I’d take these victims to a far off world and let them start fresh, give them a second chance like Wren. They deserved it. The boy I had set right came hesitantly forward, touched my mechno hand. He smiled. I placed my good hand over his with a startled glance.
I felt a stir tingle in my breast. Seeing those grateful, teary-eyed faces affected me. A wave of something memorable and wholesome blossomed in the depraved chaos of this world for a change. It was a spark of some miniscule change. So much different from the killing and the violence, the cons and blowing everything to shit. It had been so long since I had experienced anything comparable.
Wren came beside me and curled an arm about my waist. She flashed me her lopsided grin.
I thought of that tech hid in the warehouse north of Hoath and a derisive rumble caught in my throat. Let Mong search the universe for it. The bastard’d never find it and I’d never go back to retrieve it.
The phaso I’d keep as a souvenir to remind me of what I had lost. But the other half of the amalgamator would sit there and rot in the darkness. No place for that evil caricature of bug-alien engineering in a human world. I thought of Billy’s demise and TK’s grief-stricken face before he died. It sent chills down my spine. No less that harrowing glimpse I’d caught out in nowhere land when I touched the phaso. All together, it had cost me my hand and taken a year off my life, or more. But it had given me something else—a sense of purpose. A spur that had driven me to liberate these downtrodden people, whom I never would have met or helped otherwise.
Somehow I knew there’d be more victims squirming like worms on the hooks of evil scumbags like Baer, Pazarol and the fanatic Mong.
I gave a gusty sigh and swung back to the bridge with Wren. “Going all maudlin on us, Rusco? Need to step up your game, I think.” I croaked out a laugh and drew nearer to my companion-in-arms, a crooked grin pasted on my haggard face and my eyes agleam. “Wren, you ever hear of Xerxes station out in Perseus?”
“No, should I?”
“Well, it’s remote, certainly off the radar of the big moguls. Far from Mong, far from terror. Easy pickings. We could work ourselves a master con. Dress you up real pretty. Minimum risk. That boy shows plenty of promise too.”
“Leave the boy out of it. But I’m game.”
STARVENGER
BOOK III
Chapter 1
I drove the loaded flatbed with an itchy foot on the accelerator. I cursed every pile of rubbly shit that made me deke around and waste more time. Bad enough to have to maneuver through a war zone than to drive this claptrap two-ton shipment in to the rebel dropoff point. Why hadn’t I allowed myself more time?
Hindsight, Rusco. Everything’s easy in hindsight.
Many times I’d have to tell myself the same thing. This road was blocked like the last, sprawled with some building that’d caved, spreading across the pavement like a broken tower of Babel. The city was a shambles. Courtesy of dear old Mong, our friendly neighborhood warlord, Star Lord, whatever the hell, who had torn through every nook and cranny of this metropolis. Made an example of this rebel city with his Warhawks. The insurgents would certainly like our precious cargo, that tickletrunk of fiery, feral goodies in the back, everything a diehard, red-eyed rebel could ever want to use against a hated enemy—RPGs, land mines, R4s, death-dealing fire flares. Only problem was, I wondered if they’d still be there. We were late to dropoff with all this backtracking and I’d already been running far behind on the long haul from Uziles in Veglos where we loaded the stuff. Not to mention nursing a very bad feeling about this gig in the first place.
Too late to back out now. Too much invested. You’re up to your neck, Rusco. You’ve a reputation to keep. Backing out has its price.
Wren was at my side in the truck’s cab, calm as the quiet before storm, her shiny dark hair grown back from its ugly baldness when I had met her. Could smell the faint odor of her sweat. Three blond youngbloods hunched in the back behind us, breathing down my neck. A trio of hothead punks I’d brought in on short notice. Breaking them in. Good training for their lot. Blest had potential, but Klane, well, dunno about Klane. Could go either way—something off with his logic. Tager, worth a chance, but I’d dump him if he messed up.
Sweat beaded under my brow, the grey showing to the discerning eye. I tossed back my faddish, purple-dyed pony tail kept tied as a nostalgic gimmick while I still had hair. I stretched my six foot frame in that cramped cabin, tired and yawning from the long space flight across the black gulfs, stewing over these zany last minute plans.
I looked around the terrain and shook my head. Too many worlds like this one, blown to shit. Wartorn prizes of space thugs and warlords, captains of disaster and ragged-eared dogs fighting over graveyard bones in a planet-wide slurry. The few pristine worlds left would be sodomized by warlords and gangsters before the decade was up. I knew it in my heart. The rest had fallen into corruption, decay, death. I’d grown up into it and it was no different now than it
