Thrill Addict Page 5

  It had only been a hunch, but the door slid smoothly away, and Sun squeezed inside.

  11.

  Sun

  CIC, Void company ship

  The CIC was a hemisphere filled with screens, which echoed the fish tank virtual unreality of the wraparound Tri-V on the inside of Sun’s CASPer, except these screens were currently showing images from beneath an alien sea, rich with life. Pirates wearing the smoked black and red of the Endless Night were stuffed into an upper deck.

  She sidestepped and covered them with her MAC while Pak did the same, taking a position on the other side of the door.

  But it was clear the pirates were no threat. “Check they’re dead,” she told Pak just to be sure, but she knew he would find them lifeless, with ‘Z’s slashed by lasers through their torsos.

  There was only one person left alive, sitting in the command chair which was swiveled away so she was hidden by the seatback. But she was there all right.

  Sure enough, the command chair pivoted around to reveal her sister looking annoyingly cool in wraparound shades.

  Blue raised them to her forehead, revealing eyes sparkling with excitement. “Data glasses,” she explained. “Can you believe it? It’s the main way of interfacing with the ship. The pair I’m wearing are thousands of years old, and they still look mighty fine on me. I tell you, my friends, this ship is the most wonderful thing in the galaxy.”

  “I’ll tell you what I can’t believe,” Sun replied, advancing across the deck. “First you abandon me, and then you force me to engage armed pirates you could have eliminated with ease.”

  “I was doing it for you. You needed to prove your worth to the big boss, same as I need to.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” said Pak, “but I thank you anyway for your help. Now open the exterior portal so the others can get in. We need to check the ship is free of the pirates and… is suitably constrained.”

  “Oh, no,” Blue replied in a menacing whisper. “No, no, no!” Crimson bolts of red flashed along the sides of her pallid flesh. What the hell had happened to her? “Gloriana wants us both to roam free.”

  “Gloriana?” Pak echoed in confusion. “The owner?”

  “Yeah, the big boss. The one who refurbished an ancient warship and fitted it out with a toy mercenary company. Except she’s tired of providing security for coming-of-age parties, and making the coffee-and-doughnuts run for proper mercenaries. Gloriana wants real contracts and she wants them fulfilled.”

  “I don’t buy it.” Pak’s patience sounded thin. “How can the owner be talking with you?”

  “Well, it’s hardly likely that the boss is hiding in the glove compartment, is it?” Blue replaced the data shades over her eyes with the same ready-for-action finality as snapping in a fresh charge pack for a laser rifle. “I presume it’s a limited-AI virtual assistant with the authority to make me an offer I couldn’t refuse. The ship seems to think it’s valid. It’ll all be ratified when we get home. Look, can we stop talking and get on with killing the pirates? I don’t like to hurry people, but I haven’t eaten since yesterday, and I want to get this done so I can have lunch.”

  “Do you know what she’s talking about?” Pak asked Sun over the radio. “Will I have to disable her?”

  “Give her a few moments. Blue usually talks sense, but her route to the point can be a little… unconventional.”

  The feet of the Mark7 CASPer was impressively sensitive compared to the heavier models Sun was used to. She actually felt the throb of powerful engines spooling up moments before the ship made a sudden lurch that threw her around inside her CASPer.

  “Eww!” Blue groaned, but she was grinning, “there’s going to be some hefty fines for that.”

  Sun was too busy adjusting to the rapid changes in pseudo-gravity to follow Blue’s meaning.

  “Don’t worry,” Blue assured them. “Gloriana says she’s happy to pay the fees. It’s a mere trifle to the boss.”

  “You’ve snapped the mooring tethers,” yelled Pak. “You’re mad!”

  Blue glared at Pak’s CASPer over her shades, while Sun figured out that her suit had automatically activated magnetic grips to the deck after the ship had cut itself off from Station-Five’s spin.

  “Am I mad?” Blue echoed, and then gave a one-shouldered shrug. “After a fashion, yes. Turns out, so is this ship. She and I have a mutual understanding. And that’s why Gloriana made me an offer. If I can pass her test and prove that the ship and I can work together to realize our full potential, she’ll offer me a post. As company commander. How about that?”

  The bulkheads echoed to the metallic snap of Pak’s arm blade snapping two feet beyond his CASPer’s wrist. “I’ve heard enough. Stand down. Now! No one has to get hurt.”

  Blue ignored the giant sword and swiveled her command chair toward what appeared to be configured as the central screen of the CIC. “Hurting people is kind of the plan.”

  She spoke with such confidence that Sun didn’t fear what Pak might do. It was the sergeant who was in danger of getting himself hurt.

  “You mentioned killing pirates,” Sun said. “Is that the test you’re talking about?”

  “My bad,” she replied. “Forgot you can’t see.” The screen switched from being a bubble beneath the sea, to the black of space. Station-Five slowly receded away from the rear bulkhead, but the front showed a concave formation of armed ships, painted in the black and luminous red colors of the Endless Night.

  “That boarding crew we killed,” Blue explained, “they were just the advanced party. The Night want this ship very badly.”

  The Endless Night. The criminal organization that extended its tentacles into every aspect of the Spine Nebula, and was rumored to run several of the more unstable planetary governments while keeping a dozen more permanently destabilized. There was no need to carry out so many acts of piracy in order to acquire wealth and power, and anything that was likely to one day attract the attention of the Peacemakers was utter madness. Blue had theorized the reason the Endless Night were pirates was because they got too much of a kick out of it to stop. Knowing who ran the organization, Sun suspected she was right.

  “Twelve hostiles,” said Pak. “That cruiser in the center is Abyssal Terror – Endless Night’s flagship. It’s hopeless. We have to abandon ship.”

  “I don’t think G’Zyoulk will let us go so easily,” said Blue, “not now he’s seen us.” The ship accelerated toward the center of the pirate ship formation.

  Sun felt a biting chill inside her CASPer. There was only one person in the galaxy who was so terrifying that she wouldn’t even speak his name. G’Zyoulk, the demented Goka pirate captain. She’d heard of mothers biting out the throats of their own children in front of leering pirates, anything rather than allow loved ones into G’Zyoulk’s clutches. “How… how can you be sure he’s here?” she whispered.

  “Because, dear sister, he’s hailing us.”

  A 3D holographic image projected out of the bulkhead. It was him. The Scourge of the Spine Nebula. G’Zyoulk.

  12.

  Sun

  CIC, Void company ship

  The pirate leader was a Goka, which made him a cross between an armadillo and an oversized cockroach, with a love for bladed weapons, a carapace that could withstand a megawatt laser rifle with no more than a little pitting, lengthy antennae, and eyeballs on short stalks. Except this example had only one eye, the other having been replaced with a priceless red diamond, and his carapace was clothed in a jerkin of mismatched leather strips stitched together.

  His holographic image made a hissing scratching noise that Sun’s pendant interpreted as: “We are the Endless Night. We thrive in the depth of your darkness.”

  “Can I just clarify?” Blue asked the hologram. “Is that meant to scare us?”

  G’Zyoulk’s antennae twitched. “Power down immediately and allow yourself to be boarded. You cannot escape, human. We are everywhere. No matter how fast you think you can run, no one can
escape the dark forever.”

  “After the darkness comes the light,” Blue replied as if distracted. “Make a note of that, someone.”

  “I prefer not to damage my new ship,” said the Goka. “Surrender it now and I will be well disposed to you. Your deaths will be merciful.”

  “The ship is not an it,” Blue insisted. “In fact, she has decided her new name shall be Midnight Sun, because even in the despair of what appears to be endless night, the sun remains a promise of…” She clicked her fingers. “What is the damned word?”

  “Hope?” ventured Pak.

  “Hmmm. We wanted something along the lines of the inevitable destruction of your enemies and the violation of their corpses. I admit, your version is pithier, Pak. But it lacks punch. Work on it.”

  “You are insane,” said the Goka. His good eye moved forward on a stalk to peer into the camera. “And in a way that feels familiar. Have I encountered you before?”

  “Maybe,” Blue replied with a shrug. “And maybe not. I don’t mean to be rude, but you don’t exactly look distinctive. What did you say your name was again?”

  The pirate captain listened to a Maki officer whose head appeared in the holographic projection, whispering into the captain’s ear. “So, it’s you. Typical human, you were hiding in your anonymous metal suit when we last met, but I have spies everywhere, and they have seen you outside of your suit.”

  The alien shrank the stalk loaded with a good eye and extended the one terminating in the red diamond. Meanwhile, the array of pirate vessels spread around the CIC screens as the ship slowly flew deeper into their formation.

  “Oh,” Blue replied. “You’re that G’Zyoulk. Yes, I cut off your eye with a CASPer arm blade. Still have it, actually. I had it preserved with the idea of making it into a pendant, but to be honest, it’s too ugly. You can have it back if you like.”

  Sun didn’t have much experience of Gokas. They appeared to have two moods: smug and kill frenzy. She sensed G’Zyoulk was on the cusp of flipping out of smugness.

  “This day is nearing perfection,” the pirate told them, proving Sun wrong. “I came here to acquire a new flagship and find you of all people are inside it. That is indeed a magnificent bonus. In fact, I am so delighted that I wish to extend you a generous offer.”

  “Does she actually know what she’s doing?” Pak asked Sun over the radio.

  “She does,” Sun heard her sister reply inside her CASPer, though the words Blue spoke aloud to G’Zyoulk were, “I’m listening.” I must be hearing words through the data glasses, Sun decided.

  “I suppose I ought to warn you,” Blue said through the radio, “I don’t know how to fly this thing.”

  “Can’t it fly itself?” asked Sun.

  “It can indeed. You figured that out because you’re smart. Let’s hope the enemy doesn’t figure it out so rapidly. Otherwise we’re dead. Also, if Midnight Sun is just toying with us, we are dead.”

  “My surveillance bots on your ship tell me that you have two marines and a scared Jeha aboard. No one else. Even if you did know what you were doing, that is not enough nearly to crew the ship, let alone defend it against boarding.”

  “You were going to offer a deal,” Blue reminded G’Zyoulk. “Remember?”

  The pirate captain turned around. “Regard my carapace, human. Is it not handsome, with its tailored jacket of leather cut from the hide of my enemies? I have patches of Besquith, of Oogar and Veetanho and many others, but I lack human leather. I am G’Zyoulk, a person of significance and reputation. Regrettably, that means it is not possible for me to ignore the incident in which you took my eye. Not entirely. Therefore, in return for handing over that vessel undamaged, I shall demand only a token payment of your debt. I want a piece of you for my jacket.”

  “I’m listening. Which particular piece do you have in mind?”

  “Your skin, of course. All of it in a single piece. It would make an exotic leather coat for several of my favorite mates.”

  “Really?” said Blue. “Several? Are you implying that I am… bulky?”

  “You misunderstand. I require your sister’s hide too. Also, that man inside the metal suit. And when I catch him, I shall also skin Jenkins alive personally.”

  The Jeha, who had been cowering near Sun’s feet, curled in fear.

  “Relax, Tk’ch’kl’l,” Sun told him. “The pirate means a different Jenkins.”

  The deck lurched as Blue applied a gee or so of thrust without warning.

  Already curled up protectively, Jenkins rolled across the deck before getting lodged between two empty acceleration couches. The mag clamps securing the two CASPers switched off, and although the thrust was modest, the CASPers were yanked off the deck by the sudden imposition of an up and down to the CIC that was oriented a different way. They clanged upon impacting each other before falling after Jenkins. Sun had to give her jump jet control a tap to stop herself from crushing the unhappy Jeha when she landed.

  “My bad,” said Blue aloud for G’Zyoulk’s benefit. “I turned the mag system off by mistake. It’s on again now.”

  “I shall treasure that display of incompetence until my dying moment,” said the Goka among a backdrop of hissing that probably passed for alien laughter. The pirate captain tickled the camera with his antennae. “How does it feel to know you’ve failed? Your hides for your lives. Despite your pathetic attempt at aggression, my offer still stands, with all my captains as my witnesses that I shall honor my bargain. All I want are your hides. I don’t understand your species physiology, but I assume your skin will grow back, won’t it?”

  “With correct and immediate medical attention, perhaps,” Blue replied. “I was thinking maybe I’d sign up with your organization and pay the price you demand in my skin. Then you could keep me alive with skin grafts until I recover my strength enough to work for you.”

  The clumsy maneuvering had left the Midnight Sun’s gleaming sphere coasting through space, on a heading that was about to take it just ten miles off Abyssal Terror’s port bow. If the CIC’s screens were oriented to match Midnight Sun’s own orientation, then the ancient ship was pointed directly at the pirate cruiser.

  Pointed at the enemy ship? Sun shook her head inside her cockpit. Surely a spherical ship couldn’t be pointed. Could it? That wasn’t her department, though. She trusted Blue with anything to do with ships, and she’d better know what the hell she was doing because Sun had no idea.

  Then she thought about the mag clamp. Sun was back on the deck with her feet gluing her down. Had Blue flung her off deliberately? Or was she really making it up as she went along?

  The pirate flagship was no sphere. It was shaped like an angry barbed bullet, and the angled red stripes painted across the cruiser’s hull were rumored to be mixed with the blood of Endless Night’s victims. Knowing what she did of G’Zyoulk, Sun reckoned that was probably true.

  Ports opened along Abyssal Terror’s beam. Boarding cutters shot out, making nimble turns as they began to match vectors with the drifting prize ship.

  “Interesting.” The Goka licked its antennae. “I tell you what. I will make you a counter offer. You surrender your hide and I will decide whether to keep you alive to harvest you again. Yes, now that I think on it, that is a better idea. I shall use you three as breeding stock for a new enterprise – a human leather farm.”

  “You win,” said Blue. “It’s now time to stop this display of incompetence. Midnight Sun welcomes your boarding teams with open hatches, and desperately desires to acquaint them with the flourish of her special burn mark. But you, Captain G’Zyoulk, I shall kill a different way. See you in hell!”

  As the deck suddenly hummed with power, Blue switched the holographic projection from the angry Goka pirate to a live cutaway diagram of both Midnight Sun and Abyssal Terror. Finally, Sun understood. The ship that her sister had bonded with mounted a quad-barrel cannon that ran the full diameter of her spherical form.

  A chambered round shot through the barrel a
nd crossed the vacuum before slamming into Abyssal Terror’s port beam.

  Sun’s eyes could just make out the blur as the shell began to accelerate through the charge rails of the enormous magnetic accelerator cannon, but after that, it was traveling much too fast to track. What she saw instead was the trail of devastation in its wake.

  “Five-ton armor-piercing ‘biter’ round,” said Blue like a proud mother, as Midnight Sun spun about to point her cannon at another pirate frigate.

  Sun was still mesmerized by the first shot. The holographic projection showed the round had passed through the cruiser’s armor as if it wasn’t there, crashing through what looked like the ship’s CIC and out through the other side.

  She looked up at the wraparound view of space showing on the bulkheads, and saw the crippled ship venting atmosphere, flames, pirates and other debris through its broken spine. And as they cleared the debris field, the view showed the escort frigate off Abyssal Terror’s starboard beam that had exploded. By the looks of it, after exiting the cruiser, the round had powered on through the nearby frigate’s main reactor, causing a plasma containment failure.

  “Double strike!” yelled Blue. “That’s gotta be worth extra points. I kept that dumb cockroach talking while she lined up the perfect shot. Me and Midnight Sun…” They were taking incoming laser fire from two of the surviving frigates that were trying to come about and deploy their main armament. Some of the frigates were already running. Midnight Sun’s cannon spat two more times and the two frigates joined the spreading debris field. “We’re such a great team. Gonna have such fun together.”

  Another shot and a fifth pirate ship exploded. The remainder were fleeing, thrusting away at gees Blue wasn’t ready to match, although Midnight Sun was accelerating in pursuit, ramming one of the boarding cutters as she passed back through the destruction of Abyssal Terror, which had now separated into two broken segments.

  “They’re running,” said Pak. “Break off now. We’re out of shells. That’s this ship’s problem. Our offense is all about the main gun, but without a crew we can’t reload.”