The Star Pirate's Folly (10 page)

“Boss,” Gruce said over the comms. “They sent out a shuttle.
Just one, nothing else.”

“Good, they’re giving up Lee. Just get him on board.”
Starhawk turned to the impassive Zeeda behind him and grinned. “Just like I
planned.”

At that exact moment the defense cannons near the orbital
station primed and fired their own barrage of deadly nullsteel at
Red Shade
.
They’d waited just long enough, and were well in range of the carrier.

Starhawk watched the feed from
Red Shade’s
bridge as the
impact rocked the ship. Crewmen shouted updates at Two-Gut, who was frozen in a
state of silent fear. Then without warning he jumped out of the captain’s chair
and scrambled off screen. The coward was heading right for the escape pods.

“Well,” Starhawk said. “Then plan B is now officially in
effect.”

It was so easy to dodge these softie dirtwalkers.

Jensen Lee cruised the emergency tunnels beneath Overlook
City in a stolen maintenance car. The city was on a manhunt for him, but their
security systems were laughably outdated, easily penetrated. He was a ghost to
them now. Despite all their posturing and wealth, the Core was apparently well
behind the curve in cyber warfare.

He’d linked up to the tunnels’ security cameras and waited
until he saw one of the levitating maintenance cars stop nearby. The two
workers in the car had been prepping the shelters for evacuation. Ambushing
them was easy. All of it was. So far the worst part was just getting into the
city—he’d spent five days crammed in a tiny shipping container, surviving off
the water and rations in his suit, to smuggle himself inside.

“How you doing, Blondie?” Lee said to the passenger in the
back seat.

A middle-aged female maintenance worker was lying on her
side, bound and gagged with her own clothing. She squeezed her eyes shut, and a
fresh stream of tears ran into messy yellow hair.

Her partner put up a fight. Jensen put him down.

Lee grinned and let out a sadistic guttural laugh. Good
thing they weren’t both men. He was all worked up from that fine little blonde
at the hotel. Nothing like the scent of a young woman. He glanced at his
half-dressed hostage. She was older, and no fox like the other one, but she’d
do just fine. The hair was a bonus.

Once they got to the shelter, he’d blow the tunnel behind
him and wait for pickup. Could be hours, maybe even a couple days. He smiled,
and his tongue traced a wet line along his upper lip, catching on his chipped
front tooth. It had been a long time since he had a woman to himself.

***

Hargrove watched from behind the sliding glass front doors
of the hotel as another row of public transport hoverbuses descended to the
street. This was a baffling departure from the day he’d originally planned for.

The buses had been coming and going in waves since noon. Loudspeakers
instructed citizens on the street to stand back before the craft touched down.
A crowd gathered around the cobalt vehicles as they settled.

“Please form an orderly line to prepare for boarding. All
transports are bound for bombardment shelters. Please form an orderly line in
preparation for boarding.”

The speakers continued to loop as the crowd rearranged
itself around the buses, forming winding lines all the way back to the
sidewalk. The bus doors opened for the first passengers, and snaking columns of
organized citizens began to shuffle inside.

Bee never came back.

Hargrove had called her a dozen times at least since he
heard about Orpheus. The city was in a full-blown panic. First there were
reports of the comet’s erratic trajectory, and speculation that it could impact
the planet. Then came the images of warships hiding in the coma of Orpheus—the
“ghost fleet,” as it was quickly dubbed by the news media. Pirates.

The pieces added up in the news reports. There was a spate
of attempted vehicle thefts from asteroid-towing shipyards across the belt.
Most were recovered after the thieves were caught, but one industrial grade
dual-generator tugboat was never found.

Experts debated the feasibility of a single craft handling a
comet the size of Orpheus, but many contended that its gravity generators could
easily be modified to produce sufficient pull for a short time, even by a
half-decent mechanic. In any case, as the day wore on the answers were
revealed.

Their leader called himself Starhawk.

He claimed to bear no ill will to the people of the Core,
and that his only intent was to retrieve the man responsible for bombing the
hotel, Jensen Lee. But Lee was still on the run from Overlook City police based
on what Hargrove heard.

Between the manhunt and the evacuation, the police force was
spread thin—and they also had Starhawk demanding they give Lee up. Starhawk
warned if the city didn’t give up Jensen Lee, the pirates would storm the
orbital station and begin bombardment.

Hargrove believed it. Orbital bombardment was no threat to
be taken lightly, especially with the planet’s defenses down. He could have
gotten on any one of those buses today and probably would have been at one of
the shelters by now. If shells started falling, he didn’t want to be under the
dome.

But Bee never came back. He couldn’t leave without finding
out what happened to her. For almost the past year she’d made a habit of holing
up in her room every moment of every day she wasn’t working, and she picked
today of all days to leave. He knew she wasn’t telling the truth when she
claimed to be “going for a walk,” but he didn’t press her on it. Now he wished
he had.

It was a clumsy lie, and Hargrove found himself oddly
comforted by the fact that she clearly wasn’t used to being dishonest with him.
He never asked about her past, but he’d seen enough kids like her to guess.
Best to leave that all behind and move forward. Dwelling on hard times was
unhealthy.

When Hargrove first took Bee in everything was new to her,
fresh in a way he found endearing. He gave her a decent path to walk and was
proud to see how she took to it, becoming a valuable employee he relied on with
certainty in any position he gave her. He wasn’t sure where she would end up in
life, but he knew natural talent when he saw it. With just a chance to grow,
she could become somebody.

And now she was gone.

Out on the street the hoverbuses blared for everyone to
stand back before lifting off in unison. Most of the crowd was gone but dozens
of citizens were left watching the buses glide down the road to the subway
tunnels. A navy-uniformed police officer picked his way through them to the
hotel entrance.

The doors slid aside for him, and Hargrove shook the man’s
outstretched hand. It was Officer Jimenez, one of the policemen that responded
to the bombing.

“Sir, there’s only a few more waves of buses coming. You
need to clear out of here so we can get ready to head to the shelters,” the
officer said. “There’s more than enough room for everyone.”

“Maybe you can help me,” Hargrove said. “I’m looking for
someone. I’ve tried calling but I can’t reach her.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Maybe four hours, not too long after the bombing.”

“Most likely she’s in a shelter already.”

Hargrove nodded. “It’s possible. Any way you can check?”

“Not until we get there.”

“I don’t want to leave without her.”

Jimenez shrugged. “Your choice. But like I said, these are
the last transports. You got maybe five minutes. My advice, come with us. You
don’t want to be under the dome if it starts raining shells.”

The officer turned and exited the hotel, leaving Hargrove to
consider his options. Distraught citizens milled around outside looking up and
down the street for the next set of buses. He wondered if the pirates would
really go through with it. If they did, he didn’t like his chances staying.

***

The old bag was heavy. She couldn’t stand on her own, so
Jensen had to haul her out of the car. She hit the smooth concrete of the
platform with a
whuff
as the wind got knocked out of her, and she
wriggled away from the car as fast as she could.

He leered at the hysterical woman’s ample white thighs, his
mind wandering from the task at hand. It was time to detonate the charges and block
the track outside the empty bunker, one of the last ones in the city—the rest
were chock full of nice little law-abiding citizens. Jensen didn’t want to have
to share it with anyone else.

No, he’d have it all to himself.

Getting out would be a breeze. Before bombing the Midtown,
he’d set up an escape route they’d never see coming. In another room in the
hotel, he left a hidden hole. The paired devices created a short-range gate
that could stay open a few seconds at a time. He left one there and had the
other attached to his hip.

His warthog lips stretched into a depraved smile. He’d
already set the explosive charges on the way in, before he’d even gone to the
hotel. Lee tapped some commands into his suit’s left forearm to set a timer for
the charges—ten minutes should be enough for him to finish. A race against the
clock. Another tap and the timer started counting down.

As Jensen began to remove the legs of his nullsuit, he
noticed the woman had stopped trying to escape. Probably figured out where she
was. Once he got her inside that bunker, there was no getting out. He’d have
plenty of time with her after he detonated the charges to block the tunnel. And
when the bombardment started, he could just wait in the safety of the bunker
for his pickup, take the hidden hole back to the hotel he’d bombed, and escape
the city from there.

Before long, Jensen Lee would be the last thing on the
dirtwalkers’ minds. The woman wept with fear when he walked toward her. He’d
left his boots on, and they made a satisfying thump with each step.

***

Hargrove ended up on the last bus to leave, reasoning he
could at least wait that long for Bee. Officer Jimenez had stayed at the hotel
until the last wave showed up, and now Hargrove was riding shotgun next to the
officer as the hoverbus sped above the city streets.

“Should only be about ten minutes,” Jimenez said. “With no
traffic it’s a breeze getting across the city.”

“How come we’re going a different way than the other buses?”
one of the citizens in the back asked.

Jimenez turned to address the question. His head was
completely shaved, accenting ropy veins that stood out under his skin. Friendly
brown eyes and a smile softened his appearance.

“The other shelters are at capacity,” he said. “We’re headed
to the empty ones in a different section of the city. It’s a bit farther, but
you’ll have a lot more room than you’d have at the others. Plus, you get first
pick on bunks since we’ll be the first to get there.”

Someone’s child gave a quiet “Yay!” and Hargrove couldn't
help but smile and look back to try to pick out the source. The kid must have
been near the rear of the bus, or hidden behind someone else, somewhere out of
sight.

The bus descended and banked left, slipping into the tunnels
underneath the city. Lights on the vehicle’s exterior snapped on and
illuminated the darkness ahead. They were skimming along the flat sunken floor
of the tunnel beside an elevated maintenance walkway running parallel to them
on the right. Every so often, they passed a recessed maintenance hatch.

The hard knot of worry in Hargrove’s stomach began to
unwind. Bee was probably at one of the other shelters. He’d have to wait out
the chaotic situation in safety with the rest before he set about finding her.
Never should have let her go.

It was this thought that occupied the forefront of
Hargrove’s mind when a roar and a flash of light flooded the tunnel. The bus
was rocked with brutal force and thrown against the walls, crashing against one
side and whipping back against the other, rolling and tumbling along the tunnel
floor as the crumbling ceiling began to pound against the bus’s roof.

Did they start the bombardment already? Hargrove felt
someone unbelt him, heard a muffled shout over the thunder in his ears. Jimenez.
What was he saying?

“Get down!”

He slid out of the seat onto his belly and felt Jimenez
shoving him toward the back of the bus so he pulled himself along on his
elbows, trying to keep his head on the floor. Someone at the rear opened the
emergency door and kicked it partly open. Then there was another crash behind
him, the shriek of crumpling metal and glass.

In the silence that followed, he heard a wet grunt of pain
from Jimenez. Hargrove twisted to check on the officer. The bus roof had caved
in on him, pinning everything below his chest.

“Shelter’s ahead,” he managed haltingly. “Can’t move. G-go.”

“Okay. Okay.” Hargrove nodded, turned away, and began a slow
crawl to the exit. Fear and shock pumped adrenalinee into him, and his vision darkened
at the edges. His breaths were coming short and sharp. Almost there. Helping
hands reached out to grab him as he slithered out face first, slowing the drop
to the ground, and he scrambled to his feet.

Pain barbed through his right shin. The fear was roiling
inside him now, coming in waves. The others were asking him about the officer,
but he couldn’t speak. He just shook his head and staggered down the tunnel,
using his arm to support himself against the wall. He would have run if not for
his leg, so he hobbled as quickly as he could. The shelter was just ahead—he
could see the entrance.

He could have looked back to see the damage, to see who else
was behind him, but he didn’t care. He felt like a coward. Just get inside, he
told himself, it’s safe, just get inside. The thought swept him forward in a
rushing tide, and he went along with it. Just outside the open door was an
empty maintenance vehicle. Hargrove paid it no mind, limping past into the
shelter. Relief surged through him.

Then from inside, a screech of pain. He saw yellow hair, a
figure forced down onto a table with a half-naked man behind. They didn’t see
him. His immediate thought was,
it’s Bee.
Red fog bloomed in his vision,
an inner primal response took over, and in three long strides he closed the distance.
He didn’t remember picking up the helmet, but once it was in his hands instincts
took over.