“Rusco, get the hell out of here,” Blest yelled.
As much as I hated to back down from a fight, he was right. I hit the Varwol control but nothing happened. I gaped again. The red light was stuck at the ‘on’ position at an eight out of ten intensity. “Now, we’re fucked.”
“Fix it, Noss!” I growled at him in utter helplessness. He grunted and rocked back and forth, holding his mangled wrist; sweat poured down his flushed cheeks.
I swore again, gunning the impulse thrusters. I took us in a tight loop starboard and aft to avoid Halley’s continued fire. We played a game of dodge and dash for minutes until I saw our measly impulse thrust would lose us this game. From the direction of Gistron station came two security bogies, bearing down on us with wrath. Red flares issued from their port cannons. Directly at us. The jig was up.
Noss, bless his hide, started messing with the controls and gave a sharp cry as he diverted the auxiliary power to the Varwol drive. The overload warning light flickered off for a brief instant. I slammed the hyperdrive to engage. The high-pitched whir of light drive was music to my ears. Space and time suddenly flipped; we were gone from this sector.
Staring at one another in stunned silence.
“Any chance of them tracking us?” Blest panted.
“Not unless they have angels or psychics on their side,” I mumbled.
They couldn’t track us. Not at least with the gizmo cloakers I’d installed in the forward drive vents some weeks ago. More yols down the drain, but necessary ones to keep degenerates like Halley off our tail.
Blest drew a hissing breath through his teeth, “At least you avoided what was turning into be a lethal firefight, Rusco.”
“For now. There’s always tomorrow. That yacht Alastar and the booty aboard’ll pay for our losses in Resus. We’ll head to Deneb, cook up some schemes to get us back in the green.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Blest said.
I sighed. Noss gripped his hand and clenched his teeth to bite back the pain. “Good work, Noss,” I congratulated him. “You saved our asses. Wren, get our friend some regen before his hand turns into a bird’s claw beyond fixing.” She reached for the extra stash in the hidden bulkhead—stuff I always kept in an emergency. There was enough there to deal with Noss’s problem. At least I hoped.
Making enemies everywhere I went. Not a good modus operandi.
Chapter 9
Alastar was off to Deneb and we were out of radio contact until the starship came out of warp. Nothing we could do but sit tight and follow her light trails. My eyes kept scanning the overload gauge. The bright red light kept flickering on, then off, only to fade out for a few minutes then flicker back on again. Noss’s efforts to keep a steady trickle of auxiliary power trained at the light drive seemed to be failing.
“Damn it, Noss, what’s wrong with the blasted thing?”
Noss shrugged, wincing as the regen did its work on his wrist. “Could be anything. The last hit jarred something loose. Bad connection maybe, a corrupted stabilizer? Take your pick.”
I grimaced. “Don’t like the overload light coming on. We’ll stop along the way, get it checked. Where’s the nearest civilized world?” I looked to Wren.
The holo image showed a green gridded layout with nearby suns of various intensities as she consulted the star chart. “Baladar in Kepler’s Reach.”
“Baladar it is. Damn Hal and his bloody super ship. We’ll keep regular shifts at the helm. Noss, you turn in, get that wrist healed. Blest, you and Wren fight over who gets the first watch.” I turned to make my exit, moving down the hall to my cabin like a straw man, feeling the strain of the last few days building, a pressure under my temples.
I entered my berth, paused in front of the mirror before the sink, scrutinizing myself. The rugged ruffian look. Hollow pits under eyes too dark and purple to signify anything good. Nor did I like the crows-leg cracks forming around the edges plus the whiskers turning a visible shade of grey. The cynical awareness was still there, of a lone glimpse into the facts of life: after all the blood has been shed and the guns have gone off, only the lies we tell ourselves remain, about what heroes we’d been, and how lucky we were to have survived the day.
One Jet Rusco: a washed-up space hustler roving the stars, well past his prime, trying to strike some balance between having a stable life and making ends meet while risking others’ skins in the process. Not the best way to play it. On the bright side, a man with some conscience, maybe scant little, but some backbone, and a shred of basic decency floating around there somewhere, but slim pickings lately. Not the best recipe for making friends, or keeping friends.
Perhaps it was this disquieting reminder of my own mediocrity that brought the greatest sadness, a life bereft of fulfillment, the hollow pit-in-the-stomach feeling while going through the motions of playing bandleader to other grifters on the path hunting for a paradise they’d never find.
A knock came at the door. Wren seemed to have won that fight for bridge leave. “Come in.”
I looked her over, liking what I saw in her fresh black and grey leather and all her lioness cheekiness. “Well, this’s a surprise.”
“Is it, Rusco? You think I don’t care for you?” She smirked. “What’s the matter, not happy to see me?” She came up behind me and put long arms around my chest. In the mirror’s reflection, I saw her eyes agleam, a wry twist to her sun-bronzed brow.
I turned and gave her a lingering kiss. I unlatched myself and led her to the cot then flopped
