“Wait a minute! I agreed to run transport, no more—arms in, soldiers out—for pay. An even 5k was our deal.”
“It was, but it’s gotten bigger than that.”
Eyes were on me. I heard the pound of my heart in my ribcage.
“You have the chance to take him down, help millions of people! Why pass that up for some lesser role, playing baggage jockey over here? You and Wren and the others are among the few rare ones in the galaxy who’ve ever defeated and escaped the Star Lord.”
“And we’d like to keep it that way.”
“We need you!” he cried, grabbing my shoulder.
I looked at his hand and he licked his lips and withdrew it, realizing he’d overstepped.
There passed a moment when a tense silence passed, when my life flashed before me—all the times I was a little shit disturber, seven, eight? breaking everything in the house, lighting things on fire, playing tricks on the neighbor’s cat. Suddenly time jumped and there were shell shots, explosions, my parents and friends fried by flash bombs—then, like the tenebrous haze in the tanks, a zap of light, illumination, I knew after all this searching that I had a real purpose…as if my life leading up to this point had been only prep, paving the way for this one desperate act. It was crazy. But then again, everything in this mad universe was crazy. A big, mixed-up, shit-for-brains soup of craziness.
“It’s 10k yols, if you pull it off,” Phel said, intruding on my thoughts, “and Mong is taken down and destroyed.”
“Well?” I looked at the others.
Wren shrugged, gave me her ‘could take it or leave it’ look. I sighed, knew they wouldn’t go for it.
“10k bonus each,” Phel said, realizing he’d have to sweeten the pot.
Wren’s and Blest’s eyes flickered. I saw a hint of interest there, and a touch of greed in Blest’s.
So they were on board. I grinned and nodded. “Okay, Phel, it’ll surely fail, badly—but what the fuck.”
Phel beamed and slapped me on the back. “Good call, Rusco. You’re a good man.”
“I keep hearing that,” I said with a frown.
Phel spoke into a com. “Team leader, move out. We have 24 hours to pull this caper off.”
Chapter 30
The camoed grey moon rock flap slid aside and Starrunner burst out of the cave on Hedra. Five convoys at our heels impulse-thrust away from the desolate lunar plains into the deepening blackness of space—older Alpha X’s, but capable of speed and looking beat-up and retro enough to pose as beleaguered rebel craft fighting for a doomed cause.
“Team leader to Sparrows,” I rasped into the com. “On my signal.”
“Roger, team leader. This is Sparrow 1. Give us the word.”
I kept an open channel. Once we escaped Hedra’s gravity and were in the safe zone, we’d make the jump to Melinar.
Phel’s voice came over the encrypted link, his grey-peppered hair tied back in a bun. “Remember, you’re bait only. When Mong’s defense guard are alerted and paralyzed by our jammers, you turn and attack them. Until then, maintain defensive positions. When jammers are at full capacity, no mercy! Blast those maggots to shit! The bulk of our fighters will warp in and join the slaughter.”
“Roger. Over.” I signed off with a grim sigh. Grim plans for grim times.
“T-7 minutes. Remember,” I told Wren and the others, “we warp in, make it look like a drop off of arms to the Melinar rebels. No land action. The risk is minimal. At the first sign of trouble, we zigzag then warp the fuck out of here. We hope their little jammers do the work. Then in comes their fleet to finish the job. We’re just extra change in the overall equation. Remember the payout—big payout.”
“Gift wrapped with pretty little red ribbons,” quipped Blest. “Wonder what can go wrong?”
“Nothing’ll go wrong,” I said to him. “Do your job, have your gun on the ready in case we need backup.”
“No one can pay me enough for this shit, Rusco.”
I ignored him, spoke quiet words into the com then to Wren, briefing her and the others on procedure. It seemed as if this op was all sewn up, almost too clear and clean. That queasy feeling in my gut sensed something havey-cavey and that things would not be so easy.
My hoarse whisper echoed into the com. “Now.”
In a blast of brilliant light, Starrunner arched through the Varwol tunnel into Melinarian space. We materialized outside the grav danger zone. Melinar hung below us, a distant turquoise disc, its twin moons bright on the far side of their orbits. The five other convoys materialized beside us, dim grey craft, looking very ragged and wary. I loosed a breath of pent up exhaustion. Word had been dropped to Mong’s spies that Vendecki sympathizers were planning a run to grant aid to the demoralized rebels in the Jezuan hills. I didn’t doubt Mong’s watchdogs would be arriving soon. Very soon. Noss readied Starrunner and we set a course for Targan, the square continent in the middle of the vast ocean Praxeus on Melinar’s far side where the conquered city Jezuan lay on a jagged coastline.
Hulking shapes were suddenly all around us. Fifty Warhawks—dark gunmetal grey predators, cannons locked on us.
Black-hearted Mong had fallen for the bait, faster than I thought, incensed at the piercing thorn in his side at another Melinarian uprising.
The Star Lord himself was there. His ginormous flagship Vulpin loomed into view. I’d recognize that bloated hunk of scrap metal anywhere. Its twisted control towers and bullfrog midsection, rear radial boosters and energy thrusters gave me the shakes. Some hundred or more cannons sprawled fore and aft from every angle of its prickly hide. Didn’t surprise me. The bigger they are the harder they fall…Well, wonder if they leaked the news that
