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  “Make it snappy. I’ve a feeling Mole might have stationed more muscle somewhere nearby.”

  “Want me to redirect extra funds while I’m in here?” Rinko inquired. “All those numbers in their account are tempting me. Or I could reconnect Mole’s off-the-grid UpLink to the planetary network, so the police will know his precise coordinates. I’m sure they’d appreciate our gesture, since a new warrant for his arrest was released last week. We might even nab reward money for our trouble.”

  “Nah, not today. At least one of us should conduct business honestly.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  Taylor caught movement from the corner of his eye and glimpsed Kyla pounding her boot into one thug’s wrist. He had thoughtlessly been reaching for an exposed holster strapped to his boot.

  “Stupid choices get blokes killed,” Kyla affirmed. Her weapon hovered over the man’s face as all his bluster faded, changing into wide-eyed fear. “But by all means, continue testing my patience if you’re feeling lucky.”

  “Kyla must be having fun over there,” Rinko said. “I can hear her making threats.”

  “Are we almost done?” questioned Taylor.

  “And…we’re finished. Funds transferred to our account. No back trace possible.”

  “Happy to hear. See you in the landing bay.” Taylor stooped and disconnected the wire from Mole’s tablet. He noticed the wannabe gangster was stirring and bent down to pat his cheek. “Don’t feel bad, Mole. Better folks than you have lost to us. You just happened to be playing outside your own league today. But don’t fret. I transferred the location for our goods onto your UpLink. Because I’m dependable. You can still salvage part of today. Bring a shovel when you go.”

  Taylor withdrew, slipped his UpLink into a pocket and headed toward Reyes as Kyla walked beside him.

  “You know,” she said. “One day Rinko is going to divert all our funds into her own secret stash and abscond with everything we own. We’d never realize.”

  “Then we’d best take advantage of her penchant for criminal behavior in the meantime.”

  Reyes hopped into his vehicle and brought the antigravity magnetic field online with a grinding, shrill drone. Stone chunks and gnarled metal scrap slipped off the dented hood as the airspeeder levitated half a meter above the warehouse floor and Reyes closed the landing struts. Taylor clambered into the passenger side and discovered his vision was obscured by fractures snaking across the windshield like river tributaries.

  Kyla brushed mortar and glass shards from the backseat and plopped down grumbling. “You couldn’t have found one in better shape?”

  “When you’re combing a scrapyard and planning larceny, you can’t be choosy,” Reyes answered. “Everyone fasten your seatbelts.”

  Taylor fumbled for a nearby latch and scowled. “There aren’t any.”

  “Hmm. Then hold on tight.”

  Reyes shifted the gear to reverse and withdrew from crumpled shelves, whirling the airspeeder around and pointing its hood toward the gaping hole he created in one wall. Wearing a satisfied smirk, Reyes changed gears and accelerated, screeching to a disjointed, lurching halt as the entire facility shook violently.

  “Bloody hell,” Kyla murmured.

  “Wasn’t me,” Reyes affirmed, rubbing his forehead. “Earthquake?”

  Taylor righted himself and ignored a throbbing ache in his bruised leg. “There aren’t any damn earthquakes in Formorii. The entire eastern half of this continent doesn’t even suffer from them. That was an explosion.”

  Reyes blinked confusion from his eyes and drove their vehicle through the collapsing, makeshift doorway and onto the open streets of Elatha. Service roads and shuttle landing pads whipped past while Reyes veered toward civilian avenues.

  “Captain MacDowell to Solar Flare,” Taylor said. “Are you receiving me, Alexis?”

  “Barely,” she answered. “You’re distorted…static.” The voice of their communications and navigational expert was garbled and hissing from low signal strength. “One sec…let me try…decrease spectrum and…adjust…squelch…Can you hear me now?”

  “You’re coming through clear. Have you detected any explosions in our vicinity?”

  “Worse than that. Delbaeth has launched a full-scale planetary invasion.”

  “Merciful hell. Can the Elathan military resist the assault?”

  “I’m not confident,” admitted Alexis. “Their Warpath Fleet is conducting exercises in the Oidheadh system with all the navy’s carriers, and a couple cruisers are being retrofitted in Cethlenn. They’ll need at least three days to recall various fleets, and much longer for the ones undergoing repairs. Delbaeth chose their moment to attack well.”

  “We need to escape this planet before the entire city is reduced to rubble.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first to have that idea. A couple freighters have already risked launching without authorization. The Elathan Commerce and Regulations Agency has its hands full, but it won’t be long until they decide to lock down entire spaceports rather than let amateurs get in the way. What’s your ETA?”

  “Still at least twenty minutes away.”

  “Better hurry, Captain. I can see capital ships in low orbit and efflux trails from starfighter torpedoes.”

  “Any communications from the spaceport authority?”

  “None yet.”

  A squadron of Marauder-class starfighters painted blue and green rocketed overhead beyond towering skyscrapers and ascended sharply toward orbit. Hellion-class heavy bombers and a Lancer assault frigate followed, casting dark shadows over glass structures and the street far below. Taylor craned his neck skyward through the missing passenger window and stared beyond aerial traffic lanes overhead while another starfighter squadron blasted across the city and climbed toward battle.

  “I’m not liking all the firepower on display,” Kyla muttered.

  Taylor pulled himself back into the vehicle as Reyes swerved into an oncoming traffic lane and tore past a cargo-hauling truck. An older model warning light flickered on the cracked dashboard, informing the occupants that laws had been broken and the local police would be contacted. Reyes smashed the light with one fist and shattered its housing into myriad slivers.

  “What’s the altitude ceiling on this airspeeder?” Taylor demanded.

  Reyes tore through an intersection to the tune of angry, blaring horns. “Maxes out at twenty meters with minimum occupancy, but I don’t trust it to reach that high. And the nearest safe lane above us is thirty meters up.”

  “Damn it. Alexis, are you in contact with the planetary network relay?”

  “I can be,” she replied. “What do you need?”

  “See if you can access—”

  “Holy shit!”

  “Alexis, are you okay? What happened?”

  She steadied her voice and inhaled calming breaths. “I’m…I’m fine. The spaceport’s anti-aircraft guns just targeted a docked freighter and destroyed its engines. I think the pilot was bringing systems online and trying to flee. Fire is pouring from the thrust chambers and…hold on.” The line quieted for several seconds until Alexis returned. “The spaceport authority is broadcasting to everyone. I’m patching you through.”

  A new voice echoed in Taylor’s ear, crisp and professional with an air of confidence. This was a naval officer rather than civilian or aviation employee. “—following an unprovoked and cowardly attack by the Delbaeth Commonwealth without a prior declaration of war. The Elathan Combined Starfleet Commission and Planetary Defense Forces are working together to repel these aggressors. Until they do so, our airspace is presently not safe for commercial flight. Therefore, effective immediately all craft are under a lockdown order and forbidden to leave any docking bays. The use of force has been authorized to prevent vessels from attempting to circumvent our regulations. For your own safety, remain on the ground. Updates will be provided when deemed necessary. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  The transmission shut off and Alexis ret
urned. “They’re badly underselling the threat.”

  “The invasion is their problem to deal with,” Taylor said. “We have our own to worry about.”

  “You still think we can escape the spaceport?”

  “I’m sure as hell not waiting around for Delbaethi starfighters and bombers to start strafing runs. They’ll target all hangars and landing pads indiscriminately to reduce Elathan defenses.”

  “I’m hoping you have more of a plan than relying on audacity.”

  “Naturally. Can Rinko access the anti-aircraft cannons in Docking Bay 47?”

  A trace of disbelief colored Alexis’ words. “You want us to risk an intrusion into the Naval Command Network?”

  “They won’t be watching for localized hacking attempts, and we’ll only need to cause a brief interruption in their protocols.”

  “It’ll be more complicated than—”

  The signal was lost in harsh and continual static, contemptuous of Taylor and his efforts. “Alexis?” he asked. “Alexis, are you there? Captain MacDowell to the Solar Flare. Does anyone read me?”

  “They can’t hear us,” Kyla explained, staring at a black screen on her own UpLink. “All networks, channels and transmissions have been shut down. Delbaeth has put Formorii under full-spectrum signal jamming. We’d need military-grade encryption to even have a chance at breaking through.”

  “Screw this nonsense. Reyes, give me good news.”

  “Still fifteen minutes out.” He slewed the airspeeder around two others blocking access to a tunnel and kicked the vehicle to a higher speed. “Probably more with this damn traffic.”

  Air raid sirens screamed through the capital city and drowned the noise of congested vehicles. Anxious pedestrians wandering the boulevard sprinted for shelter in the nearest stores and apartments. Calm, lawful airspeeder traffic shifted as civilians heard the unfamiliar alarms and panicked, overriding their driverless protocols to manual control and losing the capability to make rational decisions. Vehicles accelerated in fitful jerks, deviated from safe lanes with reckless abandon or stalled as indecision racked the mind of its driver. Taylor watched one airspeeder desperately attempt to veer higher, only to collide with another that emerged from a one-way avenue. Frames dented and one airspeeder belched gray smoke, wobbling and keeling over toward the street below.

  Reyes pushed their vehicle’s poorly functioning antigravity field to its sputtering, creaking limit and ascended ten meters higher, vaulting beyond a slow moving passenger bus. Electrical flashes erupted from a billboard as an airspeeder lost control and hammered into the display, raining green and purple tinged sparks on storefronts beneath.

  Kyla clutched the nearest brace as their vehicle drifted around a corner and plunged between a congested tangle of stopped airspeeders. “These morons are liable to get us killed.”

  “Lean out the window and start shooting,” replied Reyes. “That’ll spook them.”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  Taylor gritted his teeth, eyeing vehicles and their bewildered occupants as they hurtled past with barely a meter of clearance. “Updates on our timeframe?”

  “Ten minutes at least,” Reyes answered.

  Starfighters streaked past overhead and distant bursts of plasma arched across white clouds, punctured with explosions and flaming starships.

  “Let’s hope we can survive that long.”

  *

  Their airspeeder lost altitude and scraped across tarmac, gouging the undercarriage and ripping metal fragments loose. A pungent, acrid stench reminiscent of scorching plastics exuded from the dashboard, prompting Reyes to wisely choose now was the appropriate time to abandon ship. He decelerated and skidded the flailing vehicle to a halt, trailing embers from the crushed underside like a sparkling comet.

  “Surprised this piece of shit got us back to the spaceport,” Kyla muttered.

  Reyes stared through the cracked windshield and still gripped the wheel. “I’m seeing a lot of ships up there.”

  “Doesn’t bear thinking about,” responded Taylor. “Let’s worry ourselves with getting back where we belong and figuring out a way off this damned world.”

  Taylor heaved himself through the passenger door window and scrambled into the hangar facility. Freighters and shuttles occupied every berth, though smoke drifted skyward from one crippled starship slumped on crushed landing equipment. Far more would burn today if Delbaeth decided to bomb civilian spaceports. Taylor rounded a clunky, box-shaped transport and spied his beautiful Stingray-class Solar Flare, its wide and vaguely hexagonal shape closely mirroring the aquatic animal this class of starship was named after.

  He sprinted between fore landing struts and bounded up the loading ramp into their cargo hold. Opening his mouth to shout instructions, he instead slid over the floor and slapped one hand against his sidearm, yanking the weapon from its holster in less time than was needed to blink.

  His crewmembers were gathered in a circle, stripped of all weapons and tools. Each appeared unharmed and irritated rather than frightened. Six soldiers brandishing assault rifles and clad in matte gray armor with tactical helmets surrounded them. An unarmored woman sat with her legs dangling from one metal crate, sharpening a nasty serrated bayonet in her lap. Blonde hair was yanked tight into a careless ponytail, a match for her grungy civilian clothing.

  She glanced up from her task and smirked. “Ah, the captain decides to grace us with his presence.”

  “Captain Wade Hackett of the independent light freighter Merchant’s Kiss,” Taylor declared, reciting the false registry information they currently used. “I hope you army grunts have a fine reason for this. We’re a boat of law-abiding citizens who’ve done nothing illegal.”

  “You can dispense with the bullshit, Captain MacDowell,” a male voice countered. “I know precisely who you are.”

  Taylor finally saw a man standing casually to one side near unused storage racks, his arms crossed and features ordinary. He wore a commonplace jacket and pants in brown and red hues, with an unremarkable haircut and nonthreatening posture, all designed to leave him forgotten and unnoticed. A man who could slip into a crowd and simply fade from sight, never to be seen or even remembered. Only one type of person deliberately put exaggerated effort into being unexceptional, and the thought sent a cold trickle down Taylor’s spine.

  “I also know you aren’t an upstanding merchant,” the stranger asserted, “and that your freighter is broadcasting a false transponder. That alone gives me grounds to search and confiscate your starship, without even bothering to mention your lengthy criminal record as a smuggler. In fact, I suspect you were committing an illegal transaction today. But I don’t even need to prove my hunch, since your freighter’s prohibited long-range sensor array and bow-mounted SoraSan Munitions JTX-2 Event Horizon cannons can warrant twenty years in a federal penitentiary.”

  “You might want to brush up on interplanetary law and regulations,” Taylor replied. He slipped his firearm into its holster and remained standing between Kyla and Reyes. “SoraSan cannons are legal on merchant starships registered with the Interstellar Commerce and Revenue Bureau that travel unpatrolled and potentially dangerous spacelanes. Following the Amaethon Accords, independent systems such as yours are also obligated to honor the same agreement.”

  “Not ones with aftermarket enhancements and their safety parameters disengaged,” he responded in a self-satisfied tone. “I also have considerable doubts you’re legitimately registered with InCom. Or that all your crew has the proper authorization to carry concealed weapons.” The man shoved off his perch and strolled closer in a manner suggesting absolute confidence. “We also aren’t army grunts, as you charmingly phrased it. My name is Major Harun al-Ajlani of the Elathan Security and Intelligence Service, and this is my associate Specialist Tessa Dirksen with her team of field operatives.”

  Kyla’s lip curled upward in a snarl. “Spooks.”

  “I suppose that’s true enough. We’re the people who keep innocent civil
ians safe from threats they know nothing about or ones that aren’t supposed to exist. We find monsters in the shadows and make them disappear.”

  Taylor lifted his empty palms in a sarcastic gesture of surrender. “You know who we are. Congratulations on devoting an entire planet’s intelligence network to discover the identity of one smuggling crew. They’ll sing tales of your courageous investigation one day, and teach these lessons at academies. But aren’t we a little beneath your paygrade? Do you even realize Elatha is on the receiving end of an invasion?”

  “I’m well aware,” answered Harun. “As to why we’re aboard your starship, I’m requisitioning this freighter for a matter of planetary security.”

  “Let me think on that for a moment. Fuck off.”

  Tessa sheathed her blade and stood, closing the distance between her and Taylor. Kyla stiffened and closed her fingers around the sidearm belted to her hip, though the soldiers offered no reaction. These were lethal, expertly trained troops not prone to nerves, who only reacted when their commanding officer made her orders known. For now she seemed content to conduct her own affairs.

  “What aspect of this encounter leads you to believe we’re requesting your permission?” Tessa questioned.

  Taylor squinted at the woman’s right eye when a dim spark flared. Glowing fibers resembling geometric threads traced across her brown iris and terminated at the sclera. She was implanted with an Augmented Ocular Iris, granting her magnified, thermal and low-light vision, communications, a strategic heads-up display, additional interfaces with electronics and a range of other disturbing features.

  “You have an AugIris,” Taylor remarked.

  “All field operatives do.”

  “I don’t like strangers scanning my heart rate or whatever the hell you’re doing.”

  “You can ask me later if I care.” She blinked and the teal filaments vanished into her artificial iris. “But in the spirit of cooperation I’ll resist the urge for now. You aren’t an intriguing target to study anyway. Want to know your blood pressure?”