Renegade Magic (Star Renegades Book 1)

by Jennifer M. Eaton

  Cal’s head spun, and he realized he’d stopped breathing. “You called your prince? The one who wants my head on a pike?”

  She straightened slightly. “Yes, but I told him you were innocent.”

  “Yeah, I bet that went over well.”

  “I sent him the files I decrypted. He said he will watch them.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “Yes, of course.” She smiled with all the innocence of a child. “Once he sees the evidence, he’ll come to the same conclusion I have.”

  Cal shook his head. “You are seriously delusional, lady.” He started to pace. “I know you don’t give a damn about the rest of us, but I would have thought you would’ve been a little more hesitant about putting Alanna’s life in danger.”

  Dania cocked her head. “Alanna is the least guilty of all of you. I would hope that he’d…”

  “What, grant her leniency? What is the punishment for committing a crime, Dania? What is the punishment for any crime?”

  She lowered her gaze. “Death.”

  Cal leaned on the table and looked down at her. “And you’ve just told the royal family exactly where we are.”

  She seemed to turn that over in her head. Horror crossed her features. “B-But he’s not coming for you. He’s coming for me.”

  Doc rubbed his face. “I should have expected this. The prince still has too much control. She probably can’t even fathom what’s about to happen to us.”

  Cal loomed over Dania. How could she be so blind? “Do you actually think he won’t kill every person on this ship, even if we give you up freely?”

  The color drained from her face. She opened her lips twice to speak, but the words didn’t form.

  Cal slammed his fist on the table, shaking the tiles again. “Ty, lock her up in the reinforced cargo locker.”

  His first mate’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

  “Deadly serious.” Cal turned to Doc. “Build one of those force fields on all four sides to make sure she stays there.”

  Dania lifted her chin. “You’re imprisoning me again?”

  “Yeah, well, you’ve proven that you can’t be trusted.” He turned to Alanna. “I need you on the bridge. We need to start jumping in another direction or they’re going to find us.”

  Alanna stood. “We can’t outrun a prince.”

  Cal stomped toward the door. “Maybe not, but we can sure as hell try.”

  31

  Cal

  The bridge pulsed with a soft white glow. At least someone had been able to turn off the alarm so Cal could think.

  Ty grimaced, looking into his screen. “This is not good.”

  “Talk to me,” Cal said.

  “Something is coming up fast on the sensors. It’s either really big, or it’s a lot of somethings.”

  “Either one is bad news. Where’s Alanna?”

  “Here.” She ran through the door and dropped into her chair. She winced, fingering her side.

  “You okay?”

  Alanna shifted in her chair uncomfortably. “I’ll have to be. Don’t worry about it.”

  But he did worry about it. She was injured. So was Ethan. They should both be in bed resting, not stressing out in another race for their lives.

  He looked out the window. They could jump and maybe hurt Alanna, or they could slow down and turn, or they could make a full arc and hope the prince wouldn’t notice and pass them by.

  And then Cal could wake up and join reality.

  The ship jolted.

  Cal turned to Ty. “What’d you just do?”

  “I changed trajectory by point two degrees. I mean, it’s not much, but it gives us a chance.”

  A chance wasn’t enough. This crew was about to die because Cal had made a bad decision and hadn’t dropped the enforcer off on Kirato like they’d originally planned.

  Cal knew better than to think they’d be able to change her. Enforcers were the one horrific constant in the galaxy.

  Ty cursed under his breath and changed course again. “They’re following.”

  Alanna removed her hand from her side. “I can jump us.”

  But what would it do to her? “No, you can’t,” Cal said.

  She glared at him. “Do you have a better idea?”

  Cal rubbed his face. He wished he did. Things were bad enough. He didn’t want to put anyone in danger if there were any other good options. “A small jump, just to take us off this course. If it hurts, stop.”

  Alanna flicked her wrist, and the blue navigation circle appeared. She turned the dials in the air.

  “Okay. Here we go.” Alanna cringed as she poked her fingers into the center of the magical gears.

  Cal held his breath as the world stretched, turning pinkish-purple.

  This had to work. If they’d ever needed good karma, it was now.

  His stomach lurched before the color whisked away, leaving deep black space speckled with stars before them.

  “Where are we?” Cal asked.

  Ty looked at his screen. “About fifteen meters from where we were, but who cares? We’re headed in another direction.”

  “Engines are at full throttle,” Ethan shouted over the comm.

  Finally, some good news.

  Ty whooped, throwing his fist in the air. “The Star Renegade slips through their fingers again!”

  Alanna flopped into her chair, holding her face in her hands.

  Cal walked over and squeezed her shoulder. “Hey, you did it. Are you okay?”

  “I-I think so.” She raised her glossy eyes to Cal. “I don’t think I have another jump in me. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. You did good.”

  Hopefully, now they could find a small planet to hide out on and get everyone well again. This was one of those golden opportunities to use the emergency supply store and lie low for a while.

  Cal returned to his chair.

  The stars twinkled in the distance. Thousands of galaxies, some explored, some not. He used to look up at the sky as a kid, wondering what it would be like to go into space.

  Despite stowing away in cargo containers for his first few trips, interplanetary travel had been everything he’d dreamed. Until people had started chasing him.

  There was still an element of magic in looking out into infinity, though. Space was so big, so vast. Knowing you were smaller than a grain of sand in the big scheme of things made the toils of humanity seem so trivial.

  “No!” Ty growled through clenched teeth. “No. No. No. No. No!” He punched the side of his console.

  “What?” Cal asked.

  “We have incoming!” Ty shouted.

  Sweat beaded on Cal’s brow. He tightened his grip on his armrests, staring at the clear pathway of stars before him. “Are we still at full throttle?”

  “Of course!”

  “Don’t look back. Just keep pushing.” It was wishful thinking that they could outrun the prince without Alanna, but until they were caught, there was always a chance they might get away.

  The stars before them blurred.

  Cal leaned forward. “What is that?”

  The blur intensified and then boldened, the colors darkening until a massive behemoth of polished glass and metal appeared out of nowhere.

  “They have a jumper!” Ty banked the ship up.

  Cal’s head whipped back as Alanna cried out, sliding across the floor.

  Ty leveled the ship off. “We’re good. I can fly circles around anything that big.”

  Another smaller ship appeared, then another. The second fired two long range blasts from its gun turrets.

  Ty swiveled around the shots. “Whoa!”

  A clear path appeared before them again.

  “Throttle it!” Cal called.

  “Ethan, do we have the power?” Ty yelled into the comm.

  “Go, go, go!” Ethan yelled.

  The ship hummed beneath them before shooting into the stars, leaving the larger, bulkier ships behind. This w
as why the Star Renegade had never been captured. With this crew of brilliant misfits at the helm, the little ship defied physics and any other laws of space they’d come up against.

  Alanna pulled herself up to her station. “They’re not following.”

  Cal smiled. “You bet your ass they’re not following.”

  Ty paled, looking into the smaller screen on his console. “Wait.”

  No. It wasn’t possible. “Wait for what?”

  Ty pointed in front of them. “There.”

  Another ship materialized, or maybe the same ship—the big one.

  Ty growled, spinning the Star Renegade full circle, only to run into another ship. Two more popped into existence on their left and right. Ships kept appearing until they were surrounded like a fish in a bowl. The Renegade was still moving, but the royal ships matched them pace for pace.

  They were trapped.

  “Break comms. Lock everything down.” Cal turned to Ty. “Options?”

  His first mate stared as the largest cruiser came closer. “I…um…”

  Alanna rested her full weight on her console. She panted, holding her side. “I can still jump us out.”

  “You can barely stand.” Cal pushed up from his seat. “Can we squeak between them and keep changing course?”

  Ty shook his head. “They’ve got a jumper.”

  “But so do we,” Alanna said.

  Yes, Alanna was good, but she’d never jumped so many times injured like this. Risking her wasn’t an option.

  The screens before them flickered, and the feed showing the advancing ship morphed into the face of an enforcer with their signature opalescent hair, cut short with the exception of longer spikes on top, and silver-blue eyes. His pale gray uniform looked like he never sat down, ate, or even moved as he glared into the camera.

  “I thought I told you to lock everything down?” Cal asked.

  Ty fiddled with the controls. “We did. The comms are off. This shouldn’t be possible.”

  The enforcer lifted his chin. “Vessel call sign SR87795682 dash GH841, you have been charged with…” His eyes narrowed, looking off the screen. He pursed his lips before he returned his attention to the camera. “You’ve been charged with more crimes than I care to note. Prepare to be boarded.”

  Ty sat back. “Do I have your permission to give him the finger?”

  Cal snickered. “You might as well. It certainly isn’t going to get any worse.” He reached across his console and hit the override lever. “Taking controls.”

  He pushed forward, banking up and over the ship. The face on the screen, rather than showing surprise, looked bored before the feed stopped, and Cal could see out the window again.

  “Throw a broad sweep of thermal lasers over their bow,” Cal said, pushing down into open space.

  “That’s not going to do much more than tickle a ship that size,” Ty said.

  Cal hit the comm. “Ethan, Doc, if you have any kind of heavy munitions hidden down there that I’d normally be pissed off about, I’d love to hear it.”

  Alanna held the sides of her console as she looked into the screen. “Something long and nasty-looking just shot out of one of the smaller ships.”

  “We have some very active rotation signatures coming in hot from the rear,” Ty said. “It’s artillery, but I’m not sure what kind.”

  Did it matter? “I’ll take a wild guess and say it’s the kind that blows you up.”

  Heavy rounds made no sense, though. The whole reason those ships were here was because of Dania. Had the high and mighty enforcer somehow become expendable?

  Cal grunted. That would be inconvenient.

  He banked the ship right, still throttling toward open space.

  “They must have tracking sensors,” Ty said. “The artillery turned with us.”

  Of course it did, because bad luck just followed them everywhere some days.

  A flash of blue light flared up in Cal’s peripheral vision. Alanna stood, her fingers spinning the lighted gears.

  “Alanna, no!”

  Her gaze met his before she tapped her fingers into the circle.

  Cal flew back into his chair. The bridge around him blurred. A hum filled his ears as the ship rattled around him. This wasn’t a little jump. This was a full-on hop. The kind that the ship would need to recover from. The purples and pinks faded to black as they blasted back into regular space.

  “Three minutes!” Ty pressed a button and a timer started counting back. That was how long their trail would last before the particles dispersed too much to follow. If the royal ship’s jumper was good enough, they’d be here by then. If not, they were home free.

  Alanna stumbled, holding her head with one hand and her side with the other. Cal needed to get her to Doc as soon as possible. But he needed to get the rest of them safe first.

  “Screw the cooldown,” Cal said. “Start us moving.”

  Ty nodded, taking back the controls.

  Cal jumped from his seat and caught Alanna just before she hit the floor. “What did you do?”

  “I think I saved your rear end.”

  Cal smiled. “Maybe, but I had the situation under control.”

  She laughed, wincing. “Sure, you did.”

  Okay, maybe he didn’t have it that much under control. Still… “You didn’t have to hurt yourself.”

  Blood soaked her uniform. Cal had no idea how jump power worked, but he knew anyone with two bullet wounds should have been resting. Alanna looked like she’d just lifted weights or run full speed through a space terminal.

  He brushed back her bangs with his fingertips and eased her the rest of the way to the floor. “We’re going to have Doc patch you back up, but no more heroics from you. You’re supposed to be the smart one.”

  The door slid open.

  “Smarter than Doc?” Alanna asked, her voice just above a whisper.

  “You’re definitely smarter than me.” Doc moved into the room and knelt beside her. “I’m just really good at making people think I’m smarter.”

  “How’d you know she was hurt?” Cal asked.

  Doc shrugged. “One minute, we were being boarded, the next minute, everything turned purple. I figured our girl wasn’t following doctor’s orders.” He scanned a laser pen across her forehead.

  “You told me to take it easy.” She groaned. “Jumping isn’t like calisthenics or anything.”

  Doc play-slapped her shoulder. “That’s why they call it jumping, girl. It always takes a lot out of you.” He looked at Cal. “Next time, remind me to ban her from the bridge entirely.”

  Cal smiled. The truth was, though, that she had saved their hides. Again.

  Ty squinted into this screen. “You gotta be kidding me.”

  “Now what?” Cal stood.

  “Boss, they’re relentless. We’ve got incoming again.”

  So much for their three minutes. “Okay, people, let’s…”

  The lights flicked out. The consoles around them powered off.

  “Ty, what did you do?” Doc asked.

  “Wasn’t me.”

  The bridge trembled beneath Cal’s feet. The walls hummed like someone was running a vacuum.

  “What is that?” Ty asked.

  The hum heightened, and the yellow button on Ty’s console flashed three times, lighting up the dark like a pinhead sun.

  Cal’s hands shook. “Ty?”

  Cal heard three taps, then three more. Ty must have been trying to stop the light from blinking.

  It wouldn’t stop, though. It kept flashing—the only light in the darkness of space. Ice flooded Cal’s veins. Darkness could make you feel alone, even surrounded by friends.

  “The warning is real, this time,” Ty said. “It’s the proximity alarm.”

  “Can anyone see what’s out there?”

  Ty’s face glowed in the triple-flash of the light. “Nothing.”

  Cal jumped when something banged against the door to the bridge, then banged again.

/>   “Were we boarded?” Doc asked.

  “This fast? Not likely.” However, they were dealing with enforcers. For all he knew, they could beam themselves onto other ships like they had in the old Star Trek fictionals.

  The door slid open a few inches. A dull, bluish haze seeped in from the hallway.

  Ethan’s shadow appeared in the light. “Everyone okay in there?”

  Heat flooded Cal’s veins. “We’re fine. Why aren’t you downstairs getting me power?”

  Ethan manually pulled the doors the rest of the way open. “We got nothing. We were hit with some kind of energy-sucking weapon. Everything is down.”

  “Life support?” Cal asked.

  Ethan took in an overzealous breath, then released it. “The backup batteries are working like a charm.” He tapped his foot on the floor. “Gravity is good, too.”

  That was the first good news in a while. “How long will the air last?”

  Ethan gave an accentuated grimace. “It’s only a backup. I don’t really know.”

  A voice filled the room. “Vessel call sign SR87795682 dash GH841, I am no longer amused. If you look out any exterior viewing port, you will see eight star hoppers and a royal cruiser circling you. If you attempt to skip space again, you will be destroyed.”

  “He’s bluffing,” Ty said. “They’re not going to fire with Dania on board.”

  The voice snickered. “An enforcer can live in the vacuum of space. Can you?”

  A rock formed in Cal’s throat. “How can he hear us?”

  Ty shook his head. “He shouldn’t be able to. Comms are down.”

  “Not for a royal extraction force. We are boarding,” the voice said.

  Static filled the room. Ty grabbed Cal and pulled him to the floor with Doc and Alanna, out of the sight of the camera system—probably a good call.

  Ethan dropped beside them. “I think we need a new strategy.”

  Alanna leaned up from the floor. “I don’t need power to jump. Let me try again.”

  The dark, wet patch on her uniform glistened as the yellow light continued to blink.

  Cal pulled her back down. “Rest up. You’ve done all you can.”

  Ty looked over his shoulder at the screen and then returned to the huddle. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”

  They all turned toward Cal. As usual, they were depending on him and his crazy-good instincts. Too bad at the moment those instincts had left him floating in space without an oxygen tank.