Dark Space: Origin (31 page)

“Yes, sir.”

Brondi mulled over the situation, watching as Ethan’s copilot raced down another corridor. Their viewpoint automatically changed to the next holocorder in line, tracking her. Gibbs barked commands into his comm piece, and just a few minutes later a squad of soldiers from the nearest watch station joined Alara on camera. There was a brief standoff with everyone shouting at each other. Brondi frowned. He turned and nodded to the comms officer. “Put me through to that section.”

“Which section, sir?”

Gibbs answered, “Deck 33, section 4, sub-section—”

“Just connect me with the whole deck,” Brondi interrupted with a wave of his hand. A moment later the comms officer gave them a thumbs-up and Brondi turned to address the holoscreen. “Angel?” The figure on the camera turned to look up at the ceiling. “My dear, sweet Angel. Get out of that armor so my guards can bring you up here. Daddy’s waiting for you.”

“Brondi?”

“Yes, dear.”

“They’re going to take the ship back! They’re—”

“They who?”

“Sentinels!”

“Well, hurry up, Sweet Thing. We’ll deal with them after you’re safe.”

Alara’s armor opened up and she walked out, looking small and insignificant beside the two-meter-high shell of the assault mech.

Brondi smiled. “There’s a good girl. See you soon, Sweet Thing.” He made a cutting gesture across his throat for the comms officer to turn off the intercom.

“Who is she?” Gibbs asked.

Brondi shrugged. “No one special. Just a bit of revenge on an old grub who never paid his debts. She used to be his copilot. Now she thinks she’s a playgirl named Angel.” Brondi’s mouth gaped open in a smile.

“A playgirl, hoi?” The sergeant licked his lips. “We could use a bit of fun on this ship.”

Brondi patted him on the back. “All in good time. First let’s find out why she’s here and who she came with, then you can have your bit of fun.”

Chapter 20

E
than sat inside the hangar control tower, choking on smoke as he listened to the dying crackle of the flames which had cooked Corporal Exalian’s remains to a crisp. He never would have thought Alara capable of murder, but then again, she wasn’t capable of prostituting herself either. It was all Brondi’s fault, and he would have to take the blame for Exalian’s death, along with all the other deaths he had caused. Ethan could only hope the tracking device Admiral Heston had implanted beneath his skin would lead them to the kakard in time to prevent more innocent deaths. By now, Alara had likely given them all away. He kept imagining he could hear the approaching footsteps of Brondi’s men, and his eyes roved nervously around the room, skipping over ruined control stations, overturned chairs, and glittering sheets of shattered transpiranium. Nothing moved except for the pearly wisps of acrid smoke drifting through the air. Ethan’s head spun from that smoke and his eyes burned to tears. He blinked to clear them. Then, suddenly, he did hear something—

“Frek,” someone whispered. “What happened here?”

“He’s dead,” someone else said.

“I’d say our prisoner escaped.” That was Gina’s voice.

“Hoi, hold up—I’m picking up something on scanners. We’ve got a lifeform in there.”

“Probably, Alara,” Gina replied. “Poor girl must be terrified. He’d better not have hurt her. . . .”

Footsteps. Real this time. Ethan grimaced as they drew near. Someone poked their head around the corner.

“What are you doing here?” It was Gina. “Where’s Alara?”

“She’s gone,” he croaked.

“What?”

More footsteps.

“Motherfrekker . . .” Sergeant Dorian said. “What happened here, Laser Bait?”

“Alara. She woke up,” he replied through a dry cough. “She thought she was Angel again. I told her to get some sleep, hoping she’d remember more later, but instead she blasted out of here in my zephyr as soon as I fell asleep.”

“Krak!” Gina hit the wall with her fist. “How long ago was this?”

“A couple of hours.”

“We have to get out of here—
now
,” Gina said.

“Hoi, what about the prisoner?” Dorian asked.

“Frek him,” Gina replied. “He’ll just slow us down.”

“Might be a good bargaining chip when Brondi catches up with us,” the sergeant replied.

“Then you don’t know Alec Brondi. He’d shoot through a dozen of his own men to get at just one of us. Leave him.”

“Roger that. Alephs! Move out! Scorcher, Rull’s-eye, you’ve got point!”

Ethan couldn’t believe his eyes. “Hoi!” he yelled. “You can’t leave me here!” But they stomped off without a backward glance. Ethan listened to the sound of their footsteps receding into the distance. Then came silence, and Ethan was alone with his thoughts once more, thinking hateful thoughts toward Gina. “I never should have saved your ass,” he muttered, thinking back to the two separate occasions when he’d rescued her. Before he’d had very much time to dwell on it, the footsteps returned and he had bigger problems.

“Well, well, lookie what we got here.”

Ethan turned to see a man wearing the thick, gray armor of a sentinel, but a head full of glowing tattoos gave him away for what he really was. Brondi’s men had stolen the
Valiant
—so why not the uniforms and armor, too? “Got another one over here!” the man said.

“Another one?” Ethan asked as tattoo head yanked him roughly to his feet.

“Yea, krakface. Got your pals already. Hoi—what’s this here?” Tattoo head raised Ethan’s hands and jerked his goateed chin at the stun cords. “You their prisoner? What’s that make ya, one of us?”

“Who ya got there?” another voice demanded, this one deep, gritty, and heavily accented. The voice and accent reminded Ethan of the worst offenders from his time on Etaris. He turned to look just in time to see the man to whom that voice belonged step into the control tower. He was a giant, well over six feet tall, and wearing standard sentinel armor which was several sizes too small for his large frame.

“I’m not sure, Sarge. Look—he’s all tied up. Think he’s one of ours?”

“They tied me up because they discovered I was an undercover agent for Brondi,” Ethan said.
Worth a shot,
he thought.

“What’s yer name?” the sergeant growled.

“Ethan Ortane.”

“I’ll call it in—leave him tied for now.”

“Yes, sir.”

So much for that,
Ethan thought, listening as the sergeant checked his name with his commanding officers. A moment later he turned back to Ethan with an unsettling grin. “Well, seems like yer tellin’ the truth. Big Brainy squealed like a little girlie when I told him about ya. He’s real eager to meet ya,
Ethan.
” Turning to his subordinate, the sergeant nodded and said, “Come on, let’s not keep the boss waiting any longer than we have to.”

Ethan tried to object as tattoo head shoved him forward, but a powerful electric jolt stole the words from his mouth as he fell to the deck. “My ankles are tied, you dumb kakard!”

“Oopsies,” tattoo head giggled. “My bad.” The outlaw yanked him back to his feet and whipped out an oversized knife to cut the stun cords. Another spark of electricity burned between Ethan’s ankles as the cords were cut, and he bit his tongue not to cry out.
Looks like I’m coming for you after all, Brondi,
he thought. But this wasn’t at all what he’d had in mind when he’d insisted on joining the assault.

*  *  *

“Ethan! I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you again!” Brondi’s mouth gaped in a huge smile. “How do you like what I’ve done with the place?” He gestured broadly to the bridge viewports, which showed a startling view of superluminal space with its swirls and streaks of light. Brondi’s crew all stopped what they were doing to watch Ethan come in. He scowled as the pair of outlaws who’d found him marched him down the gangway.

“It looks the same, your eminence—did I get it right? Or is there some other form of address you like better?”

Brondi laughed. “You’re funny, Ethan. I’ve always liked that about you! Too often the cares of this galaxy wring the humor out of us.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m curious, what are you
doing back here, Ethan—with a squad of sentinels no less? I lost a few good men capturing them, you know. I’m still sore about that. How do you plan to make it up to me?”

Ethan took a deep breath, hoping what he was about to say would sound sincere. He’d been working on his story ever since Brondi’s men had captured him. “I wasn’t with the sentinels. Neither was Alara.”

“Go on,” Brondi said, his eyes narrowing by degrees.

“The admiral was going to have me tried for my crimes, and I begged for a chance to get even with you by joining the assault to take back the
Valiant
. My real plan was to join you, but before I could find a way to get away with Alara, they found out I wasn’t really on their side. Alara managed to escape, and the sentinels fled. They assumed Alara would give them away, which she obviously did, because your men found me a few hours later and brought me here.”

Brondi frowned and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I see. And why would you want to join me?”

“The admiral was going to execute me for my crimes, and no one could find a way to disable Alara’s slave chip. I thought maybe if I came back to work for you, you might at least release Alara in exchange for my services.”

Brondi’s eyebrows shot up. “You blew a hole in the side of my new flagship, and you stole my corvette. That’s a lot to make up for—not to mention the ten thousand sols you still owe me. Why wouldn’t I just have you killed and leave Alara the way she is? What could you possibly have to offer me?”

Ethan gritted his teeth, but forced himself to remain calm. “You took
my
ship, too, and you blackmailed me into your plot to take down the Imperium in exchange for clearing the 10,000 sols I owed you. I think we’re even, but besides that, Admiral Hoff is chasing you back to Dark Space, and you’re going to need pilots for all the novas on the
Valiant
if you want to mount a proper defense. I’ll fly one for you and help you train your men until such a time as you decide my debt has been payed.”

“That’s a good idea,” Brondi said, nodding slowly. “I admire your mercenary spirit, but what makes you think I’d trust you in the cockpit of a nova fighter after you betrayed me?”

“Alara is your collateral. I wouldn’t do anything that might cause you to take it out on her.”

Brondi smiled. “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“I have.”

“Good. I’ll accept your proposal, but don’t expect to earn your freedom—or Alara’s for that matter—anytime soon.”

“Not so fast,” Ethan said. “I have a few conditions.”

Brondi laughed. “You’re not in a position to be setting conditions, Ethan!”

“You agree to keep your crew away from Alara until she’s released. If not, there’s nothing to motivate my cooperation.”

“Hmmm . . . protecting your virgin bride, are we? Very well. I’ll accept those terms. You can head up a new squadron of novas—made up of the sentinels I captured.”

Ethan blinked. “You’re skriffy if you think you can convince vanguard sentinels to fight for you.”

“I don’t need to convince them, Ethan. I’ll just have them chipped, strap them in their novas, and launch them into space. You can train them to make sure I’m not wasting valuable ships.”

Ethan grimaced and shook his head. “Fine, whatever, but I have one more condition—I want some guarantee that you really are going to release Alara
and
disable her slave chip.”

Brondi smiled thinly and walked up to Ethan. He turned to the larger of the pair of guards flanking Ethan and said, “Make him kneel.”