The Relic (The Galactic Thieves Book 1) Read online

  Peeking around the corner, he glanced toward his ship. One had stepped out of the shadows and was motioning up at the building nearby. Following his line of vision, Laender saw a thin form on one of the roofs. No doubt the old man.

  He made his way cautiously back and around the outer edges until he was behind the building. The area was clear and he found a ladder that was extending all the way to the ground. Obviously they weren’t used to working with someone like Laender. Careful to avoid making too much sound, he kept his feet hanging while pulling himself rung-by-rung using only his arms. Once he reached the top, he moved to place his back against one of the walls and craned his head around the corner.

  “That’s what the bouncer at The Comfort House said. Should be here any minute. Now get back in the shadows before he sees you.”

  Laender stepped out quietly as his enemy backed away from the edge, busily looking over his pad. Something told Laender that he was studying the manifest that was just delivered, which made the old man’s plan clear: kill Laender, take his funds, get the manifest back into his warehouse, and then either strip and sell the ship or take the ship and point it toward the nearest star.

  “Such a pity,” Laender said as he snaked his arm out and covered the old man’s mouth. “I had hoped that our transaction would have been a fair one.”

  The man grunted and tried to wriggle free, dropping the pad in the process, but Laender was far too strong for the likes of him. In one movement, he spun the man around and slammed his back against the wall while again closing a hand over his mouth.

  “Eyes so old,” Laender said while tilting his head. “Maybe they have seen enough life that they can tell me something?”

  The man grunted and struggled as Laender began pressing harder and harder on his face. Soon, whimpers and muffled screams followed. All the while Laender studied the eyes. They were begging for mercy. Was it the begging that represented life? It was a common thread, even if it did make little sense to Laender. What purpose would life be if its only purpose was to foster groveling?

  The body went limp as Laender felt the jaw shift and crunch.

  That made 275 and still no answers.

  He gently lowered the old man and grabbed the pad from the ledge. It was loaded up to the freight on his ship. Another window displayed the dots that represented the thugs below. Had Laender gone the other way in targeting them first, the old man would have seen the dots disappear and would have known to run. Hopefully the goons below were so busy looking for their prey that they weren’t checking their pads.

  Then he felt a sense of peace as an idea came to him.

  He spied over the edge and saw the gleam of a weapon. It was only fifty feet or so, which from this height wasn’t too difficult a throw for Laender. He moved back and dragged the old man’s body up and pressed him overhead. Three strong steps and a launch and the man’s limp form arced into the depths below.

  He then slid the pad in his chest pocket and sprinted toward the back ladder as the thump and ensuing yells sounded. He stuck two charges at the connecting points on the ladder and then grabbed both rails and slid down at lightning speed before cutting straight across to the alleyway on the other side of the street.

  Footsteps sounded from the edge as commands were called out.

  Hiding in the shadows, he dropped the brightness on the pad and followed the dots. Two from each side of the building, three staying with the ship.

  His first thought was to have the robots handle the ones at the ship, but he so disliked the concept of missing a chance to find the meaning of life. Still, it wouldn’t be long before reinforcements came in.

  Disappointed, he pulled forth his own pad and set the defense monitors in place. Seconds later, the dots disappeared.

  “I don’t give a shit what you think,” said one of the attackers. “Get your ass up that ladder or I’ll blow you away myself!”

  Three figures began their ascent as the fourth, obviously the leader, stayed at the base and looked up behind them.

  When they had almost reached the top, Laender silently slid up behind the man at the base and crushed his larynx, spinning him around to stare into his eyes. The gasping chokes didn’t last long though.

  Another one who took the secret with him.

  Laender triggered the explosives and ran toward the corner, keeping an eye on the mayhem above. A shuddering thud took out the top of the ladder, blowing off the first goon’s arms and dropping him onto those beneath him. As one, they all screamed and plummeted to the street below, smashing into a pool of glop.

  If only there had been time to do things properly, he thought as he raced toward his ship, signaling it to open the bays and let him in, maybe he could have gleaned some insights. As it was, these deaths would not increment the death toll toward in Laender’s seeking of the truth. It would remain at 275.

  But Laender was not the type to dwell on disappointment. When one door closed, he kicked another one opened.

  The ship was already in pre-check when he dropped into the Captain’s chair. Wisps of weapons fire was twanging off the ship, signaling him to set the defense parameters at full.

  He launched and spun the ship, steering it to hover just above the buildings and out of sight of the landing station. If he had gone straight up, they would have easily targeted him. As it stood, he was out of visual range before heading toward space.

  Just in case, he checked the relays to make sure that there wasn’t an authority dispatch.

  It was clear.

  He engaged auto-pilot once the ship exited Lashen-7’s pull and then he went about studying more of the old man’s pad to make sure that there weren’t any surprises in his cargo. The robots were pretty thorough, but traders can be shifty.

  Nothing came up as out of the ordinary, so he was about to shut it down when he noticed an information feed that was detailing his ship. It didn’t cover the ins and outs, but it was clearly his ship. What it did have was a list of all known transponder codes. Laender changed these at regular intervals, so none of them were current. But why would anyone have this list in the first place?

  The feed came from an encrypted source. Laender connected the pad to his main terminal and went about breaking in. It had taken the better part of an hour, but soon he found that the data had come from a ship called The Reycort. Attached was a promissory note for 10 million credits, assuming that Laender’s ship was kept intact.

  Opening a response to The Reycort, Laender typed in the following:

  Ship got away, but we got new transponder codes. They are as follows:

  1A-778-DF-293-ECA9D-451-BE and 92-D2A-2A-6C9-1247E-FF2-B3.

  Ship was heading toward Klano Cluster. Could not follow, but was able to cause a fair amount of damage. Is definitely distressed.

  While he waited for a response, Laender zipped through the rest of the correspondence that went back and forth between the two parties. It seemed that BNG was looking for The Relic, which is why The Reycort was after his ship.

  Laender activated the hologram in the center of the room and waited for the head to appear.

  “Father,” he said, “it seems that they have finally found us.”

  “It was only a matter of time, Laender.”

  “Yes.”

  “You will protect things, no doubt?”

  “Of course.”

  Father smiled and nodded as the pad’s light chimed. Laender read the email that came back:

  Good work, old man. 10 million was for catching the ship, so you’re not getting that, but I’ll swing you 100k for the trouble and any additional for expenses. ~Reycort

  THE STORM BEFORE THE STORM

  Penn danced with a nuke as Blue finished up configuring the missile.

  I don’t know if her life had passed in front of her eyes or not, but she told me later that a memory helped save our ass. About seven years prior she was yanked onto the dance floor by one of her kidnapper’s cousins. The guy couldn’t find the music’s beat to save
his life. Unfortunately, Penn’s life was on the line. She knew that if he left that dance floor feeling like anything less than suave, she’d get a dagger in her somewhere. So she’d led him like he was leading her. She looked into his eyes and made sure he met her stare. She kept her bare legs on the surface of his pants so she could feel his mistakes before they happened. And Penn glanced in the direction he should move. If she did it right, he wouldn’t even know he was being led. He’d think he was in control. She was good. She escaped the evening with less injury than usual.

  I found Penn in a dumpster about six years ago. She’d been beaten and left for dead. I’d been trying to build a team for seven years. Seven long years of betrayals, almost-scores and lots and lots of rotten luck. I thought it was just more of the same when I saw her bloody hand hanging from a cluster of take-out dim sum boxes. I’m not sure why I stopped. I’d seen enough bloody hands hanging out of places in my lifetime. But I did.

  I got my day-hire to help me carry her to the ship. He was an okay guy. He even helped me get her on the Table before he tried to steal a few months of rations from my stash. I’m not sure if I had a plan to get her off my ship if she’d died. That would have been tricky since I had a crew of one, including me.

  But the Table did its job over the course of a couple of days and I found myself with a loyal crew member who was a genius with both engineering and piloting. She could fix it, fly it or mod it better than anyone in her position should be able to. I didn’t question it. I thanked the gods that her bloody hand caught my eye.

  So a little fucking nuke didn’t stand a chance.

  “All set, Kat,” Blue clicked through comm, finally.

  “Everyone get buckled,” I said. “We’re going down thrust in 10 seconds.” After a round of “aye ayes” from the crew, I said, “Go, Penn.”

  “Fire,” she said as she pressed the trigger on her stick.

  She didn’t need to say ‘Fire,’ but I think it was a way for her to keep track of the plan in her head.

  The missile scratched its way through space, setting off a replica of our signature. That, coupled with the heat would hopefully confuse the fucking thing enough to follow.

  The moment the missile released, Penn pressed thrusters to full and I felt the straps of my chair dig into my shoulders. My lunch (from 24 hours ago) threatened to pop out of the top of my head. Jolting wasn’t strong enough a word. The bruises would be there for weeks.

  I squinted, waiting for the world to erupt in a blinding light of death, but after a few seconds, I cautiously opened one eye.

  Penn was looking at me, grinning. “It worked. Nuke is locked on to the missile and it’s heading through the hole with our patsy.”

  “Okay, power is restored to the Table,” I said over the comm to Max. “Get her hooked up.” Then I turned back to my pilot. “What’s the plan, Penn?”

  “You tell me,” she said with a smirk. “You’re on a roll.”

  “Okay, we follow the missiles in. Musasho will hold off on firing.”

  “Why would he do that?” Penn asked, skepticism etched in her brow.

  “He’ll see that we’re bringing the nuke with us.”

  “Right?”

  “So that’ll buy us time to reach him.”

  “Or he’ll just fire at the damn thing and take us out with it.”

  “Not likely. The payload is too heavy. He’ll bust himself up if he does that.”

  “Not if he’s far away,” she pointed out.

  “Which he won’t be,” I countered. “He’s not the type to leave things to chance, Penn. Think about it. If he’s too far from the wormhole then we’ll spot his missiles incoming, we’ll release our full load right back at him and then do a full burn to get as far away as possible. In other words, we both die. He’s dumb, Penn, but he’s not that dumb.”

  “Okay, I get it. He’s close to the wormhole. So?”

  “So we go through, trailing the nuke. He’ll be waiting within range, meaning he’s not going to launch a shitload of death because if he hits that nuke we all go kersplat.”

  She closed her eyes, clearly exhausted with my existence. “We go in, trailing a godsdam nuke, and hope he doesn’t fire and hope that he’s nearby and hope about one thousand more things and then what?”

  “Then we wing it,” I said.

  I knew she wanted to strangle me, but she backed off. “Fine, but this is one thoroughly incomplete fucking plan, Kat.”

  I ignored her.

  “How’s Sam?” I asked Max over comm.

  The delay was too long for my taste. Finally, Max muttered, “We’ll see.[click]”

  The lights dimmed in the cockpit so I knew the Table was hard at work.

  The wormhole was about thirty seconds away.

  Our turn.

  25 seconds.

  “Should we tell them?” Penn asked. “I mean, you know. This could be it, right?”

  “They know, Penn.” I put my hand on her shoulder.

  15 seconds.

  “Ow,” Penn grunted.

  “What?”

  “You’re digging your nails into my shoulder.”

  10 seconds.

  “Sorry,” I said releasing my grip. But I got to thinking. “So you like to complain about your shoulder hurting when you’re about to face the finality of a nuclear explosion?”

  5 seconds.

  “Maybe because it hurt?” she shot back.

  The moment we got to the other side of the wormhole, Penn didn’t waste a second. She pulled up Musasho’s position and sent a barrage of missiles right at him. Then she set a coordinate change on our lead missile. The nuke dutifully followed.

  “He saw our buddy,” I pointed out. “He’s not firing back. He’s afraid of setting off his own nuke. Guide it to him. I want a direct hit.”

  “Kat, if the nuke hits him, we’ll get zipped too.”

  “Nope. Cut and run,” I said. “Now!”

  “Aye aye,” she said, turning the ship and pushing her at full.

  We kept the visual up and magnified as we continued our run. The first of our standard missiles reached Musasho and exploded. Five more impacted his side, causing a rip in their shields that allowed the 6th and 7th missiles to do real damage on their hull.

  “Ten seconds to nuke impact,” Penn said.

  “Guide it to that weak spot. I want it to get through.”

  “They’re going to start firing at us,” noted Penn. “Once they realize they’re fucked.”

  “They are fucked,” I said. “Even if they do manage to shut down the nuke, the impact of our head missile alone is going to cause enough damage to either kill them all or make that ship dead in the water. If the former, we’re done here; if the latter, we’ll finish the job. Just tell me you nailed the trajectory, Penn.”

  “Why aren’t they firing?”

  “Penn?”

  “Makes no sense. I would release everything I had if I knew I was fucked.”

  “Tell me you nailed it, Penn!”

  “Yeah! Yes! Fine! I nailed it! It’s going to hit his control cell.”

  Sure enough, a few seconds later the display lit up with the boom-boom of Musasho’s ship.

  Bye-bye, Musasho. Asshole.

  “Huh,” Penn said, leaning back in her chair. “Honestly, I don’t get that.”

  I did. “Cut back to the vid at some point, Penn. Missile 6 hit their weapons section, and 7 struck navigation. They probably wanted to do exactly what you said you’d do, but our missiles didn’t give them the option.”

  “Huh,” she said again.

  “You winged it well,” I said, smiling at her.

  “Shut up.”

  “What’s the nearest depot?” I asked.

  Penn glanced at the panel, sighed, and said, “Muffins.”

  “Ugh”

  Muffins. Known to the locals as the Star of Anus. A real shit hole.

  LAENDER'S GAMBIT

  It had taken Laender a few hours to get all of the new
assets hooked in properly. The missiles were always the most troublesome, but fortunately there were robots to assist with those. Exacting creatures made for the perfect missile controllers.

  With the ship in top condition and ready for battle, Laender activated the fake-distress program and launched a Seeker Probe to check the readings from outside.

  Less than a minute went by before the probe responded that The Kless was down to 27% shields, had damage on 62% of her hull, and was working on roughly 18% power. Her engines were incapable of anything faster than a standard burn. This all according to the probe, which meant any ship coming at her would get the same readings.

  He signaled the probe to return.

  The Reycort would undoubtedly fall for the trap like so many thieves had before.

  “Father,” Laender said as he drifted across the main room to the column where the head lived, “I will need you to return to your box. We cannot risk anyone finding you.”

  “As you wish.”

  Once the box was sealed, Laender set the opacity of the column to full.

  A soft chime signaled to notify Laender that a ship had just come into range. As usual, Laender’s timing was impeccable.

  Checking the signature, it came up as a proxy. Digging a little deeper, Laender found that it was indeed The Reycort.

  He did a quick scan and found The Reycort was running on full power with all missiles locked on The Kless. The Reycort had fourteen C-Shreds, nine Tarnelican Pests, and five nukes onboard. Overkill, to be sure, but smart nonetheless. Most attackers came in with an abundance of confidence. It was the common thread of their downfall, along with the fact that they were facing someone like Laender.

  Incoming channel, said the computer.

  “On screen,” Laender replied gently.

  A man with graying hair, bushy eyebrows, and rugged skin appeared on the main viewer. He had numerous pockmarks on his face, indicative of either growing up in a harsh climate or having had suffered one of the scarring diseases found on many poor planets and moons. There was a confidence about the way the man stared that gave Laender pause. That did not happen often.