Eternal Frontier (The Eternal Frontier Book 1) Read online

  An armored pirate crouched over a row of weapons and ammunition crates. He sifted through the various armaments, and Tag wondered what the pirate could possibly be looking for—but most of all, he wondered how long he’d have to wait for him to leave. A few tense moments passed, with Tag keeping his breaths shallow and standing stock-still. He’d have to kill the man eventually, but he wanted a better weapon. Soon the pirate’s rustling quieted. He listened for the telltale click of the metal boots against the deck.

  But all he heard was the whoosh of his biosafety suit’s air flowing gently over his ears and the shifting groans of the Argo as she traveled ever closer into Eta’s deadly grasp. He counted to ten, waiting and listening. When he heard no other indication the pirate was there, he curled back around the row of lockers. The armored pirate was indeed gone. Tag crept toward the ammo crates and racks of weapons, peering cautiously around as he did. On one rack, he spotted a mini-Gauss rifle. The weapon was not normally used in intraship battles since its kinetic slugs were capable of piercing the bulkhead and penetrating the inner hull. But if his theory about the pirates’ armor held true, an accurate shot would punch through their armor, too, and he had no problem risking damage to the Argo.

  If the mini-Gauss didn’t kill the pirates, he’d be dead anyway.

  Tag approached the gun rack, ready to discard his repair drone shield and the wrench. A distinct click of metal against metal sounded to his left. He spun in time to see the glowing orange visor of the armored pirate staring directly at him. The pirate didn’t say a word as he raised an arm.

  A blast of blue burst from his wrist-mounted weapons, aimed straight at Tag’s chest.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Tag held the repair bot to shield himself from the incoming blast. The bot absorbed the blue pulse rounds, and scorching heat radiated from it. Slag sprayed off the bot as the pirate fired another burst. The impact of the rounds pounding into the bot sent powerful vibrations resonating through the meager shield and into Tag’s arm. He fought to hold it up against the relentless assault.

  The pirate brought up his other wrist and fired another slew of blue bolts. More molten metal oozed off the bot, and smoke sizzled up from its fried circuitry.

  With a heave, Tag tossed the half-melted drone at the pirate. The pirate held up his hands to block it, and red-and-orange metal smashed against the armor on his forearm. Tag followed up with a heaving swing of the wrench that connected with the pirate’s arms. Bits of the wrist-mounted weapons flew and pinged off the lockers.

  Tag brought the wrench up for another blow, but the pirate ducked. Instead the wrench slammed into a locker and crushed the door. The pirate landed a kick that sent Tag flying backward. A snap reached Tag’s ears, and pain screamed through his ribs. He ignored the agony and rolled as the pirate leveled his remaining wrist-mounted guns once more. The pulsefire missed and sliced into a rifle on one of the gun racks. The gun barrel melted, dripping from the rack.

  More rounds splattered into the deck and bulkhead as Tag dodged. He threw the destroyed rifle at the pirate. The pirate shielded his helmeted face again. The move gave Tag a brief second to pick up the mini-Gauss. He swiveled, aiming the heavy weapon across the pirate’s center of mass. With the stock firmly against his shoulder, he squeezed the trigger, imagining the look of horror behind the pirate’s glowing orange visor. Victory.

  But to his astonishment, the rifle clicked uselessly. No slug flew from its barrel.

  “No!” Tag yelled.

  The pirate dove for Tag’s feet. His shoulders careened into Tag’s shins, and Tag fell hard. The pirate’s fingers wrapped around him and tore at his biosafety suit. It ripped, and the remnants of the yellow gas fought to enter against the air whistling out from the positive-pressure suit. He ignored the tear and smashed an elbow into the back of the pirate’s head, but his bony elbow thudded uselessly against the man’s helmet.

  The blow hadn’t fazed the pirate, and he spun on Tag. The pirate dragged him across the deck. At point-blank range, he aimed his wrist-mounted weapon at Tag’s face.

  Adrenaline poured through Tag. He clasped his hands around the pirate’s wrist. His muscles burned in desperation-fueled power as he fought to aim the weapon away from this face. A round went off next to him. Heat cut through his biosafety suit’s helmet. More air blew past his face and out of the singed suit. His ear started to tingle, seared by the pulse round or the last waves of the biting gas, he wasn’t sure.

  He used every bit of his flagging strength to roll out from under the pirate. Another round cut into the deck beside him. He picked up the dropped mini-Gauss. He started to heave it back, like a battering ram ready to fly, aiming the barrel into the orange visor.

  A thought flickered through his mind. It had been far too long since he’d actually used a firearm. Medical officers were more accustomed to saving lives than taking them, but his decades-old training kicked in now. He switched the manual safety off the bulky rifle and pulled the trigger.

  The rifle jolted back, stock slamming into his shoulder. The coils alleviated some of the recoil, and it didn’t hit with the same force as an ancient firearm, but the energy still had to go somewhere. He’d barely had time to steady it, and it slipped from his grip with the impact. Diving, he scrambled for the rifle and then brought it level with the pirate’s face again, panting all the while.

  But the pirate didn’t move in for a second attack. The first shot had been enough. Fracture lines emanated from a hole in the middle of the pirate’s orange visor. Dark liquid seeped out of the visor, tracing across its smart contours.

  Dead, finally.

  Tag gasped for air, and a tingling sensation crept up Tag’s leg from where the suit had been ripped. It must’ve been the lingering yellow gas biting into his skin. It was nowhere near the strength of his first encounters with the stinging fog. He didn’t know if this pirate had warned the others, so he figured there was no time to patch the suit up now. Dispatching the other two would be more crucial to saving his and Kaufman’s lives. He sprinted out of the armory, clutching the mini-Gauss.

  Avoiding his fallen comrades littering the corridors, he dashed to the bridge, then slowed. He doubted he had the element of surprise anymore, but he crouched anyway and crept into the bridge. The mini-Gauss’s barrel was still hot as he brought it to bear. No one was at the pilot’s terminal nor the captain’s chair. He pointed the barrel at the weapons station, but no one was there either. Where had they gone?

  Then, as if in answer to his question, a beam of blue flashed out of his periphery.

  He hid in time for the round to splash across the bulkhead behind him. A charred hole formed where his head had been, and he rolled to a new position, sighting up at the pirate responsible for the shot. The pirate stood brazenly in the open and aimed his wrist-mounted weapons at Tag. No doubt, with his energy shields impenetrable to pulsefire, he had grown arrogant after taking down the marines.

  Tag fired. The kinetic slug caught the pirate square in the chest, punching cleanly through the armor plates. The pirate flew backward and crumpled against the chart table.

  The other pirate dove behind the chart table, apparently learning quickly. Tag bore the mini-Gauss on the table and waited for an opportunity to fire. The pirate peeked around and shot a salvo of flashing blue pulsefire that sliced into the bulkhead. Tag fired off another slug. It went high and crashed dangerously close to the bridge’s forward viewport.

  More blue pulse rounds flew back in response. The pirate had better cover and, with the bridge’s viewport behind him, the threat of mutually assured destruction should Tag miss again. Pain seeped into his flesh, deeper and more fiery from the gas. He exchanged fire with the pirate in spates, but they were locked in a battle of attrition now. There was no easy way for Tag to get a better firing angle, and the pirate evidently fully realized the debilitating power of the mini-Gauss slugs.

  Tag squeezed off another round that punched into the chart table. It tore through the table a
nd left a wide hole in its support structure.

  Maybe, he thought.

  He fired again and heard what sounded like a yelp of surprise. Of course! The mini-Gauss was powerful enough to rip through the bulkhead with the wrong shot, so why not blast apart the chart table?

  Tag lined up another shot as he guessed where the pirate might be hiding. A flurry of blue pulsefire splashed around him, forcing him to recoil. The pirate seemed to know his chances for survival were dwindling. He leapt over the chart table, firing desperately. Tag let loose another few slugs that went wide and slammed through the pilot’s chair. He stood and retreated, aiming the rifle for another shot. But the pirate ran low, headed straight at him, and he couldn’t bring his rifle around in time.

  The pirate hit Tag at full force. His fingers splayed, and the mini-Gauss rifle skittered away. His head cracked against the bulkhead and rang out with a hollow thud. His vision blurred for a second as red waves of pain coursed through his skull. A fist pounded against his jaw, and his teeth chattered. Another armored fist came at his face. He turned in time to receive only a glancing blow.

  The pirate pummeled him. He struggled to block each devastating attack. Pain undulated through his ribs, his jaw, his head, his leg. The dual assault from the gas and the pirate overwhelmed him. Stars glimmered in his vision, only he knew it wasn’t the distant reaches of space he was seeing. His hearing rang, and the coppery taste of blood trickled over his tongue. This was going to be it. He’d come so close and failed.

  Sorry, Kaufman, he thought as he absorbed another blow. Her closed eyes and near-lifeless body flashed through his mind in rhythm with the pirate’s beating. But then a strange sensation poured through him.

  Kaufman was relying on him. And what about the anthropologist they were supposed to pick up on Eta-Five? What about the members of the SRE navy sitting aboard the Montenegro? If they did eventually send a rescue crew, they needed to know what they were up against. Otherwise they’d be blindly rushing into their own slaughter.

  Their lives depended on him.

  Tag surged upward and butted his head against the pirate’s, his helmet cracking into the pirate’s orange visor. He rammed him again, sending the pirate off balance. Fissures formed in the visor. Tag ignored his own sweltering pain and used his forward momentum to send the pirate sprawling. They locked in a vicious struggle as the pirate fought back, his strength augmented by his powerful armor suit.

  But Tag had the advantage of being a cornered animal. Fierce, beastly instinct overrode any inarguable logic telling him he’d already lost this battle to the death. He delivered blow after blow against the pirate’s cracking face shield. The pirate scrambled out from under Tag and crawled away. Tag pounced. He tore at the small hoses and tubes along the suit’s back. Air and gas hissed out. One leaked black fluid in a steady stream, and another sprayed the oily liquid across the deck like a severed artery. As the suit bled out, the pirate was getting weaker. Much, much weaker. Tag stood and lugged the pirate over the deck. The man’s hand flailed in a desperate attempt to grab on to anything. He aimed one wrist-mounted gun at Tag, but a swift kick knocked his arm away. The round splashed against the bulkhead harmlessly.

  Tag retrieved the pirate’s dropped sidearm and turned the weapon on its owner. He pulled the trigger, and a spray of blue pulsefire cut across the suit. An energy shield shimmered green at first, blocking a few rounds, before crackling and disappearing. Whatever damage he’d done to the suit seemed to have disrupted its shield. The pulsefire punched into the pirate’s legs, torso, arms, then helmet.

  The man’s limbs twitched then went still.

  Steam coated the inside of Tag’s visor as he gasped to catch his breath and sealed the bridge’s hatch. There hadn’t been any other pirates when he’d checked the cams earlier, but if there were more than the three he’d dispatched, he didn’t want to be taken by surprise again.

  He peered at the pilot’s seat, where a hole through the middle of it had left chunks of the adaptive foam puffing out of the torn seat like a wounded animal. Settling into the seat, he was finally ready to see how rusty his piloting skills had become. And as soon as his fingers flicked on the controls to gain control of the ship, a red light flashed across the terminal before him.

  The blood in his vessels chilled as he read the message: “Weapon lock detected.”

  A holoscreen showed the Eta-Five solar system and the Argo’s location within it. The ship continued to draw nearer to Eta. And as it did, a glowing spot indicated where the weapon lock had been detected. The telltale glow of a charging energy weapon sparkled on the holoprojection above the chart table.

  The death of the pirate trio hadn’t gone unnoticed by the stealth ship.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Tag wrapped his fingers around the control systems without bothering to strap himself in.

  “Come on, baby. We got this.” He patted the pilot station’s terminal.

  The weapons lock warning glared across the holoscreen like a menacing animal waiting to pounce. Any moment, the pirate ship would let loose its cannon, tearing into the Argo and sabotage his efforts to save himself or anyone else. Maybe he could at least make it harder for those monsters to kill him.

  His memories of training pouring quickly back, he shoved the manual throttle forward, and the ship blasted into full-thrust. The intense g-force pressed him into the contoured seat as the main impellers roared, shifting gravity around the ship. He turned the ship hard to starboard, but at this close range, it wouldn’t be hard for the pirates to find a new firing solution, even if they chose to do it manually.

  His mind raced over his options. The medical-officer portion of his brain came alive, triaging that which was most important, most crucial to saving lives the quickest. Shields. He needed shields. He swiped on the terminal to bring up the Ops interface. Panic struck him as he searched for the commands to restore the energy shields, and his fingers shook as he desperately scanned the holoscreen.

  “Come on, come on, where are you?” he yelled.

  So many commands, buttons, and words sparked distant, vague memories.

  Then he found it. He punched the proper commands, and the holoscreen reported all energy shields reengaged at 100%. That should buy him some time. Even if he couldn’t maneuver out of the way of the pirate’s first shot, he might escape merely rattled instead of obliterated. He flicked another command on the terminal that blasted the pirates with radio and laser chatter. Those tactics might help throw off their targeting systems, but he still needed to put more distance between them to make it effective.

  Even as the Argo accelerated with full impeller thrust, the pirate ship’s charging cannon never strayed off target. Tag turned the ship hard to port and blasted with all impellers. The change in acceleration shoved him deeper into his seat, and he tightened his grip on the pilot’s controls. At the same time, flashes of blue and green lit up around him like an electric storm. The Argo shook like a wooden sailing ship caught in a typhoon.

  The pirates had fired.

  Tag held his breath, waiting to see how well the Argo stood up to the frightening technology of the pirates. The shields absorbed the brunt of the charged pulsefire, but the Argo still trembled and groaned. With each passing second, the shaking and bucking grew worse until the shimmering energy shields disappeared with a sudden electric shriek.

  A bevy of warnings flashed across the holoscreen reporting the shields were down, overwhelmed by the massive assault. The incoming energy had been too much, and the shield generators were dead.

  Tag wouldn’t get a second chance to absorb another direct hit of that magnitude. Three hells, any energy weapon a fraction as strong would pierce the Argo’s hull, tearing into it like a tin can. He threw the ship into full thrust again and rocketed forward, away from the blinding radiance of Eta and, hopefully, away from the pirates.

  But he truly had no idea if he was avoiding them at all. The Argo’s sensors couldn’t pick the pirate ship up when it wasn
’t charging weapons, and it disappeared again. He did his best to spiral the ship through space in a weak attempt at evasive maneuvers by flying in awkward zigzags, dropping and increasing relative altitude as unpredictably as he could.

  A bright dot glared on the holoprojection once more, no more than a hundred klicks from the Argo. It was farther than Tag would’ve guessed but not far enough for him to be pleased. A chain of dots started accelerating from the pirate’s ship, headed his direction.

  Pulsefire.

  He weaved and dropped relative altitude, ducking under a heavy barrage of blue pulse rounds. Another salvo of bright lights flew past the bridge’s viewport as he blasted the ship’s port and starboard impellers to rock the ship sideways.

  The huge white globe of Eta-Five appeared before him. A livable planet. The one where the Argo was supposed to meet Lieutenant Vasquez. Doesn’t seem likely now, Tag thought grimly. He gritted his teeth and leaned forward in the seat, urging the ship onward even as he felt the planet’s gravitational force pull him in. If he couldn’t coax the ship to accelerate more rapidly with impellers alone, he’d enlist Eta-Five’s help. If he could speed around the planet, he might be able to put enough distance between himself and the pirates to calculate a T-drive jump into hyperspace and get out of here for good so he could contact the Montenegro.

  “Computer, calculate orbital trajectory.”

  No response. He hadn’t really expected one. He had already figured he was the only intelligent form conscious on this ship, AI or human. More rapid pulsefire careened past the Argo. But this time the ship didn’t come away unscathed. Several rounds bit into the hull, sending shockwaves reverberating through the bulkhead, causing a bank of lights on the bridge to spark and go dark.