Outriders Read online

  “Smack them over the head,” Alexis suggested. “A good wallop should be enough, from what I’ve heard.” She waited a moment, heard no snarky response, and checked their connection. “Hello? Anyone still there?”

  “They’re not listening to you anymore,” replied Rinko. “Guess that leaves me to babysit while Taylor and Kyla take the spooks on an ambush.”

  “Fair enough. I’m not being too loud, am I? Don’t want the employees hearing us.”

  “Hell no. I imagine you have no experience being in a pumping station. It’s frigging noisy in here. I’m not even whispering.”

  “Then Kyla should enjoy her bout of fisticuffs if she doesn’t need to be quiet,” Alexis surmised.

  “Oh, damn.”

  “What it is?”

  “I just…I never get to watch Taylor and Kyla smack people around. Even such a painfully one-sided brawl.” Rinko whistled among the drone of machinery. “That was practically a thing of beauty. Poor glass-jawed employees didn’t stand a chance. I think I have sympathetic head pain after that.”

  “Focus, sweetheart,” said Alexis.

  “Right, right. Okay, they’re calling us down to the access corridor. You have us in your sights, Lex?”

  “All the way.”

  “Then what comes next?”

  Chapter 11

  Connor skidded to a halt and kneeled beside a hatch mounted in the flooring with one hand touching a sequence of identifying letters and number. “Here. This is the one Alexis wanted us to find.”

  “Docking Bay 59-C should be straight below us,” remarked Harun.

  “Then let’s crank it open,” Reyes said, waiting expectantly for Rinko.

  “Ah, that would be my cue.” She retrieved her UpLink from a pocket and set to work manipulating the electronic lock, one loose strand of black hair swaying in front of her eyes. “Little trickier than the others, but I’ll have it bypassed soon.”

  Taylor waited for their technical guru to finish, all the while suppressing anxiety squirming through his stomach, and felt a weight climb off his shoulders when she pronounced the task complete several minutes later. “Do the thing,” he instructed.

  Reyes grasped the hatch controls in his beefy grip and prepared to turn the lever.

  Rinko placed one hand on Reyes’ shoulder and waved a thumb at the nearest maintenance console. “Stop. I might be able to connect with their security network from this terminal.”

  “Have a go,” Taylor replied.

  Rinko coaxed the interface with patient finger strokes, whispering some cooing, incomprehensible techno jargon she loved communicating in.

  Taylor ran his hand through frazzled hair and sighed. “Can you expedite the process some?”

  “This isn’t like your other problems that you can make go away by shooting at it,” Rinko growled. “Electronics are finicky and maddeningly immune to bluster, intimidation and charm. Security systems need a delicate touch, not some clodhopper stomping around and smacking his chest.”

  “Just let me know when you’ve finished.”

  “Thanks for the crucial input, Captain. I never would’ve figured out that next step all on my own.”

  Tessa smirked at Rinko’s retort, most likely because she had a fondness for harassing Taylor herself, though before he could wonder whether Rinko had made a new friend she offered a thumbs-up.

  “I’m in,” Rinko said.

  Console screens flashed to life above the terminal, displaying the hangar and gunnery station from overlapping vantage points. Taylor leaned closer and eyed the command booth beyond Rinko’s shoulder, where four Customs and Immigration security officers waited.

  “Sixteen cameras are spread throughout the docking bay,” explained Rinko, “with an extra four in the flight control station itself. There are no blind spots or areas with poor visibility in the coverage.”

  “Can you access the gunnery station?” questioned Harun. “Perhaps you can deactivate their anti-aircraft batteries without the personnel noticing.”

  “Clever idea, but nope. Their station and each turret is on a separate, offline network not connected to the cameras and security entrances. My guess is their system also has several redundancies to prevent an accidental or targeted shutdown. I’d need to locate and disable every one, and they’d find me before I could.”

  “What can you achieve from here?”

  “I have access to the hangar camera network,” Rinko said. “I can deactivate each one, along with sensors in the catwalks.”

  “The what?” inquired Reyes.

  “All the maintenance walkways beneath us are rigged with pressure sensors to detect unscheduled access. You put anything heavier than an empty boot on the surface and they’ll be warned.”

  “Lucky thing we didn’t pop open that hatch and climb down the ladder when we got here.”

  “You mean a lucky thing I stopped everyone and told you not to.”

  Kyla reached past Rinko and pointed at one grid. “You see this camera focused on the Aurora-class medium freighter and empty maintenance area adjacent? When you disable the video feed, can you leave only this one functioning?”

  “I think…yeah, I think so,” Rinko responded.

  “Have a mind for trickery?” queried Taylor.

  Kyla grinned and straightened. “That I do.”

  She gathered the others together and detailed her stratagem while Rinko primed the security systems for her intrusion. Once Kyla finished and roles were assigned, Taylor gave confirmation to Rinko with a nod of his head.

  “Probably best if I warn you first,” she responded. “Once I do this, we need to move fast. I’m fiddling with Confederacy security protocols, which means the flight control station in this hangar will detect my intrusion within five or ten minutes. Since they’re on high alert already, I’m betting five. If we don’t have full control over this place by then, the cannons will come online and a squad of troops will be on its way.”

  “You sliced through these maintenance vents easily enough,” said Connor.

  “There’s a difference between minor engineering walkways and surveillance equipment right outside gunnery command stations. They’ll eventually notice my handiwork after it’s flagged as anomalies during a lockdown, but not for a little while. We’ll be gone by then.” Rinko furrowed her brow and licked a lip. “Or maybe they’ve already noticed and are sending teams our way. Consider it another reason to hurry.”

  Taylor braced one hand on a wall and crouched beside their exit. “Do it.”

  “Looping the video and sending feedback into the system…now.”

  Reyes cranked the hatch open and slipped down the ladder to perch on a narrow walkway suspended by struts from the ceiling. Taylor and the others followed and hunkered on a metal footpath while Rinko remained above with Connor, still connected to the network and watching maintenance vents for unpleasant surprises.

  Harun, Tessa and Reyes departed down one walkway in the flight control station’s shadow, where they would lurk beneath a stairway leading to its solitary entrance. Taylor and Kyla hurried toward steps descending to the hangar floor and crossed between shuttles and exotic transports until reaching the Aurora-class medium freighter.

  Kyla showed no interest in the sleek starship and its oblong hull, one that vaguely resembled an elongated diamond, and instead halted beside stacked containers filled with propulsion core coolant. Due to the immense temperatures produced by superalloy cylindrical cores, most vessels lacking a dedicated heat dispersal shroud required coolant. Fortunately for Kyla’s scheme, the fluid was volatile and toxic to known lifeforms. Time to make its harmfulness useful for once.

  Mindful of the lone camera still broadcasting a live feed of this area, Kyla and Taylor approached the tanks and cranked one open. Taylor retrieved a reinforced feedline attached to the canister, unwound the gathered hose and wrenched the distribution nozzle ajar, spraying coolant in a glossy puddle. He threw the feedline away as if it possessed a life of its own and
watched with satisfaction when dark, oily fluids spread beyond the freighter over clean floor and into the camera’s field of view.

  Taylor clenched his fists and waited, hoping one person staffing the flight control station would exit and attempt to remedy the accident. If protocol dictated they summon a maintenance team and remain within their citadel, this plan would never succeed.

  “Come on,” he whispered. “No one else can arrive here in less than a few minutes. Someone needs to come out now before this turns into a dangerous mess.”

  Finally he heard frantic, clanging footsteps descending metal stairs and a technician appeared alongside the Aurora freighter, his eyes wide and expression verging on panic. The man scrambled around a widening pool, careful not to come in contact with the fluid, and dashed toward the leaking containers. Taylor lunged from behind a thick landing strut and wrapped both arms around the technician’s throat, tightening his muscles and hauling the captive backward while he thrashed and clawed. Fingernails and knuckles hammered into Taylor’s hands and forearms, though he gritted his teeth and squeezed harder.

  “Shush,” Taylor hissed.

  Throaty rasps croaked from the man’s constricted windpipe until his limbs wilted and nothing emerged from his gaping mouth. Taylor strangled him for several moments longer and relented, guiding his unconscious frame to the floor. Smashing his head against a dense object would have been easier, but an honest employee did not deserve such harsh treatment. Better to give him an unscheduled nap rather than risk fracturing his skull.

  Kyla sprang to the sabotaged tank and closed its valve, causing the coolant to slow to a trickle and then stop. Taylor gripped the man’s wrist as shallow breaths wheezed from between his lips and dragged him away from the pool to make certain nothing dribbled on him before he awakened. He found a loose cable near an instrument panel and used the inert wire to bind the technician’s hands and legs.

  “No one’s tried to shoot us yet,” Kyla noticed. “And I haven’t heard additional alarms. I’ll assume that’s a positive sign.”

  “Near as I can tell,” he admitted.

  Taylor wandered out from under the freighter and glanced upward at the flight control station, fearful of finding angry faces staring down at him and prepping weaponry. Instead he saw Reyes waving from inside and giving an all-clear signal.

  An intercom came online and sent Reyes’ voice reverberating through the hangar. “Three blokes are trussed up with nowhere to go and no alerts were triggered.”

  Taylor offered a sardonic salute to Reyes and turned toward his first mate. “Get on the horn to Alexis. High time we left this place.”

  *

  Kyla’s voice interrupted tense silence and filled the bridge. “The gunnery station is in our hands. We’ve got five cannons and four terribly displeased prisoners. You’re clear for launch.”

  “We’ll be there soon,” Alexis responded. “Be ready to disable the cannons and scramble onboard the moment you see us approach on the sensors.”

  “Roger that. Kyla out.”

  Alexis exhaled a calming breath, clenched her fists and glanced over a shoulder at Clara. “You ready for this?”

  She offered a confident smirk and punched one key. “Morris, are you in position?”

  “Ready and waiting for your word,” Evan replied.

  “Can you see both cannons from where you are?”

  “I have each one in sight.”

  Clara stared upward through their bridge viewport at the anti-aircraft weaponry. “Target the battery located above us on the starboard side and cripple it on my signal.”

  “I copy.”

  “Lawrence, when he fires I need you to trigger a full burn with primary heat venting disabled and all output directed solely to the thrust chambers.”

  “Inside a hanger with atmosphere?” she questioned. “Won’t that cause a backblast?”

  “I hope it does.”

  Alexis gritted her teeth and followed the other woman’s instructions. “Ready on your word.”

  “Fire!” Clara shouted.

  A whirring, thumping noise erupted when Evan unleashed a punishing salvo at his target, bombarding the inert cannon with projectiles. Metal barrels and housings crumpled and detonated in a snarled mass of blackened fragments trailing flames.

  A broadcast howled from within the hangar, accompanied by emergency lights and a harsh klaxon. “—unauthorized weapon discharge and flight in Docking Bay 116-B. Say again, security lockdown compromised and one battery has been destroyed by shipboard weaponry.”

  Clara lifted their starship and wrenched the vessel in a tight rotation, smashing the port wing against a docked shuttle, until their stern faced the hangar gunnery and security station. “Give me a full burn!”

  Alexis initiated the engines while their safety parameters were disengaged, causing ignition gases to funnel through the thrust chambers like ancient Earth-bound conventional rockets. Scorching gases and overpressure shock waves pounded into second level maintenance walkways and the gunnery station behind them. Darkness seized the entire hangar, the broadcast was silenced and Alexis imagined hapless personnel diving for cover as glass shattered and walls melted.

  Clara accelerated and hurled their freighter through a latticework of atmospheric shielding separating the hangar from cold vacuum. She pitched the Solar Flare into a rolling, stomach-churning ascent, almost scraping their hull against one ring rotating around the central spires. Clara threaded the freighter amid struts connecting orbital rings to a tower and launched between parallel arms jutting from the summit. Passenger liners, cargo tankers and other massive starships docked to external boarding tubes whipped past to either side in a blur.

  “Re-engage primary heat venting,” Clara instructed.

  “Light freighter Rude Bargain, you are in violation of Confederacy law,” announced a voice through their communication channels. The monotonous, disinterested tone used by Milesian Customs and Immigration was replaced with a venomous one holding an icy edge. “You have breached a mandatory lockdown and are guilty of fleeing Confederacy starships, a Class Four felony punishable by ship confiscation and fifteen years in a penal facility.”

  Blue flashes of plasma lashed from defensive cannons mounted on the station, narrowly missing as Clara twisted the freighter and rolled beyond a sensor antenna array.

  “Desist immediately or face destruction,” blared Milesian security.

  “Shut him up,” shouted Clara.

  Alexis stabbed a key and dragged one fingernail over the adjoining screen, muting transmissions received from the station. An errant shot hammered into the freighter’s topside hull, knocking Alexis against her terminal and causing one harness strap to slice her shoulder.

  “What’s the wingspan clearance on a Stingray freighter rounded up?” questioned Clara.

  “Forty-three meters.”

  “Then this will be close. Might want to cross your fingers.”

  Alexis snapped her head sideward to gaze through the viewport, watching their freighter draw closer to a tapered passage separating two spires. She winced and half-closed her eyes as Clara raced between the towers. A tremble seized their starship, rattling bulkheads, shooting through Alexis’ spine and releasing a screech when one wingtip grazed the spire. Their freighter emerged beneath a ring housing repair facilities and twisted higher toward rows of docking bays.

  “Approaching hangar 59-C,” Clara said. “Prepare to lower the boarding ramp.”

  She hauled on the yoke and decelerated hard, navigating the Solar Flare on a steep trajectory into the docking bay and snapping vacant racks used for hoisting smaller vessels. Clara brought the freighter crashing down on a space occupied by one single-seat Sparrow-class personal yacht, mangling its streamlined fuselage and stern-mounted wings beneath the Solar Flare’s bulk.

  Alexis dropped their loading ramp before the starship had even settled in place and felt a lurching vibration travel through the freighter as the Sparrow yacht collapsed with a
shrill squeal. Sweat dripped from her brow and she chewed one fingernail until a speck of blood seeped from the gouged skin. A nervous flutter struck Alexis’ chest, waiting to hear everyone was safe.

  A flash of light appeared from one entry near the hangar ceiling as a maintenance door opened and marines poured through with assault rifles drawn.

  “Evan, security team at eleven o’clock on the upper catwalk,” Alexis warned. “Scare them off.”

  “On it.”

  Projectiles erupted from the Hedgehog and traced a destructive line across the walkway several meters from the encroaching marines. Metal buckled and deformed against the onslaught, spewing shrapnel and destabilizing the footpath. Soldiers scrambled away as Evan targeted the space directly above their heads and sent the troops diving for cover. Several managed to rise into a crouch and fire scattered bursts at their freighter. Alexis grimaced as metallic pings rattled the hull.

  Reyes’ frantic voice echoed through the bridge. “We’re on!”

  “Go, go!” ordered Alexis.

  Clara lifted off and whirled the freighter around, retracting its landing gear as she oriented toward space. Thrust chambers ignited and the Solar Flare rocketed away from Milesian Station into a corkscrewing dive while external cannons tracked its anticipated movements and unleashed a pulsating barrage. Clara maneuvered their freighter on a path opposite the system’s supergiant star and away from the Confederacy’s Eighth Fleet, though their route would pass elements of the Second Fleet if they remained for too long.

  Alexis consulted her console’s scanning equipment. “Starfighters vectoring toward us from—”

  Kyla and Rinko rushed onto the bridge and strapped into their seats with Connor close behind. “There were more ships and material you could’ve ruined on the way in,” he asserted.

  “Sorry I scuffed the paint job saving your lives,” countered Clara.

  Taylor clambered up the stairs and lunged into his chair gasping for breath. “Pursuit?”

  “Squadron of Stiletto-class interceptors a hundred klicks to stern and closing on our trajectory fast,” Alexis said. “Two Nova-class frigates are angling to cut off our escape route ahead.”