Wings of the Seraph Ch. 01

By "we" I really meant "him," of course. I could pilot any ship in the galaxy, but maintenance and repairs were more Raxyl's specialty. He had basically rebuilt this thing from scratch, and the only reason I was alive to fly it was because had taken pity on me. I had stowed away in the cargo hold a few years back when he had finally made his escape from the Red Ring, and he had allowed me to tag along and prove myself. I owed him everything, as uncomfortable as it was to admit. Without his charity, I probably wouldn't even be alive...

You spent half your life as a pirate-lord's slave, and now you're about to deliver this girl right to another pirate's doorstep. How fitting.

Maarka and his cronies arrived a few minutes later, saving me from my self-disgust. They loaded the stasis chamber into the cargo hold, and I checked to confirm that he had already transferred the advance to my account. It didn't make any logical sense, but the fact that everyone was proceeding so smoothly actually made me more nervous than if the idiot had tried to fleece us. This was Briton Chalo, after all—anyone who wasn't openly trying to grift you was probably about to shoot you in the back.

"Big boss demands you not open chamber under any circumstances," Maarka said as the cargo hatch slowly closed. "Girl must remain unspoiled."

"I'm not going to spoil her, trust me," I muttered. I was telling him the truth, though every time I closed my eyes I could see her gorgeous face and shapely blue body. This was going to be a much more difficult trip than I'd envisioned...

We were blasting out of the docking bay a few minutes later, and I tried to focus all my attention on flying the ship. As always, holding the flight stick and sitting in the pilot's chair did more to calm my nerves than a dozen shots of Krosian ale.

"The hyperdrive will be ready in seventy-five seconds," Raxyl reported. "We should reach Vrassk-Ka in just over thirteen hours."

"Before we jump, you should access the Holosphere relay and check for any reports of Convectorate patrols along the way."

"I am already doing so."

I nodded idly. "You know, you could have told me that Maarka wanted us to transport a woman."

"I did not know the nature of the cargo until you did, Cole. I thought I made that much clear."

I pursed my lips. "You're okay with it?"

An anxious orange shimmer rippled across his arm. "It is a difficult offer to pass up."

"That's not what I asked."

His color didn't change, but the ripples became more frequent. "We have transported munitions that will surely cause far more harm to far more people than one Velothi slave," he said. "Logically, there is no comparison."

"That's still not what I asked."

"No, it is not."

I grunted and smiled tightly as a long silence settled between us. Something about this whole arrangement still felt off. We had worked for Gol Zabras enough to know that his little criminal empire hadn't even existed ten years ago, let alone twenty. How had he possibly been wealthy enough to purchase a Velothi Succubus for himself all the way back then? She had to be at least eighteen years-old.

He could have stolen her—maybe that was why Maarka had seemed even more jittery than usual. It would also explain his rush to get the girl loaded onto our ship as quickly as possible. The original owner might already be looking for her. It wouldn't be the first time Zabras had offered us a job to smuggle something he had filched from a rival.

I leaned back in my chair and resisted the urge to flip on the autopilot for as long as possible. I needed to keep focusing on something, otherwise I was going to start imaging all the scandalous things I would do to my own Succubus if I could afford one. I suddenly wished I'd spent half my advance payment tracking down that Kreen whore and begging her to come with us on the ship for a few weeks...

I was just about ready to jump us into hyperspace and excuse myself for some "private time" in my quarters when I caught a strange flicker of movement from the tactical holographic display in between our seats.

"Do you see what I'm seeing?" I asked.

"Given that our species possess fundamentally distinct ocular capabilities, I find that proposition highly unlikely," Raxyl replied mildly.

"Just look at the fucking tac-holo," I growled. "You see those sensor echoes in the shadow of that Rakashi freighter?"

The Kali's yellow eyes blinked sideways several times in rapid succession. "Yes."

"Good. You want to tell me what those are?"

"Without additional data, an accurate determination is impossible."

I sighed and resisted the urge to slam my fist through the console. "You're the one who built the damn sensors on this thing, right?"

"Yes."

"So give me your best guess."

Raxyl blinked again, and a thoughtful black ripple shimmered across his scales. "The most likely explanation is that the echoes are small, anomalous distortions caused by the freighter's shield grid. As you know, most Rakashi technology deviates from established Convectorate specifications."

"Uh huh," I said. "And what's the second most likely explanation?"

A sudden splotch of orange rippled across his neck. "Several small ships—almost certainly starfighters—are using the freighter's bulk to conceal their energy signatures."

"That's what I thought," I said, sighing and glancing out the viewport. Briton Chalo was a shrinking speck in the starscape at this point, and Chalo II, the closest planet in the system, was still an indistinct brown blur on the port corner of the canopy. Other than the Rakashi freighter, there also wasn't another ship with a million kilometers. In theory, we were already in the clear and could jump into hyperspace at a moment's notice.

And yet...

"Fuck it," I said, my fingers flicking across the console. "I'm taking us through the Scalavian Run just in case."

Raxyl turned to face me, his neck scales shifting from orange to yellow. "Are you certain that is wise?"

"No, but I'm suddenly feeling pretty exposed. If we jump to hyperspace, we won't have any cover if anyone decides to chase us. Fighting in deep space significantly limits our options."

"We don't even know if we are being pursued," Raxyl said.

"If I'm wrong, I'll owe you a box of those disgusting worm things you eat," I said. "Hold on."

I rolled the Gazack hard to port, and I kicked the sub-light throttle up to maximum just in case. The Scalavian Run—a billion kilometer stretch of asteroids and detritus extending across a quarter of the Chalo system—was probably the most dangerous region of space in the whole damn sector. Even most of the unofficial racing circuits had abandoned the Run at this point, and for very good reason. The clustered chunks of metal, ice, and rock were bad enough, but the real problem was the intermittent radiation pockets that wreaked havoc on proximity sensors. The wrecked ships that had created the debris field in the first place had been here for many centuries, but unfortunately the pulothium in their reactor cores wouldn't hit its half-life for another fifty million years or so.

"The danger posed by the field greatly exceeds the probability that we are otherwise in danger," Raxyl said. "This is a foolhardy course of action."

"Again, you're the one who programmed the computer on this ship, right?" I asked. "Are you saying your piloting AI isn't up to the challenge?"

"The intelligence matrix far exceeds the capabilities of any sentient pilot."

"Except for me, you mean."

The faintest ripple of indignant green flashed across his scales. "With a few more adjustments, the AI will eventually make you obsolete as well."

"Maybe," I said, grinning. "But not today. Also, I'm pretty sure we just tossed your probability theory in the trash."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Those sensor echoes," I said, jabbing a thumb at the tac-holo. "They suddenly look a lot like ships to me."

The computer confirmed my analysis a moment later. The sensor echoes were Convectorate reclaimator drones—the kind with heavy, annoyingly accurate disruptor cannons capable of frying the internal systems on anything smaller than a frigate.

And they were headed straight for us.

"The drones are powering up their engines and plotting an intercept course," Raxyl reported. "I do not understand. We are over a hundred light-years from the closest Convectorate garrison."

"And we don't have any active bounties on our heads, either," I said, a nervous tingle prickling the back of my neck. The Gazack wasn't defenseless by any means, but the disruptors on the reclaimators would make short work of our shields. They were designed to capture, not destroy, which was more than a little unusual considering the Vecs' typical "shoot to kill" attitude with Far Rim fringers like ourselves.

The question was why they would bother. We weren't in Convectorate space, and even if we were Briton Chalo was harboring a thousand far more dangerous criminals than us right this instant. A couple of low-level, under-the-radar smugglers hardly seemed worth anyone's time. As far as I could tell, there was only one logical explanation.

"The girl," I whispered. "They're after the girl."

The orange streak rippling along Raxyl's neck became even more intense. "As unlikely as that seems, the timing is certainly suspicious. I do not have an alternative explanation."

I swallowed and watched nervously as the drones accelerated. The Gazack was quick for its size, but it couldn't possibly outrun a swarm of starfighters. According to the tac-holo, they would overtake us a few seconds after we reached the edge of the Run.

"That's why Maarka was so nervous—and why he offered to pay us so much. How much do you want to bet that she doesn't even belong to Gol Zabras?"

"Who else would she belong to?" Raxyl asked.

"I don't know, but Maarka must have had the Vecs on his heels. All he really wanted to do was get her off his hands." I swore under my breath. "I knew this was too good to be true. The next time I see that idiot, I'm going to put a flechette round through his stupid fishy head."

"I would not rely upon us living that long. The reclaimators are gaining."

"I know," I muttered. "We'll have to try and lose them in the Run."

The orange on the Kali's skin turned yellow. "I do not trust to intelligence matrix to navigate the field at this speed."

"Do you trust me?"

"No."

"Too bad," I said. "Because I'm all you've got."

I jerked the flight stick hard right and rolled us into a tight corkscrew just as we passed the first enormous chunk of debris. The reclaimators fired the instant they were in range, and I watched in silent horror as the greenish-blue blasts of energy streaked past our hull. Our shields weren't designed to absorb disruptor fire—almost no shields were—but we couldn't afford to shift any additional power to aft grid even if we wanted to. Not unless we wanted the radiation field to shave about fifty years off our collective lifespans.

"Prep a missile," I ordered, banking hard to port as another barrage burned the vacuum around us. "If we detonate it near that the gas pocket, we might be able to—"

My voice caught in my throat as the entire universe screeched to a halt around me. Seconds passed like minutes, and minutes didn't pass at all. It was as if I had been trapped in stasis between heartbeats.

Breathe. Just remember to breathe.

This had happened before, and I had never been able to explain it. At first I had assumed it was just a weird hallucination trigged by overdosing on stims, but it only seemed to happen when I was in trouble. And for some bizarre, inexplicable reason, a stream of images flashed before my eyes.

I saw myself pulling the trigger and firing a missile into the gas pocket, and I saw the explosion flare wildly out of control. It destroyed some of the reclaimators, but it quickly consumed the Gazack, too. Our shields buckled, our hull melted, and I actually felt the flesh burning off my skin a split second before I was sucked into the vacuum...

"Cole?"

I blinked, and time resumed as if I had touched the universe's pause button. Another volley of disruptor fire splattered across our aft shields, and I reflexively banked the ship hard to starboard before twisting it into another wild corkscrew.

"Forget the missile," I said. "The gas pocket is too unstable."

"You may be right, but our options are limited," Raxyl said. "Shield power is already draining rapidly."

I toggled on the HUD, and it projected a translucent, holographic map of the nearby area across the ship's canopy. "We'll have to try our luck with the wreckage of that old battleship," I said. "Do you still know that sensor masking trick for missiles that you used back on Picares last year?"

"Yes."

"Then do it again. But this time, set the warhead on a five second delay. I have an idea..."

I jammed the stick hard to the left, throwing us into yet another barrel-roll. The reclaimators were adapting quickly—their semi-sentient AIs were among the best in the Convectorate fleet—but I still trusted myself to outthink any machine, especially when it came to borderline suicidal maneuvers.

Biting down on my lip, I steered us into the sprawling wreckage of an ancient cruiser. The superstructure was riddled with obstacles, from enormous chunks of debris to intact support columns, but I kept the throttle as I high as I could while still leaving myself enough time to dodge. The drones followed hot on our heels, still spitting blue death. The debris gave us a bit of cover, but I knew it wouldn't last. In another ten seconds, we would be clear and in the open again. And then we would be dead.

"How's our missile?" I asked.

"The detonator is primed," Raxyl told me. "But I still don't understand—"

"You'll just have to trust me," I said, taking a deep breath. When I wasn't overwhelmed with another ominous, time-stopping premonition, I assumed this would work. Or at least, I assumed it probably wouldn't kill us.

I pulled the trigger. The missile shot out of the forward bay and streaked ahead of us towards what was left of the ruined cruiser's bridge. But rather than detonate on impact, the warhead stalled and essentially went dormant. We shot past it an instant later, and I clenched my teeth and braced myself, hoping that Raxyl's sensor trick would mask the signature from the drones...

The sudden flash of light was so bright the canopy dimmers kicked on automatically. I watched through the rear HUD display as the detonation set off a chain reaction that consumed the entire forward half of the wreckage in a matter of seconds. One of the reclaimators shot out of the explosion, its v-shaped wings already scorched to cinders, before it smashed into an icy meteorite. A second followed closely behind it, intact but effectively disabled. The other two never emerged at all.

"An interesting strategy," Raxyl said, the yellow in his scales slowly fading.

"I think I'll call it 'missile mining' from now on," I replied, smiling as I letting out a long, slow breath. "And yeah, I can't believe that worked, either."

The Kali watched the sensors, mesmerized by the continuing series of explosions behind us. It was like we had tossed a lit match over our shoulders into a vat of ammonium nitrate. All we had to do now was dodge the gas and radiation pockets until we were clear of the Run...and hope there wasn't a Convectorate battleship waiting for us on the other side.

"Why did you change your plan?" Raxyl asked after a moment.

My smile faded as my heartrate slowly returned to normal. "What do you mean?"

"You originally wanted to fire a missile into a gas pocket. What made you change your mind?"

"Just a hunch," I said, gently nudging the stick and plotting a course out of this maze.

"I see," Raxyl replied, a black shimmer rippling up his throat. "If I am not mistaken, you seem to be having this 'hunches' of yours more and more of late."

"I have good instincts, what can I say?"

Hopefully he wouldn't keep pressing the subject; it wasn't something I enjoyed talking about. They weren't literally premonitions, of course—I wasn't a psychic. We were half a galaxy away from the Dominion and its Seraphim priests; true psionic ability was virtually unheard of out here, and the Convectorate wanted to keep it that way for good reason. The Dominion had been the only true superpower in the galaxy for a very long time, and no one out here had fond memories of that era.

"Anyway, my latest 'hunch' is that we should speak with our passenger," I said. "Something tells me she's more than just a frozen slave girl."

"Perhaps," Raxyl replied. "Though taking her out of stasis may forfeit our payment."

"Assuming this deal is actually legit. At this point, I wouldn't count on anything." I pursed my lips and glanced back over my shoulder once we had cleared the fringes of the Run. "Like you said, we're a long way from Convectorate space. They wouldn't send out a pack of expensive reclaimator drones just to catch a couple of middling smugglers. They had to be after her."

"If that's true, then someone must have told them which ship she was in," Raxyl said. "Or they must possess some other means of tracking her."

"I'd run an intensive scan on that stasis chamber just to be sure there isn't a tracker. But in the meantime..." I activated the hyperdrive and watched as the stars melted into a flickering blur of pseudomotion before I unfastened my restraints. "I'm going to wake our sleeping beauty and see if I can get some answers."