Top Tier Privateer: A Light Novel, page 25
He seethed, his hand edging to his sidearm.
“Tisk tisk, Uricc. Do you want millions to die? I mean it. The threat you think I am is inconsequential compared to the coming disaster. I need her power to save the alliance. I’ve adhered to every promise in good faith. You need to do the same,” Lana said.
“Did they know?” he asked, predicting the answer.
“Of course. Don’t be a fool. No one thought I was an alien besides the naïve, especially after I created your nullifier. Now, I have another trick up my sleeve. Take us to the wormhole origin they created,” Lana ordered.
“Why did you not beat them here?” Uricc asked between clenched teeth. “You literally let them get away.”
“Ah, there are facts beyond your comprehension. Simply know that I was missing this location from my partition. Does that make sense?” Lana asked.
He shook his head.
“Exactly. We have a crisis to avert, and Bethany is just the kind of woman I need help from. A wonderful minion she will make. Now, out with you,” Lana said with a shooing motion.
Uricc considered shooting her, for a few seconds, he really did. Instead, he knew the stakes had just got higher.
If his bosses thought she was the answer to their salvation, then she was the answer, and he would do whatever was needed to see the Drangi Alliance survive the coming storm. Even if he hated himself for his actions.
CHAPTER 18
Jebulan System - Open Space
Nov 25th 2247
We slithered out of the wormhole and instantly arrived in proximity to two ships. The frigate’s lengthy side latched onto the hull of the trade ship. Trailing air vented from poorly sealed anchoring spikes.
If I had to guess, they had cut their way in.
We shot over the trader, using its mass to rapidly escape firing vectors of the frigate. Since our ship lacked defense and offense capabilities, Bandit wisely kept us safe by using the trader as a blocker.
The plan was simple.
I inserted on the other side of the ship, used the safe entry point as my way in, and then killed the defenders. The rest of the small problems, which undoubtedly would arise, were to be adjusted to on the fly.
Personally, I found it humorous that Mercie thought my plan was too simple. Those who pretended to know combat or knew nothing about it would chart out elaborate plans as if your enemy never adjusted or used tricky surprises of their own.
To me, that is what made a special operator top tier - a basic plan and unlimited flexibility to achieve your desired goal.
“Dropping at airlock 3C of the trade ship. Bridge has acknowledged our request and given us the green light,” Bandit said, her tone a tad robotic.
The yacht rocked from a sudden stop as we latched to the airlock. I triggered our door for no stairs, and it slid sideways.
A second later, I jumped a small gap of space to arrive in an airlock.
“Krigan Bridge to Privateer Dasoon, over,” the bridge called to me.
“Busy, Dasoon, talk with Bandit One over,” I cut off the conversation.
The exterior door slammed shut, and the vents rushed air into the small space. A second later, the interior door popped open.
“They gave me access to their internal cameras, showing six by the bridge and six on the frigate. Bridge is asking for assistance with a ten thousand credit reward if they can successfully escape. Got that to twenty, do you accept?” Bandit asked.
“But I want the frigate,” I said with a pretend pout.
“Do both, be the hero,” Bandit teased.
“I’ll probably need Mercie for that,” I said.
“Me!?” she exclaimed over the comms.
“Yeah, cycle into the trader and catch up to me. You’re going to help as we go. Maybe hurl some grenades or be bait,” I said.
“We only have two grenades left,” she said. “Wait! Bait! What the hell kind of plan is that?”
The air cycle completed, and the interior door slid open. I jumped in and kicked off into a run.
“Huh, oh, right, a plan. Busy, I might not need you actually,” I said with a chuckle.
A jostle lurched through the ship, rocking the frame.
“Um, okay. What was that?” Mercie asked with concern.
The bridge of the Krigan had just cut gravity. The entire ship thrummed from the loss of power.
I grinned, turning off my boots.
A sharp kick off a wall propelled me forward and into a soaring flight. I used fingertips to correct my angle as I sped down the tight corridor.
I checked the schematics mid-flight, kicking any pipes or handles to increase my velocity. The data revealed the boarding crew punched a hole into the storage belly. Detaching that ship was now part of my mission.
The trader hull held pallets of flavored cereal and packaged soy milk. The twenty thousand bounty to clear the ship of enemies thankfully didn’t stipulate protecting the cargo.
Broken doors on the blueprint told me the direction the enemy used to race for the bridge. I turned left, heading to their original trail of destruction.
When I arrived at a door blown asunder, I had to pick a direction, leaving me with a choice. Left and up for the bridge, or right and down for the shuttle.
In the brief time before I entered this ship, I studied the shuttle, it wasn’t fancy like the cruiser we entered to free Mrs. Tebi. It was a shitty pirate frigate that probably was a downgrade to no toilet, but it had a toilet.
Twenty-thousand credits could buy a nice toilet upgrade for the yacht, so I turned left. The no gravity made the trip fantastic until I got a message.
“Bruce, I need to turn gravity on, Mercie is floundering. She’s lying on the floor right now,” Bandit said.
I shot into a side corridor, snatched a pipe, and threw myself to the deck. I locked my boots after my feet softly connected.
“Yeah, my bad, I thought it would deter her. Glad she tried,” I said with a white lie.
My body suddenly fought the effects of gravity. Loose sections of broken doors slammed down with loud echoing retorts.
A yellow ping hit my alerts.
“She’s back in the airlock. One of the boarders suffered an injury, best to hit them when I get the bridge to cut power to gravity again,” Bandit said.
I turned off my magnetics, stealthy heading for the hall the pirates used on their way in.
“I’m telling ya, Darla, they’re not friendlies,” a voice said.
A note in my HUD told me Bandit beat a simple encryption covering their comms.
“They’re transponding as here to assist. You’ve been asking for help for hours,” a female voice replied.
“Dammit Darla, this isn’t the time, I got Timmy with a busted leg and the damn charges didn’t breach the door. I’m heading back before they kill gravity again,” the man replied.
“Fine, Marty’s on his way with a med kit,” Darla said.
This was why you never planned too far in advance. I had a grenade on my chest, but I’d rather not have to deal with the fall out.
I heard the clang of boots coming from both directions and decided this wasn’t the spot I wanted to fight in. I backed down the corridor and let the two teams meet in the intersection I’d just retreated from.
Waiting in a doorway, I listened in as they debated what was going on.
“Mercie is back inside, visibly shaken,” Bandit said. “Captain is killing gravity in three, two, and -”
I magnetized my boots before she said one. The invaders in the hall panicked when gravity turned off.
“Get over here Marty,” the boss commanded.
“I heard a clank, and Terv, I’ve got like a thousand hours in zero-g. Trust me, that was the -”
I whipped out a .45 off my belt, spun the corner, and sighted a man distracted by conversing.
His eyes caught my movement, and he quickly raised his weapon.
Boom!
I fired first.
Crack!
He managed to squeeze a hasty round off, catching me in the left shoulder.
My round cratered his faceplate and blew the back of his skull out of his helmet.
I grunted, swerving back for cover.
“Enemy contact, ditch Timmy, race for the Perkins. Go! Go! Go!” the leader ordered.
“Don’t leave me Terv!” a voice pleaded.
The dead body floated down the hall, nearing me as it drifted. I snatched the corpse with my good arm to pull the body into my hiding spot. I stripped the two grenades, and the heavy assault flak rifle magnetized to my back.
After I completed my task, I finally inspected where his round hit my shoulder. The trench coat had a hole in it. The armor underneath cracked, and the bullet went into, but not out of, my shoulder, ruining the limb.
Marty exceeded my expectations. Real life meant real thinkers capable of being just as quick as I was.
The suit hummed, pouring a foam over the entry spot. A second later it sealed the wound and the hole in the armor for now.
“This is Captain Norman, get off the Krigan with all haste. The pirates are fleeing and we’re spooling up a wormhole now. The second they detach, and we can enter, we’re going in,” Norman said.
“Uh. That’s risky, and I gotta use a grenade to do that,” I said.
“Oof. We’re willing to play chicken that they don’t reattach. My bean counter said your grenade is authorized, and it’s not like insurance won’t cover it. We just need to keep the ship out of their hands,” he said.
“Five, four, three, two, and -” I chucked the grenade to where Timmy waited.
BOOM!
The ship shook, and my suit dampened the explosion. I raced out, my .45 seeking a target. Loud echoing smacks reverberated after the explosion.
Timmy laid on the blackened deck, a ruined mess but somehow still alive. His guts mixed red gore with blackened soot from the explosion.
He pleaded for me to save him. I holstered my .45, the weapon’s rounds too expensive to waste on him.
I pushed off a wall with a foot, soared over his dying torso, and stitched his chest with flak rounds.
The ejecting sharpened shrapnel ended his life and hurried my evacuation.
“The pirates are spooling up engines. I’ve allowed the airlock to be open to space, hurry up, or you’re going on a two-week journey to Ketin,” the Captain warned me.
I saw a trip wire set in the hall.
I hurled the flak weapon, letting it trigger the detonation.
BOOM!
Well shit, this is bad.
The hall’s ceiling crashed down, blocking my path.
“Bandit, where’s the nearest exit?” I asked with concern.
“Turn around, go to the end of the hall, and use an emergency pod a dozen feet to the left,” Bandit said.
“What will that cost me?” I asked.
“A few thousand, but we get to keep the pod,” Bandit said.
“I’m hit,” I said with disappointment.
She waited a moment to say, “I know. Hurry please.”
I used every bit of wall or pipe to speed me along the route. When I arrived at the T intersection, I used a foot to push off the right wall hard and flew for an open emergency pod.
I soared through the opening and the door automatically slid closed. A second later, thrusters sent me flying away from the trading ship.
I crashed into the back wall, the acceleration testing my limits of consciousness.
When I gazed out into space, the trader continued to spool up a massive wormhole. The black and blue swirled violently, taking its time to form.
The back door of the pod opened, and I felt a hard tug, sending me out into the void of space.
A luxury yacht grew on a rapid approach. The ship banked, opened the side door, venting air, and Bandit timed my scoop to perfection.
I shot into the main hold of Persephone’s luxury yacht and slammed into the starboard wall. My good shoulder absorbed the impact and for a moment, my head swam with stars.
I could have sworn I would bust the clear material, but it held, and Bandit slid the door shut. Air hissed as the exterior containers produced replacement oxygen.
Stars continued to dance in my vision, and I tried my best to keep myself oriented while Bandit flew around like a maniac. After five minutes of a jarring ride, we finally entered a calm flight.
“Damn, they sure did want to kill us,” Bandit said. “The gunner had skills.”
“Yeah, they weren’t pirates. They used tactics getting in and out. I… oof, my damn shoulders,” I groaned, flopping to lie on my back.
“What happened?” Mercie asked.
“Again, they weren’t pirates. I got the jump on a trained soldier. He was semi-ready and drilled a bullet into me. I take it we’re out of danger?” I asked.
“Indeed, the frigate cannot reach us with her guns now. If she slips, I’m constantly correcting to dodge,” Bandit said.
The ‘slips’ meant if the enemy tried to predict a point in space we would be and wormholed there to close the distance. A wormhole required an activation time, and course deviations made it almost impossible to slip on top of a faster foe.
“What next?” Mercie asked, watching out the large view screens.
“I have to wait until the trader pays the fee,” Bandit said. “I may have said we had the artifact to get the trader free of the frigate. The moment I said that they detached and started chasing.”
“Wait, what actually happened to the relic?” I asked, realizing we had missed that part somehow.
“When I left my prison, it disintegrated and likely got washed away when the base flooded. The material was just old rock harmonically molded,” Bandit said as if that were common knowledge.
“Incoming wormholes populating. Took them five minutes to react,” Bandit said.
I grunted in pain and said, “Yeah, trained soldiers.”
“Yes! We got paid, nineteen thousand Earth Credits, and there she goes,” Bandit said, highlighting the trader finally slipping away.
A dozen cruisers and fifty frigates appear a few hundred thousand kilometers behind us, arriving at the spot where the trader just vanished from.
“Incoming hail,” Bandit said. “We can leave at any time.”
“Ignore it,” I said.
“Shit, I already answered,” Bandit said, her eyes glazing over for a fraction of a second.
The front view screen showed the same man from before who spoke in the orbital. I, of course, forgot his damn name. Off to the sides, crewmembers watched the exchange.
“Admiral Torpedo, what can I help you with?” I asked.
“Uricc, it’s just Captain Uricc now. You have something I want,” he said.
“The artifact, yup, I got it -”
“The alien. I want the alien. I know it jumped into one of the synthetic bodies. Good fucking luck hiding a Persephone clone,” he said.
The image we broadcast to him rested in the bottom left corner. Bandit masked herself, making it so she wasn’t in the scene even though I knew she was there. The cryo unit held a coat of icing as if it were on, but I knew it wasn’t.
Interesting deception.
“The alien is a being trapped in our galaxy, it used a -” I started to say, but he cut me off.
“A unique teleportation device and became trapped. I need the alien, son,” he said.
“Ouch, clearly you don’t know me very well,” I scoffed. “This alien is important to me and I’ll never give it over to you or your employers while I breathe. Now, if you happened to not rape, loot, and kill your way through the Jebulan system, I might have dealt with you. However, I’d never willingly give the alien over to known pirates.”
He rolled his eyes so hard his head swirled. “Naive punk. Just great. You keep pouring your heart out for an alien or…” He shrugged in a cocky manner with palms up. “…pour your heart out for humans,” Uricc said with an uncaring tone.
Mrs. Tebi fought two guards who dragged her into the view screen.
“Alien for her life,” he offered.
I stood there mute, knowing anything I said would be used against me. Bandit had learned a valuable lesson - never negotiate with evil, only kill it where it stands.
“Castile. I have to warn you. I’ll never stop coming. Sure, the size of my fleet may alter, and the methods I use may vary, but my employers must have that alien,” he said.
“Cut the feed,” I said.
Boom!
Mercie jolted from the weapon’s discharge in the video screen. A bullet punched out the front of Mrs. Tebi’s skull and she crumpled, hitting the bridge’s deck with a smack.
The video cut out a few seconds too late.
“I’m so sorry,” Bandit said despondently.
I knelt, giving her a hug. “Mrs. Tebi is a victim. Every day there’s thousands of them. Maybe we can work on making a better humanity. For now, please get us out of this system,” I said.
Mercie joined the hug and said, “Bruce, you need to heal.”
“I take it there’s no medical kit on this ship?” I asked in a dry tone.
We glanced at the cryo unit, and I huffed. I shuddered with contempt for the devices. Mercie helped me out of the suit while Bandit prepped our departure.
The space in front of the ship warped in a vortex until the blue and black created a pulsing hole. We slid right in, leaving Jebulan with no intention of ever coming back.
When I stepped into the unit, I had to wonder if I was the right man for the job. Bandit believed in me, but getting shot, not capturing the frigate - well, that felt like a loss.
And so, self-doubt ate at my heart as I went into a slumber, knowing when I woke we’d be in a new system.
CHAPTER 19
Ferr System - Sacred Heart Medical Station
Nov 29th 2247
“Good as new,” a homely nurse said. She opened her mouth to add something positive, but an alert pulled her away.
I watched her shut the door to the small hospital room. Mercie went to the blinds and closed them.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Decent,” I replied.
“Time to go,” Mercie said, gesturing for the door with one hand while resting the other on my chest.
