Aubrey grabbed for the hand at his collar. “No, I don’t.” He was propelled forward.
The captain chuckled. “It’s an old Terran term for a dead or abandoned house.”
18
Morgan Hawke
Aubrey banged his shin on what he suspected was a chair. He hissed.
“Appropriate since that’s what you guys do, kill everybody on the ships to empty them.”
“Pretty much.” The captain shoved him into a chair. “Hold still.” His hands closed around Aubrey’s throat and squeezed.
Aubrey gasped and grabbed for his wrists.
The captain released him. “Relax, it’s just a collar.”
“What?” Aubrey grabbed for his throat and felt a metal ring around it. “What the fuck…?” The ring went all the way around. He couldn’t find a seam or an opening of any kind.
“Like I said, we can’t afford to lose you. You’ve tripled our take since we jacked you in.” The captain stepped away and a chair creaked to Aubrey’s left. “Buckle in. This is going to be a bumpy ride.”
Aubrey fastened the seat harness over him out of sheer reflex. “What the fuck did you put on me?”
“Oh, that’s an old-style penal collar. It has a homing beacon in it. This way if we crash and you slip out of my hands, the ground party can find you anywhere on the planet.”
“Wait a minute, we’re over a planet?”
“Yep, but not much of one. The air’s a little corrosive, and you have bad lungs, so I’d stay on the ship if I were you.”
The craft jerked hard under them.
“And we’re away.” The captain sighed. “Good-bye,
Interceptor
, hello, raise.”
Aubrey frowned. “Interceptor?”
“Oh, you didn’t know? That’s the ship’s name.”
“I thought it was
Niobe
?”
“That was its name when we got it. Sweet craft, but a little unstable in places.”
“Compared to what? Your nav-pilot is completely insane!”
“Yeah, well, for a twisted little fuck, she could pull off miracles, and that’s all that counted. We lost the occasional subpilot to her, but they were pretty easy to replace considering all the ships we took.”
Aubrey gripped the armrests. “Do you even hear what you’re saying? You are deliberately destroying people’s lives!”
“So? What do I care? It’s making me rich.” The captain shifted next to him, flipping switches. “It’s just the way the universe works, kid; either you’re predator or prey.”
Aubrey folded his arms. “That’s a total pile of shit.”
“Hey, I’m not the one going back into a liquid tank at the end of this trip to play subroutine to another ship.”
Interstellar Service & Discipline: Lost Star
19
Aubrey’s temper flared hot. He shook with anger. “No, you’re the one whose ship got blown all to hell because you wandered into the wrong territory.”
“That was not my idea. The reason our asses got blown all to hell is because that damned ship shut down all external sensors and decided to pick a fight with the pilot.
We didn’t even know we were in Skeldhi territory and under attack until damage reports started coming in.”
“Good for
Niobe
.” Aubrey blinked and realized that he was seeing shapes. He could almost make out the dashboard right in front of him. He looked to his left and could just make out the hulking shape of a man next to him.
“You know, if I thought I could beat you without killing you, I’d do it.”
“Like I’d care if you killed me. I’m going back into a liquid tank at the end of this trip, remember?”
“Keep it up with the mouth, kid.” The captain scowled, not a good look on his scarred and grizzled face. “I’m sure I can do something to make this trip really uncomfortable without breaking something.”
Aubrey almost smiled. The captain’s face might not be a pretty sight, but his ability to even see it meant that escape was actually possible.
If it weren’t for the fucking
beacon collar
. Even if he did escape, he wouldn’t get far. He licked his lips. But maybe he could get far enough to kill himself… “How long do we have until rescue?”
“What, change your mind about dying?”
Aubrey winced.
Shit
.
The captain grinned at him. “Ha, you did, didn’t you?” He turned back to his controls. “Don’t worry. It’ll only be a matter of hours.”
Hours? Aubrey sucked in a breath and choked. He only had
hours
to get far enough to die? The choke became a cough. The cough became a spot of blood on his palm. He stared at in shock.
The captain nodded at him. “Oh yeah, there’s a reason you were living in a tank kid. Without the nanites in the liquid to process oxygen for you, your lung problem is terminal.” His smile was full of blackened teeth. “You can’t breathe real air for more than a week or so. Your lungs were pretty much destroyed on your third trip to the airlock.”
Aubrey turned to him in shock. “You knew about my being in the airlock?”
The captain shrugged. “Who do you think put you in it?”
Ice water filled Aubrey’s veins; then his temper boiled white-hot. He fisted his cupped hand. For the first time in his life, he really wanted to kill someone, and he wanted to do it with his bare hands.
Unfortunately, it was pretty damned obvious that the captain had marine-class robotic augmentation in his limbs. There was no way in hell that he could outfight or even outrun the bastard. He would have to find another way to kill him.
20
Morgan Hawke
The captain leaned back in the pilot’s chair. “Moribund Company ships travel in threes; two next to each other, and the third, one jump behind, to pick up the pieces, if necessary. We had a terminal hit, and the
Ravenous
was already dead by the time we regained outside sensors. The homing beacon on this baby will send the third ship, the
Ferocious
, straight for us.” The captain grinned. “You should be back in your tank by this time tomorrow.”
“Great.” Aubrey narrowed his eyes at the captain and then examined the blinking piloting controls. This craft was simplistic compared to the yachts he’d joyridden in.
Maybe he didn’t have to escape. Maybe he could kill the bastard in a crash.
And take himself out with him.
All he needed was some way into the ship’s controls. Aubrey turned to look behind him. The craft was very small. The exit was directly behind them. The sleeping bays took up either wall with food service beyond the right bed and the facility beyond the left. He raised a brow. If this craft was like a few of the other small-hoppers he’d borrowed, there was an engineering access panel in the floor of the facility. But how the fuck was he going to access it without a data-cable?
“Hey, kid?”
Aubrey turned to look at the captain. “What?”
The captain raised a brow at him. “You know how to fly one of these things?”
Aubrey blinked. It
couldn’t
be that easy. “Well, yeah. I have limited piloting capability. Why do you think I was in that tank?”
The captain sneered. “Because you know how to break into them. The real question is, can you fly this one?”
Aubrey rolled his eyes. “Yes, I can fly this one. Why?”
Interstellar Service & Discipline: Lost Star
21
The captain unbuckled his harness. “I have got to take a piss, and if you don’t mind, I could use some sleep.” He rose from the pilot’s couch. “Once we get on the surface, we may have to deal with a Skeldhi hunting party or two. Not to put too fine a point on it, if you want to keep breathing, you’re going to need me awake and aware to fight them off long enough for rescue to get to us.”
Aubrey blinked. Fuck… It
was
going to be that easy. He smiled. “Sure, no problem.”
The captain hesitated. His eyes narrowed. “Don’t try anything funny, kid.”
Aubrey set his chin on his hand and raised one brow. “What could I possibly do that you can’t stop me from doing?”
The captain frowned.
Aubrey almost laughed.
Don’t strain your brain, Captain
. “I’m not augmented, remember?” His smile soured. “And I can’t live outside a tank. If I don’t go back in, I die in a week.”
The captain smiled. “Actually, if you leave the ship, you’ll be dead in a day or so.
The atmosphere is slightly corrosive. No big deal for me, very big deal for you.”
“Fine, you made your point.” Aubrey unbuckled his harness. “Go take your piss and your nap.” He climbed out of his chair.
The captain stood there, frowning.
Aubrey set his hands on his hips. “I only get to be outside a tank for a small amount of time. You have a problem with me enjoying what little time I get?”
The captain’s expression eased into something almost like regret. “Look, I’m sorry, kid, but it’s your own fault you have to breathe water. If you’d agreed to the boss’s deal when we pulled you out of the airlock the first time, you’d be sleeping in a captain’s suite, not a tank. You’re that valuable. Seriously, if I survive this without you, I’m a dead man.”
Aubrey looked away and crossed his arms.
You just don’t get it, asshole
.
“Tell you what, I’ll see that you get out of the tank every once in a while so you can at least get laid.”
Aubrey tilted his head and faced the planetary horizon line visible on the forward view-screen, turning his back on the hulking captain. “Sure, fine, whatever.”
The captain sighed and turned away.
Aubrey dropped into the pilot’s chair and activated the nav-pilot access. The mechanical feed at the back of the chair interlinked with his data-jack. Raw information poured into his skull. His imagination translated the data into stars and a slowly turning planet. It wasn’t nearly as extensive as what a nav-pilot would see, but it was more control than the captain had driving cold mechanics with his hands.
He crossed his arms and proceeded to plot his demise. He didn’t bother to buckle in. The point was to ensure that he
didn’t
survive the crash.
22
Morgan Hawke
* * * * *
Aubrey tapped his finger on the armrest while piloting the ship closer to the surface. Death had to be really fast, or the captain would awaken and possibly stop the crash. He needed something to crash into, like…a mountain, if he could find one.
His sensors picked up a small craft unfamiliar in conformation following his trail.
It was not a Moribund ship or an Imperium craft. It had to be Skeldhi.
Aubrey’s brows rose. Who needed a mountain when he could just get his ass blasted by an enemy ship? Oddly, something his father said a very long time ago came to mind. “
The enemy of my enemy is my friend
.”
He smiled and shifted the trajectory to make it easier for the other ship to catch him and shut down all the proximity alarms. The last thing he needed was the captain waking up and stopping him. He leaned back and set his hands behind his head, while listening to the captain’s loud snores. A smile played on his lips. Finally, all his misery was going to end, nice and fast.
The ship shuddered hard and whirled into a spinning curve that flung it from the other ship’s path.
Aubrey grabbed for control. He needed to get back into that ship’s path if he was going to make sure he didn’t survive.
The captain rolled—or rather fell—from the bed. “What the fuck is going on?”
Aubrey rolled his eyes. “We have been hit by enemy fire, and we are currently spinning out of control.”
“Give me that!”
Aubrey was hauled from the pilot’s chair and practically thrown onto the other chair.
“Go!” The captain dropped into the pilot seat. “Strap yourself in! I’ll get us down in one piece.”
Aubrey rose from the chair.
No, damn it!
He was going to crash this damned ship if he had to pry the engineering panel up from the floorboards with his bare hands.
The ship bucked hard.
Aubrey fell to the deck.
The captain choked. “Bloody fucking Fate! Where the hell did that come from?”
Aubrey grinned. Hot damn! They were under fire again. The other ship had found them. Fate was finally smiling!
“What the fuck? The proximities are off! Kid, what did you do?”
Interstellar Service & Discipline: Lost Star
23
“Who, me?” Aubrey rolled onto his back, tucked his hands behind his head, and folded one knee over the other, kicking his foot absently. “Not a damned thing.”
“Get your ass back in the chair! We’re about to crash and crash hard!”
Aubrey smiled. “No, thanks, I’m good.”
“Are you trying to die?”
Aubrey rolled over onto his stomach and smiled at the captain. “Why, yes I am, you fucking moron.”
The captain howled and climbed out of his chair. “Get in this chair, you stubborn little shit!”
Aubrey rolled up onto his feet and set his back against the door. He bared his teeth. “Fuck you!”
The captain grabbed the front of his ship-suit. “You will get in the fucking chair and strap in!”
In the forward view-screen, the mountain came out of nowhere.
Aubrey could not believe his good luck. “Um, Captain, shouldn’t you be paying attention to that?”
“To what?”
Aubrey grinned. “The mountain dead ahead?”
The captain looked over his shoulder. His mouth fell open, and his eyes bulged.
Aubrey laughed. It was so perfect. Better than any comedy vid he’d ever seen.
The crash came blindingly fast. One second Aubrey was laughing in the captain’s face, and the next, he was being tossed around like a marble in a cup. The sound of ripping metal was horrendously loud.
* * * * *
The air smelled bitter.
He looked up. A dark, cloudy night sky was clearly visible over his head. The ship was a shredded mess all around them. He couldn’t even tell what was supposed to be the deck and what was supposed to be the ceiling, especially the front. In fact, the entire nose, along with both chairs, was missing.