Still, Cade had to spit out something. He opened his mouth to speak, not knowing what would come out, but he was mercifully cut off by the sound of Mig’s panicked voice breaking through the comms.
“Sorry to break up your moment, but we have to get out of here!”
Cade looked over his shoulder and spotted Mig and 4-Qel racing toward him. And behind them, an Intruder chasing after a Kundarian starfighter. The starfighter was supposed to stay out of their way and avoid situations exactly like this one. But as it drew nearer, rapidly, Cade noticed that the ship was bucking uncontrollably as sparks popped from its rear. The pilot, Cade assumed, must have taken his vessel off course in an effort to preserve the ship’s integrity, or what was left of it. But it didn’t work. Now, the starfighter was zeroing in on Cade and his friends. And it was likely going to be blown to pieces very, very soon.
Before Cade and Kira could even recalibrate and propel themselves away from the incoming starfighter, Mig and 4-Qel were on them. Mig grabbed hold of Cade, 4-Qel grabbed Kira, and together they blasted off toward their destination, the Kundarian trade ship—with the failing starfighter, as well as the Intruder that pursued it, on their heels.
“This is going to be close!” Kira yelled, and as she did, Cade dared to look back over his shoulder one more time. The starfighter was making quick work of the distance between them; Cade could almost feel the engine’s heat warming his grav suit.
“I’d say it already is close,” Cade replied. “Where are we supposed to land in the trade ship?”
“There,” Kira said, leading them all forward. “My contact on the inside left that docking bay’s shield down for us.”
Cade looked at the trade ship and noticed a small docking bay that, unlike the others, wasn’t protected by faint red shielding. It wasn’t a surprise; Kira’s missions were always as tight as a drum. Things in her control never went wrong. The problem was the unexpected things. Like, for instance, a starfighter pilot who, in the process of trying to save his own hide, veered dangerously off course and was threatening to crash into the very people he was supposed to be safeguarding. And while Cade didn’t know any instances of starships crashing directly into people, it didn’t take much of an imagination to figure out how those stories would end: with the guts of those not protected by a starship (i.e., him and his friends) splattered all over the place. So they were going to have to hurry.
“I knew I should have given the propulsors more power!” Mig yelled.
“Any more juice on these things and they’d tear our limbs from our bodies,” Cade reasoned.
“A price I wouldn’t mind paying at this point!”
They were all pushing their propulsor units to their limits, but it was no use; the starfighter was outpacing them with more speed than they could account for.
“We could always move out of the starfighter’s path,” 4-Qel evenly suggested.
“And have it crash into and destroy our only entry into the ship? I don’t think so,” Kira said. “We’re making this.”
No sooner had Kira’s rejoinder been made than Cade looked back just as the Intruder erupted two shots out of its cannon—two shots that landed directly into the Kundarian starfighter’s rear. The shots proved to be all the ship could handle, and Cade could only watch as their problem went from critical to catastrophic: The starship erupted into a ball of fire that burned across the sky before quickly extinguishing. What was left was a junk heap’s worth of debris blazing toward them, countless pieces of fiery scrap metal that were just as problematic as the ship, if not worse. Instead of one thing roaring toward them, it now was thousands.
Not to mention the Intruder that, having cleared the pesky starfighter out of its way, was now laser-focused on Cade and his friends.
“We’re dead,” Mig said.
“I don’t think so,” Kira said as she turned around and started firing her sidewinder at the incoming debris. “Everyone, shoot the scrap closest to us! The more junk we create between us and that Intruder, the harder it’ll be for its weapons to lock on to us!”
Cade, Mig, and 4-Qel did as instructed, firing round after round at the debris, sending pieces careening between themselves and the Intruder. The Intruder retaliated with blasts of its own, but none came close to their intended targets. Not until Mig teased the limits of their luck.
“Can’t hit what you can’t see, jerkfac—”
And that’s when one of the Intruder’s proton blasts sailed directly over his head, close enough to nearly singe the helmet of his grav suit. Cade turned to Mig; he looked like the shock alone was about to kill him.
“Whoa,” Mig breathlessly said.
“Enough messing around!” Kira yelled. “Everyone in!”
Cade spun back around to see the cargo bay within reach, but the Intruder was bearing down on them, hard. Shot after shot sailed overhead—thankfully, people were a lot harder to hit than starships—but it would only take one hit to reduce any of them to a smear in space. Cade pushed his propulsors even though they were already burning at capacity. Still, any little boost could spell the difference between life and death.
At last, he rocketed into the docking bay, Kira, Mig, and 4-Qel at his side. They smashed onto the metal floor and rolled, carried by their momentum, deeper into the bay. None of them had any time to even think about slowing down; landing in one piece with broken bones far outweighed not landing at all. But the grav suits, Cade learned, offered enough protection to prevent serious damage to their bodies. Cade continued to bounce across the floor, and he didn’t stop until he crashed into the rear wall. It was a painful way to land, but at least their time in the grav suits was over.
Cade felt his muscles and joints already aching as he stumbled to his feet. “This one’s going to linger for a while.”
The pain he felt in his back, legs, and ribs was forgotten when he looked ahead and saw the Intruder still racing at him. It was thundering toward the cargo bay, and it wasn’t slowing down.
“It’s going to crash into us!” Cade yelled.
“Everybody move!” Kira ordered. “Move!”
But Cade knew there wasn’t time for them to get clear of the Intruder’s path. There was only one way to save their sorry butts. Cade grabbed the Rokura and held it like a spear. Trying to forget all the coin he’d lost to Kira in darts, Cade ran ahead and launched the weapon directly at the opposite wall. There, it landed squarely into the docking bay’s control panel, smashing it.
In the blink of an eye, the dim red shield spread across the bay’s opening, and just as it did, the Intruder flew right into it. A pulse of dark red screamed across the shield, and the Intruder burst into pieces.
Cade turned to look at his friends, who were still holding their breaths, expecting to die. Except 4-Qel, who didn’t breathe, which was why he was the first to talk.
“See?” he said, clasping Cade’s shoulder as he walked by. “And you were worried about our adventure in the grav suits.”
Cade wanted to fire a barb back at the drone, but all he could muster was a pitiful wave of his hand, shoving the drone away.
4-Qel was unphased. “No time to lose,” he chirped. “We have a ship to liberate.”
* * *
“The bridge is this way,” Kira said, leading Cade, Mig, and 4-Qel down the dark, narrow hallway that snaked away from the cargo bay. They went up to the ship’s main level and to a forking path. “My contact told me sentry drones are standing guard between here and the bridge, but nothing we can’t han—”
From the darkness of the path on the left came a reptilian voice that cut off Kira’s words. “Mr. Sura,” the voice said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Before he even twisted his head to see the figure emerging from the leftmost path, Cade already knew who the voice belonged to: Ortzo, the Fatebreaker who’d been relentlessly pursuing Cade since before he blew up the War Hammer.
“I’ve missed you,” Ortzo said with an exaggerated sibilance.
Ca
de armed himself with the Rokura and took a step in Ortzo’s direction. “I bet you have; Ga Halle must be a real pill these days.”
Ortzo smirked. He was dressed in the traditional Fatebreaker armor—a black tunic with protective gold scales shielding his arms, legs, and torso—though without the mask that covered his face. Not that it mattered; unlike Cade’s shido, the Rokura had no problem slicing through anything that was in its way.
“My master is doing just fine,” Ortzo replied. “Praxis still controls the galaxy, and the small matter of her claiming what rightfully belongs to her—the very weapon you hold in your unworthy hands—is soon to be resolved.”
Cade snorted. “You are a confident one, I’ll give you that. Delusional, but confident.”
“Why are we even wasting time entertaining this fool?” Mig said, his finger twitching over his sidewinder’s trigger. “Let’s dust him and move on.”
Cade held down Mig’s arm just as he was about to raise his weapon. He could see Ortzo flashing a devilish smile across his face.
“No,” Cade said. “He wouldn’t make it that easy.”
“Heat-sensitive explosives,” Ortzo said, answering the question he hadn’t been asked. “One shot from that uncivilized hand cannon of yours, and this entire hallway goes up in flames. That means the so-called Paragon will have to deal with me the old-fashioned way: with a duel.”
“He’s insane,” Mig whispered at Cade’s side, but Cade kept his focus on Ortzo. The Fatebreaker burned so hot Cade could practically see the flames roaring in his eyes. There was no telling how much misery and suffering the Fatebreakers had caused across the galaxy, and Ortzo was their commander. The most fanatical of them all. If he wanted a fight this badly, then Cade was happy to oblige him. And make the galaxy a little brighter in the end.
“Get to the bridge, take the ship,” Cade told Kira. “I can handle this.”
Kira eyed Ortzo, then rested an uncertain gaze on Cade. “Are you sure about that?”
“I’m sure,” Cade said, forcing a confident smile. “You have your path, I have mine. Now go, do what we came here to do.”
Kira nodded, and Mig and 4-Qel followed her down the fork that led them away from Cade and Ortzo. With his friends gone, Cade turned his attention to the maniacal Fatebreaker, who was waiting. Armed with his battle-scarred shido, he began to walk toward Cade, and Cade toward him.
“You may have fooled part of the galaxy. You may have even fooled your friends,” Ortzo said as he swung his shido down on Cade. Cade blocked his parry easily, but Ortzo pressed his weapon down on Cade as the fire burned even hotter in his eyes. “I know what you’re hiding, Sura; I know what no one else does.”
Cade was about to shove Ortzo off him with ease, reinforced by the Rokura’s power, when Ortzo flung his armored elbow across Cade’s face and then kicked him in his chest, sending him backward. It’d been some time since anyone had touched Cade in a fight, and not since his battle with Ga Halle had he confronted someone who knew. The nakal beasts, the razors, the gunners and sentries from Praxis’s unending arsenal, they didn’t know the truth. They didn’t know that Cade was a fraud, a liar, a pale substitute for the real thing. But Ortzo did, and his knowledge filled Cade with dread. He didn’t feel invisible with the Rokura in his grasp—he felt exposed.
“You’re not in control, you can’t be,” Ortzo taunted. “You’re a faker, and I’m going to prove it.”
Ortzo charged at Cade, and suddenly, Cade was on the defensive.
He was vulnerable.
CHAPTER TWO
Kira expected more from the War Hammer’s destruction. For so many years, it’d been the symbol of terror and oppression throughout the entire galaxy, and she’d hoped that the image of it falling in pieces from the sky would galvanize people from one end of the galaxy to the other. That it would remind them what life was like before Praxis’s reign. What it was like to have hope. To be free.
There was a ripple effect following the news of Praxis’s stunning defeat at Ticus. Rebellions sparked in a number of systems, wreaking havoc on Praxis’s long-standing methods of control. The kingdom’s patrols were attacked, supply lines sabotaged, even fortified outposts were overrun. Some systems declared freedom from Praxis’s cruel reign, and there were even a few planets and rebellious cells that found Kira and Percival and either pledged their loyalty in the coming war or joined their ranks.
But then, Praxis fired back.
The kingdom enforced strict curfews on systems with the most dissension; it dropped brutal military forces to occupy planets that even murmured their support for the renegades who’d struck the War Hammer; or, like Kundar, it found creative ways to cripple a planet by kneecapping its access to food, medical supplies, and other essential goods. Praxis tightened its grasp across the galaxy, and while its stranglehold wasn’t enough to completely stem the tide of defiance, it was enough to maintain control. Granted, the number of people on Kira’s side—known as the Renegades, a moniker that made her roll her eyes—had grown, and more individuals volunteered every day.
Kira didn’t need individuals, though. She needed planets. She needed entire systems to stand up and wave a middle finger at Praxis. Because at just a few volunteers a day—some of whom were trained, useful fighters, but too many of whom were not—it would take a thousand years to match Praxis’s might, and no rebellion had that kind of time. Kira, Cade, and Percival were the little guys, and the little guys ran on heart, hope, and a whole lot of optimism. But those things aren’t in limitless supply, and once they run out, all that’s left is a grueling conflict against impossible odds. And that’s when rebellions die.
It was also why this mission to deliver the Kundarian trade ship was so vital. If just a few dedicated people—the Renegades and Kundar’s freedom fighters—could claim a victory against Praxis, Kira’s hope was that it would spur the Kundarian royalty, already sympathetic to the cause, to actively join the fight. To stand up as an independent system, shake off Praxis’s yoke, and inspire others to do the same.
But first things first: Before systems started lining up to resist Praxis, Kira had to clear the sentry drones that bottlenecked the path between where she, Mig, and 4-Qel were pinned and the ship’s bridge.
Kira twisted her head around the curved edge of the ship’s narrow hallway, only to meet blaster fire bursting out of the sentry drones’ standard B-18s. The errant shots raced above Kira, popping sparks from the ceiling that rained down on her head. She fired off a return shot that struck one of the sentries directly in its shoulder; the shot must have hit the drone in just the right spot, because when it attempted to raise its arm to return fire, nothing happened. The arm hung loosely at its side, blaster pointed at the ground. The sentry made a whirring, revving sound, almost like it was determined to raise its arm, but the sound was cut short when the sentry on its left shot it point-blank in the head. The injured sentry dropped to the ground, and its squad mates—if they could even be called that—kicked it out of the way to make room for the unit one row back to step forward and take its place.
“They really have to program those things to shoot with either hand,” Kira said to herself as the blaster fire from the sentries continued unabated.
“So,” Mig yelled from the other side of the hall, “this is taking forever!”
“I wish they’d advance, or do something,” Kira yelled back. It was a strange wish, but all those sentries parked in front of the door that opened to the bridge were more an inconvenience than a danger. Sure, she could bide her time and, with Mig and 4-Qel, pick the drones off one by one. But they didn’t have all day. Praxis knew they had boarded the ship, and it was only a matter of time before they deployed reinforcements. This wasn’t a mission where you dig in for the long haul; Kira needed to strike hard, strike fast, get the ship back to the Kundarians, and get herself and her team out.
“Mig!” Kira yelled over the screeching blaster fire. “You have any of your magnetizers on you?”
Mig c
ocked an eyebrow. “My magnetizers? The things you said were a complete waste of time? That we’d never have a use for? Those magnetizers?”
“Those’d be the ones,” Kira replied.
“Yeah, I’ve got one. How come?”
“Because we need to clear a path to the bridge. And those drones are made of metal.”
Mig squinted at Kira, studying her as if she knew something he didn’t. “But the entire ship is made of metal. If we start drawing metal to a single point and, like, the walls start getting torn off, we’ll get sucked out of the holes and die. Which goes back to your whole reasoning on the magnetizers being a bad idea.”
“As a being made partially of metal, I agree that this is a bad idea and object to us doing it,” 4-Qel added.
“Not if we destroy the magnetizer before things get out of control,” Kira said. “We let the magnetizer do its thing on the drones, then boom—one blaster shot solves our problem.”
“And if you can’t get a clear shot?” Mig questioned. “If you miss? My aim sucks, Kira. If we end up having to rely on me, we’re gonna die.”
“And I’ll be too busy being sucked into the magnetic vortex to help,” 4-Qel sardonically added.
“Just toss the magnetizer toward the drones,” Kira ordered. “I’ll handle the rest.”
Mig looked over his shoulder at 4-Qel, who shrugged. Mig did the same, then pulled off his backpack and began rummaging through it. He pulled out the orb he was looking for and began twisting it into position, all while Kira ran the briefest cost analysis in her mind. The risk? She couldn’t destroy the magnetizer and they’d all die. The reward? If she pulled this off, they’d free the ship and Kundar would align with the Renegade movement, a victory that could very well prove to be the turning point in the war. Or there was the path where they did nothing at all: They wouldn’t win over Kundar, Praxis would squash their rebellion, and they’d all die anyway.
Two out of three paths ended in death—which, as far as Kira was concerned, meant business as usual.
We Are Mayhem--A Black Star Renegades Novel Page 3