“What about our two stooges?”
“Hid them in the forward bin. Before they stormed the ship.”
I nodded. Bad on me for losing faith in Gras. “It’s okay. You did okay, Gras. Everything’s changed. New plans. Keep your head down and we’ll head to Goliath—” I stared as shells rang out.
Gras’s body shuddered to the pump of rapid fire. His head bobbed like an apple as gunfire spat out from the side. His body arched, convulsing around like a dancing manikin.
I jerked back in horror. Gras slid out my grasp. I ducked, returning fire, spraying anything that moved.
Gras died, and died badly. We couldn’t do anything for him yet we pulled him to safety behind the curve of the cargo hauler’s rear vanes. He was gone, eyes staring in glassy death. Seconds were ticking.
Marty gave me that wooden, I-told-you-so, empty look. “Got any prayers, Rusco? Better say ’em now.”
The moment I realized we were done for, I leaped for Goliath’s cargo door, Marty hard on my heels.
Some dark shape draped in tight leathers came lurching out of the hold, rifle raised.
I surprised her and knocked the R3 out of her hands as she lifted it to my face. Holy fuck! But she did some cartwheel thing and landed next to me, smashing me a solid whack across the shoulders. The force knocked me off balance, sending me floating backward like a cloud on ice. In a split of a second I saw that angel-blond hair whip back, tied in a loose pony tail, the length of sleek thigh, hard muscle all round. This was no soft, languid female. Lucky for me I didn’t progress to phase 2—Jet Rusco lying in a slimy heap bleeding out on the hyper-tilized deck. I whipped up my gun and held it to her vitals. She settled down quick.
I kicked her rifle out of the way. “Don’t try anything stupid. Move!” I massaged my neck.
Marty crouched, tagging bodies, covering me from gunfire. Shells raked all around us as we hunched inside the cargo door.
The silver-garbed man came running our way, bellowing orders.
“Into the ship,” I rasped. “You too, you stupid creepo.” I elbowed her forward.
Silver-face roared, “WTF, Deidra, you traitor!” His gun came arching up.
The woman turned around, slack-jawed. “What do you mean, Sharki? I didn’t do any—”
“Liar, you’re running with scum thieves. You’re no different than your rat-bastard father!”
Shots from all angles rang around us, riddling the hull. We ducked, curses in our throats.
“Move, you bitch,” cried Marty, knocking her sprawling forward. “This ain’t social hour.”
The silver-garbed man cried out to his henchmen: “Kill that traitorous harlot and those good-for-nothing thieves.” Sharki’s fish cold eyes were black and bottomless like a shark’s, cold as ice. I could see where he got his name.
She gave a venomous hiss.
I looked her in the eye. She crouched dazed, fists bunched, trying to get air back in her lungs from Marty’s last love tap. She was no traitor. Just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Inside, if you want to live!” With a curse, I shuttled her ahead. “Close that bloody hatch.” Marty’s fingers fumbled for a close button. He pulled his fingers back, his left arm grazed by gunfire. Hydraulics whined overhead and metal sheets came sliding down.
Things were happening too fast. The mind compensates by blurring the edges and giving the brain less information, allowing intuition, intellect and reflexes time to catch up. There was a hollow ringing in my ears. The rat-a-tat of gunfire rained down on us like hail, a dull clown’s firecracker ricochet off walls at a kid’s birthday party. Everything felt in slow-mo from the get-go, some dream within a dream with death lurking around the edges.
The cargo doors slammed shut, sealing us off from Sharki’s men. Only the dull echo of gunfire against the armored hull as the blue light set to autolock. Precious moments of a reprieve.
Happy, Rusco? Fabulous handiwork.
We raced down the hall to the bridge, Marty herding Goldilocks and her cursing hide along. Nobody aboard. Marty’s door jam hadn’t worked back there—our pilot Gras, was lying in a pool of his own blood, so Marty and I’d have to blast our way out, manage the ship alone.
The bridge was a gloomy affair but roomy and designed for comfort. Stacks of tower components to the left. Sensors dead center with console grid and holo displays. To the right weaponry manifold and target equipment. Through the port glass I saw figures scrambling like ants below. I punched at the touch panel. System was locked.
“You captain of this ship?” I growled at her.
She kept a sullen silence, her lip curled and out flung in an insolent sneer.
“Answer him, you dumb bitch.” Marty came snarling forward, fist upraised, but I herded him off and shook her shoulders. “Unlock these damn controls, or we’re all dead.”
With a muttered curse she moved to the console like a dazed deer, ran grudging fingers over a touchtab. “All yours, fuckers.” The fleshy mouth was full of challenge, full cheeks rose-red, brazen tilt to the hips, pretty enough, but a handful for anyone.
“He’ll kill us all so why even try?”
“I don’t have a death wish. Out of the way.” I shoved her aside.
Marty got the ship moving while I shuttered the glass. Armored plates rolled down over the viewing port. I fiddled with the weapons grid. I could hear shells smacking against our hull. Hundreds of them. The V-Zons’d be on our tail. The things’d be getting ramped up and pretty nasty real soon.
Marty amped our shields up to max. Goliath surged along the landing pad toward the outer port, our electro-shields catching stray bullets. I trained the ship’s cannon at
