Zenith (3 page)

Gollanta.

A world of space rocks spiraling around them, death knocking at every porthole.

Andi stared out the viewport, her glowing eyes wide. Blackness surrounded them, with the exception of light that penetrated the belt from a neighboring star. And, of course, the telltale flashes of three ships, still trailing them.

She’d make them regret it. It was time to end this.

Andi turned on her com. “Breck. Gilly.” She clenched her teeth as an asteroid resembling a skull came hurtling towards them. “We’re low on fuel, low on ammo. Shoot the small stuff, and wait for my command. We’ll use the Big Bang and turn their bones to dust.”

Gilly answered with a giggle sharp as a knife. “Done.”

Tick, tick, tick.

Boom.

An old spacesuit floated past the window to her right, and Andi hoped a corpse wasn’t still inside. She couldn’t imagine the thoughts going through the unlucky victim’s head in those last moments before they died.

Death was Andi’s closest friend, a little demon that whispered in her ear on dark nights. And here in this wasteland, a graveyard where many had met their demise, death felt closer than ever.

“We need to single out the seekers,” Andi said.

“On it,” Lira said.

The tracker was slow, but it was a beast. The smaller asteroids bounced off its sides, barely scraping the reinforced material. The seeker ships followed behind, protected from the brunt of the asteroid attacks.

Andi knew they had to separate them, get the seekers alone in the sky.

A massive, hulking rock appeared ahead of them, easily the largest asteroid in the belt.

“Lira,” Andi said, a plan brewing in her mind as she pointed at the asteroid, “circle us around that thing.”

“Circling will slow us down.” Lira cocked her head, her blue skin stained with flashes of white as the single star in the distance came into view.

Andi gritted her teeth. “Do it, Lira.”

Lira nodded, clenched the wheel, and sent the
Marauder
careening around the massive asteroid.

The
Marauder
swung in a great arch, and in the rear-cam, the ships pursued, flashes of white and black, shadows that just wouldn’t quit. But as they angled further and further around the outer edge of the asteroid, the tracker ship slowed too much.

Now it was just the seekers and the
Marauder
, odds that Andi knew her ship and its crew could handle.

“Wait for it…” she whispered, her breath hitched in her throat. In the rear-cam, the seekers followed, streaks of light with their guns firing on auto while they tried in vain to catch up to the
Marauder
. What was the plan? Even if the two seekers caught them and tried to dock, with ships that small, they wouldn’t be able to haul the
Marauder
across the skies.

Another flash of white.

“They’re getting closer!” Breck shouted in the com. “Ready for the command!”

Andi bit her tongue, the metallic tang of blood strong enough to keep her fear at bay.

Another flash.

Prox alarms, blaring in Andi’s ear.

“Incoming!” Breck shouted. “They’re almost on us!”

“Any time now!” Gilly yelped.

Close.

Closer.

Andi could make out the outline of the pilot behind the wheel of the first ship.

“One more second,” she whispered.

“Andi, we should shoot.” Lira’s blue eyes looked black in the darkness.

Andi hissed in a breath.

“Now, Captain?” Gilly asked.

Andi could imagine her, tiny and fire-headed, seated in her gunner’s chair several decks below, an entire crew’s fate at her fingertips.

“Now,” Andi commanded.

A breath of a second. Andi stared at the back of the seeker ships, imagining the men inside. Knowing that here and now, they were facing their final moments.

Then came the hiss of Gilly’s Big Bang sliding loose from its chamber, a death rocket that Andi knew would fly true.

She saw it in slow motion as it struck the seeker on the left first, the blast taking out both ships. The explosion was a work of art. Two ships in one shot, bits of metal and blood and bodies. Carnage stained the skies.

The
Marauder
whined as the blast knocked it off course, as if the dying ships had lain bleeding hands on them and
shoved.

A strange, still silence.

“Seekers are down,” Breck said. “Nice one, Gil.”

Andi loosed a breath, her fingertips releasing their hold on the arm rests. But it wasn’t over yet. She glanced sideways at Lira. “Take us to the center of the Belt. Bigger asteroids.”

Lira caught on. “We can lose them there, and fly out the backside, hide somewhere on Solera.”

“Fuel?”

Lira spat a wad of Chew into her mug. “Low. But we can make it.”

Andi felt the swell of victory, like a star exploding in her chest. She loosened her harness, allowed herself to breathe a little deeper, and was just leaning her head back against the rest, when Lira cursed.

Breck and Gilly’s voices shouted into the com, and somewhere, down in the pit of Andi’s dark soul, she knew she’d missed something.

“There’s more,” Lira said. “Fike, Andi, they’re
everywhere.
It’s not possible.”

Andi’s heart rocketed into her throat as the bleating prox alarms went off again.

Seven ships waited for them, uncloaking themselves, materializing before her, like eyes in the darkness.

“Turn around, Lira! Get us the hell out of here!”

“I can’t!” Lira shouted. “The tracker is behind us.”

She slammed codes onto the dash, furiously typing, her fingers flying across the screen. She yelped as it sparked, and a strange hiss fizzled out of the dash. The ship itself seemed to release a deep, rumbling sigh.

And then...darkness.

Oh, Godstars.

Andi’s pale, glowing eyes were the only light inside the small space.

No.

Everything went still and silent, as if the
Marauder
itself lost all life beneath them.

“They shut us down,” Lira whispered, her features turning to stone. Her voice cracked as she tried to bring the dash back to life, tried to restart the emergency engines. “Oh, fike, Andi. They shut
everything
down.”

Andi shook her head. “It’s not possible. We have barriers against that, nothing could…no one knows how to get past them and stop this fiking ship!”

Lira’s blue eyes were haunted, as if she were staring at a fresh corpse. Her fingers sat deadly still on the wheel. “
He
could, Andi.”

Andi’s heart turned to ice.

It wasn’t possible.

He was
dead
, cast away into some deep, dark hell where he’d never be able to claw his way back out.

“Gilly?” Andi yelped into her com. “Breck?”

Silence. Not even the crackle of static.

This wasn’t happening. This
couldn’t
be happening. She ripped the com from her ear, leapt to her feet, and strapped her katanas around her back. “Escape pods. Now. Move.”

Lira sat frozen in her chair.

“Lira! I said
move!”

Lira’s voice was as dead as the
Marauder
. “We can’t, Andi. When the ship goes dark, the pods go dark, too.”

Footsteps rang out, boots clacking on metal. Breck and Gilly appeared in the doorway.

“What do we do?” Breck asked. “They’ll kill us all.”

“Not if we kill them first,” Andi hissed.

She felt torn in two. This was her
family,
broken and battered though it was, criminals from all sides of the galaxy waiting for her to save them. But with a dead ship, what could she do?

“I don’t want to be taken again,” Gilly whispered. Gone was the bloodthirsty little fairy. In its place was a frightened, tiny girl. She burst into tears, fat droplets splashing on the dead metal at their feet. Breck dropped to her knees, pulled Gilly forward into a crushing hug.

She whispered soothing words, but Andi didn’t hear them. She wasn’t listening.

She turned and looked out the viewport, at the waiting ships. So many of them. And then, all around her, a rumble. It seemed to shake the very bones of the ship, rattling the walls. A deep, dark sound that made Lira drop her hands from the wheel and rush to Andi’s side.

“They’re docking,” Lira whispered. “If you have a plan, Andi, you’d better tell us now.”

But there was no plan.

For the first time in her pirating life, someone had bested her.

It’s not him,
Andi’s mind whispered.
It can’t be him.

And yet, the
Marauder
was a corpse. It was already growing cold in the cabin, Andi’s breath appearing before her in white clouds.

Do something,
Andi’s mind screamed.
Get us out of this. You can’t go back, Andi, you can never go back.

Fear spiked through her, in and around, threatening to still her like the ship.

But she was the Bloody Baroness. She was the captain of the
Marauder
, the greatest starship in Mirabel, and she had a crew waiting on her word.

So Andi settled her nerves, shoved them down deep. She turned, unleashed her katanas, and held them at her sides.

“Stand up,” Andi said, to Breck and Gilly.

They stood, Gilly wiping tears from her small face, Breck keeping a hand on her second gunner’s shoulder.

“Weapons,” Andi said.

The girls lined up, side by side. Andi with her swords, Gilly with her revolver. Breck unveiled a nasty black short-whip that crackled with light. Lira simply stood with her fists, weaponless to the ones who did not know the ways in which her body could move, lithe as a predator on the hunt.

They waited, determination the only thing keeping them on their feet, as beyond, the main door of the
Marauder
opened.

Footsteps, moving through the narrow halls.

A man’s voice, whispering a command, growing closer…

Andi saw the first man’s head, as he came around the corner. Then others, close behind, soldiers filling the hallway that led to the pilot’s deck, all clad in dark purple bodysuits, the white triangular badge of Mirabel Patrolmen on their chests. They held light rifles against their stomachs, wore satisfied grins on their faces.

“Hello, boys,” Andi said.

She’d see the badges of those who wouldn’t back down stained red with blood.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” the soldier in front said, his voice calm and cool, as if he were talking to a frightened child.

“Ah.” Andi laughed. “But see, you just destroyed my ship. I don't take too kindly to that.”

Her attention was pulled away from the man in front of her as a new sound resonated through the room. Footsteps, the slight tap of boots against metal, and the Patrolmen turned sharply to attention as their commander approached.

This
was the man who’d bested her.

This was the man she’d have to kill today.

She didn’t see him right away, but as he approached, her chest seized at the outline of him, tall and muscular and perfectly proportioned to win a fight.

It’s him,
said a small, frightened voice in her mind.

As if confirming her suspicions,
he
stepped out of the darkness like a demon emerging from hell.

The purest shock spiked in Andi’s veins.

Then it melted into fury.

“
You
,” she hissed.

“Me,” Dex said with a shrug.

“You’re dead,” Andi whispered. “I left you…”

“Left me to die?” Dex lifted a brow.

She remembered every inch of the white angular markings twisting their way across his honeyed skin, the feel of his hands on her body. The memory of him, the
pain
of a shattered heart. It all twisted into boiling rage as she stared at him, alive and
free,
on
her
ship.

Andi’s katanas crackled, purple light arcing around the fierce blades. Beside her, the rest of the Marauders tensed and readied themselves for a fight.

“I’m going to kill you,” Andi whispered.

“You can try,” Dex said, and shrugged again, those demonic black eyes sparkling with laughter. “But we both know how that will turn out.”

She screamed and charged straight at him. Not giving a damn if there were twenty or even one hundred heavily-armed men blocking her path.

She was going to drown Dex Arez in his own blood.

It wasn’t exactly the reunion Dex had hoped for.

It’s not like he planned for Androma to run into his arms and kiss him with the passion of lovers parted for years. Their last meeting hadn’t exactly gone over well, what with the whole,
Andi soaring away with Dex’s ship, leaving him bleeding and dying on a fire moon
thing.

Then again, he
had
tried to sell her out to the Patrolmen for her crimes. Love was all good and well, but it was
money
that was the true key to Dex’s heart.

Still, for what Androma did to him, he should hate her, should want her dead.

But seeing her before him, melting into rage and riot, her glowing grey eyes reflecting the electricity that swam around her swords…

Godstars, she was magnificent, a creature that deserved to release her wrath on the world. It would be worth every drop of blood about to be shed to bring her to Cyprian’s feet.

“
You,
” Androma hissed again, her lips curling into a snarl.

“Yes,
me
, we already covered that,” Dex said, and shrugged in the muted light, because he knew how his cool demeanor made her blood boil.

He wondered, as her blades crackled in the too quiet room, and waves of electricity spiraled around them, if he’d made a mistake. He hadn’t seen her in years, but he’d heard the rumors. He hadn’t truly known if she could wield those weapons with the glory and grace that drew blood and split bones.

But now, as Androma hissed, “
I’m going to kill you
,” and her words sent a slice of fear charging through Dex’s heart, he
knew.

Gone was the girl he’d once known, that shivering thing he’d found bruised and broken in the wilderness of Adhira.

In her place stood the warrior he’d trained and hardened and turned into something devilishly delicious.

He reached for his gun as the Bloody Baroness attacked.

***

The world slowed, but Andi moved like a flash of light.

She hurtled her way through the first wave of Patrolmen before they could blink, lashing out her swords, removing smoking heads from cauterized necks as their dead bodies dropped in heaps onto the deck.

Her purple and white hair sprung loose from its braid as she whirled and leapt, knocked her elbows into faces, drawing bursts of blood, and kicked her legs out, toppling her opponents like stars falling from the sky.

Dex had taught her well, and now he would pay.

A Patrolman finally got his wits about him, and lifted his gun to shoot.

“Take out her crew!” Dex shouted. “I want
her
alive.”

His words sent a spike of rage straight to Andi’s heart. She rushed for the Patrolman who’d been first to lift his weapon, was ready to stab him through the throat...

A ball of white light shot past Andi’s shoulder. The man was blasted backwards, already a corpse as he slammed into the door frame.

“Oh, that was a good shot,” Gilly said, sporting her double-trigger gun. One trigger killed, one disabled. She flipped a switch and unloaded her gun on the man. White streaks turned to red before hitting his body, turning it to ashes in a pile at Andi’s feet.

“I want the floor stained with their blood!” Andi yelled to her crew above the chaos.

The rest of the Patrolmen sprung to action.

Andi plunged forward, her Marauders following suit.

Patrolmen dropped around them as Andi swung her swords, lashing out with a fury she’d locked inside for moments just like this.

Beside her, Lira was a flipping, twisting blur of blue skin and black bodysuit, fists digging into cracked jaws, legs locking around air-trapped throats. They moved forward, leaving moaning bodies in their wake, silenced soon after by Gilly’s and Breck’s guns as the fight carried into the hall and towards the ladder that lead to the second deck below.

Still, the remaining Patrolmen fought on.

“Take them all down,” Andi commanded her girls, as she sliced a Patrolman’s hand off at the wrist. Breck scooped up the gun still clutched in the hand before it could hit the floor, fired it, and crimson exploded against the metal wall beyond. “Dex is
mine.”

He was standing there, beyond the wave of his fighting men, staring at her.

Andi lashed out as a Patrolman shot at her, her sword barely cutting through the bullet before it could hammer itself into her throat.

“Take care of him,” she hissed, and Lira was suddenly beside her, twisting the man’s neck with a glorious
pop.
Music to Andi’s ears.

Then there were only three men between Andi and the enemy.

They stood at the ready, guns out, a solid line in front of Dex.

She could see his shadowed outline leaning up against the metal wall of the hallway beyond, a stance so cool and casual it made her want to tear his eyes out.

“What’s wrong, Dex? You don’t want to come out and play with me?” Andi said with a growl.

Dex chuckled, his midnight hair falling across one brown eye as he stepped forth to meet her eyes. “You were always one for theatrics, Androma.”

She looked over her shoulder, where the girls were busy taking out the remaining few Patrolmen.

Gilly and Breck were back to back, firing their smaller guns, little blasts of white light. Lira stood, eyes alight with the thrill of the fight, her blue fists dripping red blood.

She winked at Andi as she punched a guard in the temple and laughed as he crumbled at her feet.

Andi turned back to Dex.

“These three can live,” she said, nodding her head at the final Patrolmen. “It’s you I want a fight with, Dextro.”

She saw his brow furrow at the use of his full name. A pathetic one, and definitely not suited for the most notorious bounty hunter in Mirabel.

“Is that mercy I hear?” Dex smiled as he walked backwards, stopping at the silver ladder that led to the deck below. His fingers curled over the railing, his boots poised over the hole in the floor. “Surely not, from the Bloody Baroness.”

Andi shrugged. “I wanted to kill them anyways.”

With a crackle of her swords, she lunged forward and cut off three heads in one scissoring slice. The bodies sagged, then landed in a heap at Andi’s feet. The familiar scent of their singed flesh wafted up to her nose.

Dex blinked once, and Andi’s blood
raged
at his coolness. “They were a terrible crew, anyhow,” he said.

He slipped down the ladder, and Andi charged after him, not even bothering to use the footholds. She slid down, landing with a slight thud before turning toward the long corridor behind her.

“Andi, Andi,” Dex said. “So predictable.”

She froze.

In front of her was another cluster of guards, guns trained on her. At the head of them was Dex, a smug grin plastered on his face.

***

She’d walked right into his trap, for the second time today.

Dex would have patted himself on the back, if not for the tight quarters of the ship.

“Ready to talk, or do you want to kill a few more of my men?” he asked, knowing Andi had no choice but to obey. Not unless she wanted to be shot by hundreds of light bullets before she could take a single step.

The look she gave him would’ve made a lesser man cringe, but he stared straight into those light grey eyes, meeting her challenge head-on.

She said nothing. Instead, she holstered her twin blades and crossed her arms over her black suit. He had no doubt it was soaked in blood.

Dex turned to the purple-uniformed guard standing closest to her.

“Take her weapons.” The guy looked like he would rather jump out of an airlock. “
Now,
” Dex said, more sharply, and the guard rushed into action.

Andi spat in the man’s face as he pulled her swords out of their harness and the gun out of her thigh holster.

“You’re going to regret this,” Andi said, her voice low and menacing.

“I’m not so sure that I will,” Dex chided, with a smirk.

She looked up behind her, where the rest of the Marauders were piled at the top of the ladder.

“If they move, my guards will shoot.” Dex waved a hand, and half the men angled their light rifles upwards, where Andi’s crew stood motionless.

The blue-skinned pilot from Adhira, the giantess beside her. And that psychopathic child, glaring down at Dex with the cold calculation of a killer.

He wouldn’t show mercy towards them, and he knew Andi sensed that fact. She looked up at her crew and said, “Don’t shoot. Do what he says.”

“We can take them, Andi, they’re not一” Lira started.

“That’s enough, Lira,” Andi growled. “It’s over.”

Dex clapped his hands, the sound making her flinch.

“Now
that
is the drama I’ve been waiting for.” Satisfied, he turned and started down the hallway. “Half of you, guard the crew. The rest, bring the prisoner and follow me.”

Accompanied by six guards, they made their way down the long metal corridor, Dex’s guards holding glowing blue lanterns to light their path. They passed several doors before stopping at a glass door that led to the conference room. Dex placed his hand on the scanner next to the door, but it remained as dead as the rest of the ship.

He lifted his gun and shot the glass.

A growl rumbled up through Andi’s chest, but Dex simply shrugged, and said, “I can replace it. The
Marauder
is mine again.” Then he stepped over the shattered glass, into the room. “Set up the Box,” he directed his guards, and stepped aside as they brought in a thin silver box no longer than his forearm. The Arcardius logo was engraved on the side, like an exploding star. They set the Box on the table and lined up against the back wall of the room, hauling in Andi with them.

“Please, do take a seat,” Dex said to Andi, with a grand sweep of his arm. “I am nothing if not a good host.”

Cold calculation flashed in her eyes. She did not sit. Instead, she stood with her back up against the wall, those gray eyes roving left and right.

Dex
had
taught her well.

“Suit yourself,” he said, walking to the opposite side of the conference table and plopping into a chair.

The tension in the room was a living thing. Dex could practically feel it breathing down his neck. So he leaned back in his chair, slipped his boots onto the glass table, next to the Box, and focused all his attention on Andi.

“What the hell do you want?”

Oh, this was good. Better than good. It was the best damn thing Dex had experienced in
years.

“Just a moment now,” he said, relishing this time, the feel of Andi’s eyes boring into his. “We have another person joining in before we start.”

She didn’t ask any questions.

She simply stood there, hands balled into fists at her sides, that cold, unfeeling stare drilling into him.

“Relax, Andi,” Dex drawled. “You used to love spending time alone with me.”

“You don’t know anything about what I used to love,” Andi said.

She narrowed her eyes, and he felt the onslaught of her colorful words coming, ones that Dex had taught her himself. It was the chiming of the Box, and the funnel of light that shone out of its side onto the dark wall of the room, that stopped her.

This pulled their attention away from each other and towards the man whose face appeared, larger than life, on the image now flickering across from them.

Andi went rigid.

For the first time today, despite everything Dex had thrown at her, she actually looked stricken. Shocked.
Pained.

“Hello, Androma,” the man on the screen said. “I’ve been searching for you a very, very long time.”

Dex smiled.
This
was worth more than all the Krevs in the galaxy.