to risk it.”

  An hour later Rik was pacing. They were losing the race. Kristin’s fleet was closing in even faster than he’d thought they could.

  He looked toward the scanning station. Kyra Jansky nervously navigated her station controls, her blue eyes wide. Rik estimated her age to be in the late teens or early twenties. Too young for this kind of pressure.