DARKSPACE RENEGADE

©2020 GJ OGDEN

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Contents

ALSO IN THE SERIES

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

FROM THE PUBLISHER

ALSO IN THE SERIES

Also by GJ Ogden

Readers' Favorite, 5-stars

About the Author

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ALSO IN THE SERIES

Darkspace Renegade

Wolf Squadron

Rogue World

Rikkard’s Revenge

Renegade Resurgence

Centrum Incursion

The interstellar bridges provide a lifeline for billions of people. To save humanity, Hallam Knight must tear them all down.

Prologue

2177 Chester Doyle, the world’s richest man, dies in unexplained circumstances. His son, Damien Doyle, inherits his father’s business empire – the Consortium – becoming the youngest multi- trillionaire in history.

2184 Damien Doyle launches the first private manned expedition to Mars. Consortium employee, Dr. Shelby Rand, becomes the youngest mission commander at age twenty.

2184 A tragic accident on the return journey kills the entire crew. Only Dr. Shelby Rand survives.

2186 Dr. Rand makes the breakthrough discovery of an exotic material, later named Randenite. A slew of rapid discoveries follows, advancing technology by a century in only a few years, all funded by Dr. Rand’s sponsor, the Consortium.

2188 A ship equipped with a prototype Shelby Drive successfully engineers the first interstellar bridge, allowing travel to distant stars in a matter of hours. The Consortium owns exclusive rights to Shelby Drive technology and its fuel source, Randenite.

2208 There are now twelve bridge worlds, all chosen for their Earth-like properties. Randenite depots are placed at every planet, all linked through an extensive network of interstellar bridges to the Centrum; the Consortium’s main Randenite refinery.

2210 Dr. Rand goes missing during a highly-secretive expedition to a suspected thirteenth bridge world. A month later, Dr. Rand and her crew are declared dead.

2211 Three months after Dr. Rand’s death, a massive, coordinated cyberattack wipes all Consortium databases of all information relating to Randenite and Shelby Drive technology. A virus renders all production plants and technology useless. Only the Centrum remains operational, but its encrypted archive cannot be mined for the secrets to Randenite.

2212 Interplanetary trade is restricted to essentials as Randenite becomes scarce, plunging the co-dependent bridge worlds into chaos.

2213 A radical group named the Darkspace Renegades are blamed for the cyberattack. These fanatics claim that expansion into the stars will lead to humanity’s end. Darkspace Renegades soon begin to target Randenite tankers, using Darkspace Interjectors to knock ships out of bridge space and into the interstellar void.

2215 Bridge Runners -– pilots willing to fly new armored tankers – run the bridges between the Centrum and the bridge worlds, under a constant threat of attack.

2220 Bridge Runners, Hallam Knight, and Dakota Wulfrun embark on a standard tanker run from the planet Liber to the Centrum…

1

Another dull thud reverberated through the deck of the armored tanker, forcing Hallam Knight to release his hold on the turret control system to steady himself.

“That’s the third damn mine in as many minutes!” Hallam yelled over to his partner and pilot Dakota Wulfrun. “These renegades have really got the bit between their teeth today!”

The exertion of maneuvering the cumbersome tanker had twisted Dakota’s face into a pained grimace, and it was several seconds before she had the breath to reply.

“At least I’m managing to avoid them,” Dakota eventually yelled back before a heavier thud pounded through the tanker's thick metal beams. Alarms sounded on her console and her face twisted into a grimace again, but this time, it was more out of awkwardness. “Apart from that one, sorry…” she added, more than a little sheepishly, before reaching across to one of her consoles to silence the squawk of the alarm.

“Don’t worry, Dak, it will take more than that to punch through this beast’s thick skin,” replied Hallam, spinning the virtualized gun turret around and blasting a barrage of flak at one of the two attacking Darkspace Renegade fighters. Their duo of combat escorts from the Consortium Security Force (CSF) were doing their best to keep the renegades away from them, but the tanker had still taken a succession of direct hits. “Speaking of which, I’m getting an armor depletion warning for the port-side aft quarter, section four through seven. Keep our starboard side facing their next attacks, if you can.”

Dakota nodded and cut power to the main engines before activating the thrusters to maneuver the less-damaged starboard side toward the direction of the renegades' next attack. “This tanker may be tough, but it’s about as maneuverable as an asteroid,” complained Dakota as the tanker slowly responded to her commands.

Hallam smiled and released another burst of flak toward the closest renegade ship, scoring a hit. Fragments of the heavily-armored fighter broke off and disappeared into space. Within seconds, the debris had vanished out of sight, lost in the void between bridge worlds. This was the empty expanse of nothing that had become known as Darkspace. Hallam had always found the term amusing, since all space appeared just as dark to him, but the lack of any nearby stars or planets did make the emptiness seem more acute. He hated the Darkspace, but the frequent interjections from the renegade ships meant he ended up stranded in the literal middle of nowhere on a weekly basis.

Hallam fired another burst, more to let the fighter know he was still watching than in a genuine effort to destroy it. He had no compunctions about taking down the renegades if necessary, but preferred to avoid a kill shot if he could. Hallam then watched as the smaller ship took another hit and quickly turned tail. A few moments later, the hypnotic crimson pulse of its Shelby Drive system throbbed into life, and the fighter vanished back into bridge space. The bright flash of blood-red light as the ship bridged imprinted the image of the fighter onto Hallam’s retina, like seeing the after-image of a camera flash that you accidentally looked directly at.

“I tagged one of them and it’s turned tail,” said Hallam, keeping his partner informed. Dakota whooped with appreciation, then Hallam watched as she kissed the tips of her fingers and patted the head of a red woolen teddy bear mounted on her center console. It was a silly tradition and superstition that Hallam couldn’t help but find charming and endearing in equal measure.

“Thanks, Bob!” Dakota called out, returning her hands to the controls.

Hallam smiled. “You know, I’m pretty sure it's my gunnery skills, rather than Bob’s mystical power of fortune, that you need to be thanking…”

“Go on, say it!” Dakota called back, grinning. “It’s bad luck if you don’t…”

Hallam rolled his eyes and relented, “Fine… thanks, Bob!” he called out, aiming the commendation at the slightly ragged-looking red bear. Dakota then patted the toy again before making further adjustments with the thrusters to keep their less-damaged side facing the remaining renegade.

A series a sharp metallic pings, like ball bearings being dropped on a steel plate, permeated the cockpit space, and Hallam saw the damage panel light up with a dozen spots of red. “That last renegade isn’t giving up easily,” said Hallam, noting that the damage was again contained by their thick armor. “It looks like it’s going for the main engines, though, so if you’re happy to coast for a while, I’d close them up.”

“Roger that,” replied Dakota cheerfully. “Engaging ‘turtle mode’ now…”

There was a powerful mechanical whirr as thick metal shielding wound out from the aft section of the ship before a hefty thump signified that their engines had been enclosed in heavy metal.

“I wish you wouldn’t call it ‘turtle mode.’ It sounds somehow a little disgusting,” said Hallam, releasing another barrage of flak toward the renegade ship, which was now heading away.

“That’s just your warped mind, Hal,” replied Dakota. The augmented view panel at the front of the cockpit then suddenly lit up, bathing Hallam in an intense orange light as one of the fighter craft exploded into a blazing inferno. A second later, the hull of the armored tanker was peppered with the fast-moving remains of the stricken ship.

“Who was that?” asked Dak breathlessly. “Was that the other renegade or one of ours?”

“It was one of ours,” answered Hallam darkly, spotting that the transponder ID of their second escort had vanished from his panel. Then he noticed that Dakota looked almost relieved at this news. “Are you happy about us losing an escort or something?” he added, wondering what had promoted her curious reaction.

“Of course not,” she retorted, looking and sounding affronted. Then she paused to collect her thoughts before adding, “But don’t forget that these renegades are fanatics. I just don’t want to be their target of choice for a revenge attack, is all.”

Hallam turned back to his augmented target view, but the remaining renegade and Consortium escort were still locked in battle, beyond his range. He released his grip on the turret controls, allowing the blood to flow back into his milk-white knuckles. “I hadn’t really thought about it like that,” he admitted, letting the chair take the weight of his body. “But I guess you’re right. The Consortium are sure going to be pissed at losing one of their fighters, though.”

Dakota huffed a derisory laugh. “They’re more likely to mourn the loss of a precious Shelby Drive,” she replied bitterly.

“Don’t speak ill of your employer…” teased Hallam, though in truth, he agreed with Dakota’s sentiment completely. The Consortium was the epitome of capitalist greed, rising to power through ruthless single-mindedness and total market dominance in more sectors than Hallam could remember.

Dakota shot Hallam a dirty look in response, but then the remaining renegade fighter broke off and accelerated back toward them. Hallam sat bolt upright, feeling his pulse race. “Damn it, this renegade just doesn’t know when to quit,” he said, turning the tanker’s flak turrets toward the approaching vessel. “I’ll create a perimeter; if this fanatic wants to fly through it and turn itself to confetti, then so be it,” he added, programming the weapon system for a wide burst, set to detonate after one hundred meters. He squeezed the trigger and the flak cannons fired, turning the serene darkness into a mosaic of flying metal fragments.

“That certainly changed their mind,” commented Dakota brightly as the renegade ship spun on its axis and lit up its main engine, burning hard away from the barrage of flak. Hallam then saw the tell-tale pulse of crimson lights racing up and down the fighter’s wings before the ship disappeared in a flash of red light. With it, the Darkspace interjector signal vanished, and the tanker’s Shelby Drive began to spool back online.

Dakota whooped again before flipping the bird at the augmented view screen. “Suck it, renegade!” she shouted with gusto.

Hallam smiled, but then an alarm shrieked and his panel lit up with a red border. “Torpedo!” he shouted, grasping the turret controls and scanning the area around where the fighter entered into bridge space. “It must have launched it just before jumping back onto the bridge!”

“I see it, bearing three, two, six, mark zero, two seven!” Dakota yelled. “Closing fast!”

Hallam spun the turret to match the bearing Dakota had called out; he hadn’t spotted the incoming torpedo yet but trusted Dakota implicitly. They’d only flown together for a few months, but in that time, they’d developed a quick rapport and trust.

“Firing!” shouted Hallam, unleashing the full force of the flak turrets toward where he hoped the torpedo was. The space ahead of them became clouded with fragments of metal, then Hallam saw it, arcing beneath the barrier. “Damn it, that fighter boomeranged us!” he shouted, turning the turret toward the torpedo and firing on gut instinct alone.

The dull, repetitive whomp of the turrets firing filled the cockpit, then the torpedo detonated amidst the hazy cloud of metal and smoke. More alarms wailed as the armored tanker was peppered with jagged chunks of metal from the torpedo’s fragmentation warhead. Hallam recognized the sound of an explosive decompression somewhere inside the ship and frantically scrolled through the damage readout.

“Hull breach, starboard fore-quarter,” Hallam called out before waiting with bated breath for the red indicator to turn green. Come on! he urged, willing the light to change color. At that moment, he would have kissed Bob the bear on the lips if it would have helped. Then the light suddenly blinked and turned green, and Hallam flung himself back, releasing the breath he realized he’d been holding for the last few seconds. “It’s okay, the safeties kicked in, breach sealed. We’re okay…”

“The armor soaked up the rest,” Hallam heard Dakota call back as he rested his head against the padded seat with his eyes closed. “We’ll look a damn mess, but it’s all easily replaced. We might need a night stopover at the Centrum while they sort that hull breach, though.”

Hallam sighed and opened his eyes again. “Great, a night cooped up on that fortress with the Consortium’s heavies breathing down our necks.” The Centrum was the largest space installation ever built by human hands, but eighty percent of it was off limits to the select few visitors that were allowed to board. Hallam couldn’t blame them for being careful; without the Centrum, there would be no Randenite, and all twelve bridge worlds would suddenly have to become entirely self-sufficient. Earth would suffer even more greatly, having grown reliant on the resources supplied by these other planets, through the network of bridges.

“It could be worse,” replied Dakota, shrugging, “It does have probably the best bar, outside of Feronia.”

Hallam made a noise that sounded like someone gagging on a piece of rotten fruit. “I can’t believe you like that awful leisure planet; I can barely take it for a couple of hours before I get a headache.”

Dakota laughed before retracting the shields around their main engines and setting them back on course to align with the bridge. “Your headaches are just because I land so many punches to your baby-soft cheeks,” she said, winking at Hallam.

Hallam snorted again. “You wish!” he replied, genuinely affronted. “But if you want to try, then the Centrum does have a pretty good gym, and it’s been a few days since I last beat your ass.”

“You’re on,” replied Dakota before the radio light flashed on. “Looks like our combat escort is getting impatient,” she added before answering the hail.

“Tanker Romeo Sierra One Three, this is escort Agile One. Are you able to continue to the Centrum?” came the no-nonsense voice of the anonymous Consortium combat escort pilot.

“Roger that, Agile One. We’re just getting into position, then we’ll be underway,” Dakota answered with her usual jaunty tone. “Synchronize with our bridge countdown, over.”

“Understood, Tanker One Three. Agile One over and out,” came the stiff reply before the radio clicked off.

“Chatty bunch, aren’t they?” said Hallam with a wry smirk.

Dakota aligned the huge armored tanker with the invisible bridge and set the countdown timer to three minutes. “I’m not complaining; most of them are just as dull in person,” she said, returning a wry smile of her own. “I can’t believe you signed up to be one of the Consortium’s crack escort pilots. You have at least some semblance of a personality…”

“Nice…” replied Hallam, scowling at her. Dakota knew that Hallam’s dishonorable discharge from the CSF was a sore subject, but she frequently brought it up to irk him. This was mainly because Hallam had refused to tell her the story of how he had ended up being kicked out, three months after graduating as a pilot officer. “Just for that, I’m not going to pull my punches when we spar this time.”

Dakota laughed and threw her head back, suddenly snapping it forward again and clicking her fingers excitedly. “Damn it, I’ve just figured out how that renegade managed to get a torpedo off without us noticing.”

Hallam sat upright and shifted his body toward her. “How? Is it some kind of new weapon?”

Dakota shook her head. “No, I forgot to kiss Bob after the second renegade bugged out. If I had done so, that torp would have flown well wide.”

Hallam smiled and shook his head. “I honestly can’t tell if you’re joking or being serious,” he said truthfully.

The pulse of the tanker’s Shelby Drive started to climb and Hallam saw the countdown reach sixty seconds.

“We’re about to bridge after taking some pretty heavy damage,” Dakota went on, looking at Hallam with wide, playful eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want to kiss Bob for good luck?”

“No,” snorted Hallam, shooting her a disgusted look. “It’s just superstitious nonsense.” Then he realized that Dakota hadn’t done it either, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Aren’t you going to do it, though?”

Dakota waved a hand at him dismissively. “Nah, you’re probably right,” she said breezily. “Superstitious nonsense…”

Hallam glanced at the timer and saw it had reached thirty seconds, then glanced back at Dakota, who still hadn’t moved. He cursed under his breath and bolted out of his seat toward her console before hurriedly kissing his fingers and slapping them on top of Bob the bear’s woolen head.

Dakota burst out laughing and clapped. “I knew it!” she said as Hallam skulked back to his seat.

“Not a damn word!” Hallam shot back, although he couldn’t help but allow a smile to curl his lips too.

Then the pulse of the Shelby Drive reached its crescendo, and the blackness outside was replaced by the swirling red borders of bridge space.

2

Hallam ducked under another cross from Dakota and landed a quick rip to her body with his right hand, sending her staggering backwards. He smiled from behind his raised guard as Dakota pressed her glove to her side.

“Are you okay?” Hallam asked impishly. “Because we can stop now, if you’d like?”

Dakota smiled back and raised her guard. “I was just scratching an itch, that’s all,” she replied, playing along with Hallam. “It felt like someone just tickled me.”

Dakota always gave as good as she got; it was one of the reasons Hallam loved sparring with her, both in the ring and in general. She indulged his competitive streak and was a tough opponent to boot.

“Well, if you fancy a bit more tickling, step this way,” Hallam answered, beckoning Dakota on with his glove.

Dakota danced around the ring, circling Hallam and inviting him to come after her. Hallam moved in, but then his head snapped back as Dakota landed a sharp jab. It hurt his pride more than his nose; Dakota had suckered him into clumsily tracking her around the ring many times before, and he was annoyed he still kept falling for it.

“You okay?” asked Dakota, grinning.

Hallam didn’t answer, and instead took advantage of her moment of gloating to step in and land a jab of his own. He then threw a couple more shots, but Dakota had already resumed her sprightly defense and the punches flew wide. He then tasted the sweat-coated, well-worn leather of Dakota’s left glove as it connected with his face, and felt the breath pressed from his lungs as another shot pummeled his gut. Blinking the sweat out of his eyes, Hallam closed up his guard and backpedaled before swinging out a wild right hook in an attempt to ward off any further advance from his opponent. He felt his hand connect and saw Dakota’s gum shield fly out of her mouth and land in a spittle-covered splat on the mat. Dakota dropped to one knee, and instinctively, Hallam rushed over to her.

“Hey, I’m sorry, Dak, that was a wild one,” he said, dropping down beside her. She was flexing her jaw with one eye shut, but otherwise, Hallam was relieved to see she looked okay.

“No kidding,” Dakota replied, using Hallam’s bent knee to push herself upright. Then she smiled again and tapped her glove into his chest. “But if it wasn’t for that lucky shot, I’d have had you on your ass.”

Hallam half-shrugged, half-nodded. “Maybe, maybe not,” he replied. “We’ll never know.”

“Are you bailing on me? We’ve only been at it for an hour,” said Dakota, looking disappointed.

Hallam tapped his wrist where his watch would normally have been. “It must already be eight o’clock, and we haven’t even eaten yet. I’m starved.”

“Okay, but I want a rematch in the morning before we head back out again,” said Dakota before tearing open the Velcro strap of her right glove with her teeth.

“That does depend on how much you make me drink tonight,” replied Hallam as Dakota threw off her gloves and helped Hallam with his.

They both climbed out of the ring and headed into the locker room area. Hallam stashed his gloves and hand wraps into his holdall, grabbed his towel, and pulled off his shirt. Dakota had already gone around to the set of lockers on the opposite side of the room, but he still felt the need to warn her before slipping off his shorts.

“I’m just going to grab a quick shower, so don’t come around here, unless you want a shock,” Hallam called over the top of the lockers before tip-toeing toward the shower block. The pale ceramic tiles were surprisingly cold, considering the room itself felt like a sauna.

“Will the shock be how small it is?” he heard Dakota shout back. Hallam shook his head, smiling; even when they weren’t boxing, they were still sparring. He turned on the faucet and waited for the water to run hot, then stepped beneath the stream of steaming water. The sensation was blissful, as if he’d just been treated to a Shiatsu massage. Water was sometimes hard to come by on the Consortium stations in the more distant bridge worlds, which meant the showers were either nonexistent or strictly time-limited, and usually lukewarm. The Centrum, however, had been specifically positioned close to an abundant supply of water and other resources in a vast asteroid field. Combined with the near one-hundred-percent efficient water-recycling system, this meant that long, hot showers on-board the Centrum were a welcome perk.

Suddenly, Hallam felt a stinging sensation on his left buttock, and he yelped, leaping out from under the stream of water. At first, he looked down at his cheek, which was red where the pain had occurred, and thought he’d been stung by a wasp. Then he felt stupid, realizing that there were no insects on the station, and looked up, trying to figure out another reason. It was then that he saw Dakota through the mist of steam, towel held taut between her hands, twisted into a whip. However, this wasn’t the most surprising part of her appearance; she was also completely naked.

“Jeez, Dak, what the hell!” shouted Hallam, turning around to hide his modesty, or what little of it he was able to salvage. “The women’s showers are over on the other side.”

“I know,” said Dakota, hanging up the towel and strolling up to the shower head next to Hallam’s, as if she were taking a casual walk in a park. She then turned on the water without any further explanation.

Hallam rubbed his stinging cheek with a soapy hand and shook his head. “That really hurt, you know?” he added, stepping back under his own stream of water.

“Just a little payback for that loose haymaker earlier on,” said Dakota, flashing her eyes at him before pushing her head under the water. Then she turned toward Hallam, covering her breasts with her hands. “Do you mind passing over the soap? I’ve got my hands full over here…”

Hallam laughed and jutted his backside out of the stream. “Kiss my stinging red ass, Dak,” he replied before getting back under the water.

This hadn’t been the first time Dakota had pulled a stunt like this, and Hallam knew it was just her way of coping with the stresses of bridge running. The jokes and pranks were a welcome distraction from the distressing reality that renegades tried to blow them up on a weekly basis.

“I’m done, so I’ll see you in the bar in ten?” said Hallam, turning off the faucet and strolling over to the towels, trying to match Dakota’s earlier swagger.

“Give me an hour, will ya?” replied Dakota from inside the steaming flow of water. “I have a few things to wrap up first.”

“An hour?” said Hallam, feeling his stomach gurgle from a lack of food as he rubbed himself dry. “If I have to wait another hour, I’ll probably eat this towel.”

“I’ll most likely be sooner,” replied Dakota. “Wait for me in there, and I’ll be as quick as I can. Just admin stuff, you know?”

“Fine, I’ll stuff myself with bar snacks while I’m waiting,” said Hallam, wrapping the towel around his waist. Then he spotted Dakota’s towel hanging on the rack, still twisted up into a whip-like sausage. He grinned and plucked it off the hook before hanging it over his neck. “I’ll catch you later, then?” he added, strolling off out of the shower block.

Dakota was another ten minutes in the shower before Hallam heard the water shut off, by which point he’d already hurriedly dressed himself. He waited, still grinning, for the inevitable cry, and it came, right on cue.

“Hal, where’s my damn towel?”

Hallam scurried over to the door, Dakota’s towel still draped over his neck, as his partner appeared at the far end of the locker room. Her right arm was pressed across her chest, while her left hand covered her other unmentionables.

“What towel?” asked Hallam, snickering like a schoolboy.

“Don’t you dare!” Dakota cried back. “Hal? Hal!” But Hallam had already pushed through the door and left.

3

Hallam was just exiting the restrooms by the door of the visitor’s bar, when he heard a commotion going on outside. Buoyed by a couple of beers and always eager to get the scoop on a bit of salacious gossip, he stepped through the door and into the wide hallway. It was then that he saw Dakota Wulfrun, jostling with two Consortium Enforcers, which were more commonly known as “heavies” because they were heavy in stature as well as in name.

At first, his mildly intoxicated state made this seem amusing – it was classic Dakota to find a way to wind up the CSF heavies. Despite being employed by the mega-corporation that had stakes in everything from toilet paper to space station construction, she hated the Consortium with a passion. He then saw one of the heavies reaching for his hip, and he quickly sobered up and stepped hastily toward the affray. The enforcer could have simply been reaching for a pepper spray or stun weapon, and on any other station, he wouldn’t have worried, but the Centrum was not any other station. As the most valuable piece of interstellar real estate in the galaxy, the Consortium didn’t play games when it came to protecting their unique and irreplaceable facility. At worst, Dakota would get herself killed, and at best, she’d get herself banned.

“Back off, you fascist thug,” snarled Dakota, shoving one of the enforcers in the chest. Thanks to her regular training and five-foot-ten-inch frame, Dakota was no featherweight, but her push barely rocked the Consortium heavy.

“There you are!” said Hallam, quickly inserting himself between Dakota and the enforcer. “I told you that you’d get lost without me,” he added, gently ushering her away.

“We find you snooping around the restricted sections again, and we’ll put a block on your transit ID,” the enforcer growled back, jabbing a finger at Dakota. “Now get lost.”

Dakota flipped the bird to the heavy as Hallam continued to gently guide her down the hall toward the bar.

“What the hell, Dak?” said Hallam, not for the first time that night. “You could get us barred from the Centrum. What were you doing snooping around the restricted sections anyway?”

Dakota swiveled on her heels, putting her back to the departing heavies, and brushed off Hallam’s gentle hold on her.

“I wasn’t ‘snooping around’ as those walnut-brained morons put it,” said Dakota, still burning with rage from the confrontation. “I just took a wrong turn coming out of the comms room, that’s all.”

“And what were you doing in the comms room?” asked Hallam, waiting for the door to the visitors’ bar to swoosh open and letting Dakota storm inside. “I thought you were doing admin.”

Dakota stopped and spun on her heels again, scowling at Hallam. “You sound like one of those assholes,” she said, thrusting her arms out toward him, wrists pressed together. “Are you going to arrest me, Enforcer Knight?”

Hallam brushed past Dakota and headed toward the nearest empty table. “No, but I am going to eat without you if you don’t sit down and stop causing trouble.”

Hallam pulled up a seat and watched as Dakota lowered her arms and finally did the same, except that she spun her chair around and straddled it instead.

“You know, you’re cranky when you’re hungry?”

“And whose fault is that?” replied Hallam, scrolling idly through the self-service menu panel built into the table. He ordered another beer, plus a double cheeseburger and fries, then extended an open hand toward Dakota’s panel, inviting her to make her choice.

Dakota looked down at the menu panel and ordered a Hawaiian pizza. Hallam saw her choice flash up on his panel and smiled. This was another of Dakota’s games to wind him up, since she knew full well that Hudson found the idea of pineapple on pizza to be sacrilegious.

“You know, the only good use for pineapple is to garnish a piña colada,” commented Hallam, playing along with Dakota’s game. “Before you then tip it down the drain, because piña coladas are disgusting, just like pineapple on pizza…”

Dakota smiled back. “You do realize that the meat in that cheeseburger you just ordered isn’t really meat?” she hit back. “And the cheese isn’t really cheese either? It’s all grown in a lab somewhere on Tellus. Who knows what it’s made of.”

Hallam took a swig of his beer as the automated robotic waiter delivered two more to the table. “I don’t care what it’s made of. It tastes good and that’s all that matters,” he said, refusing to be deterred. “And this place orders in the best quality stuff. It’s the closest to a real cheeseburger that I’ve had since you forced me into that casino on Feronia. At least that place had real meat burgers.”

Dakota took a swig of her beer and raised an eyebrow, “It may have been real meat, but it sure as hell wasn’t beef. Have you seen the weird-ass animals that roam around that planet? You probably ate something that had three heads and two asses.”

Hallam shrugged, then did a chef kiss sign, adding an elaborate kissing noise to boot. “And I’d do it all again. Delicious!”

Dakota chuckled, but then they were both distracted by a commotion over at another table in the main bar area. A group of people were playing cards – some variation on poker that Hallam had never been able to get his head around. From the heated hand waving and raised voices, it looked like there was a disagreement over who had won the money.

The table had three players. Two looked like regular joes; either other tanker pilots – though Hallam didn’t recognize them – or possibly off-duty enforcers. They certainly looked thuggish enough to qualify as Consortium heavies. The third player, however, stood out like a sore thumb. He was a rough-shaven man who looked to be in his mid-to-late thirties, with a buzz-cut hairstyle that smacked of a current or ex-military background. He wore it well, and from the quality of his clothing, which despite lacking any sort of camouflage pattern was clearly tactical in nature, he looked well-to-do.

The man was flanked by two women, both wearing a similar style of clothing. However, besides their apparel, they couldn’t have looked more different. The first was younger, perhaps in her mid-twenties, and clearly took care of her appearance. She was elegant almost to the point of being chic, despite the tactical nature of her clothing, and wore a distinctive, black raven-skull pendant around her neck. The eyes of the skull glistened under the bar’s lights, as if they were precious stones, which Hallam guessed they probably were.

The second woman was older, perhaps closer to the man’s age, and also striking, if for very different reasons. She wasn’t unkempt but had a harder edge to her looks, which was exacerbated by the unique lightning-strike black eyeliner, which circled her eyes, before lashing out across her temples. She had the look of someone who was perpetually angry, and out of all the people in the bar, Hallam instinctively knew she was the most dangerous.

Hallam and Dakota continued to watch as the two other men rose, pushing their chairs back with an uncomfortable screech. Dakota flashed her eyes at Hallam and shifted in her seat to get a better view; they both enjoyed watching a good bar fight, and she obviously sensed that one was brewing. However, then the rough-shaven man rose to his feet and said something that Hallam didn’t manage to overhear, and the two heavies suddenly stood down and backed away.

“Aw, dammit, it looks like those two have chickened out,” said Dakota with the sort of whiny tone of a teenager who had just been grounded. “I was looking forward to seeing how those two brutes handled themselves against action man and his two dark disciples.”

Hallam smiled, assuming that Dakota was referring to the rough-shaven man and his cohort. “It’s probably for the best; those three don’t look like they’re the sort to mess around.”

Dakota frowned and peered back at Hallam as if he were a stranger who’d just sat down at her table. “You’re telling me you don’t know who they are?”

Hallam shook his head. “Should I?”

“That’s the Blackfire Squadron,” said Dakota enigmatically. “The guy is Cad Rikkard, only the most famous mercenary in all twelve systems, and Earth to boot,” she continued, maintaining her mysterious tone of voice.

“Cad Rikkard?” replied Hallam, frowning. “Is that his real name or the name he uses on the ‘Flirty Mercenaries Hook-Up’ website?”

“Is that a real thing?” asked Dakota.

Hallam snorted. “How would I know?” Then he glanced back at the trio, who seemed to be collecting their belongings. “So who are the dynamic duo that are with him?”

“The one with the funky eyeliner is Draga Vex…”

Hallam snorted again. “Now I know you’re yanking my chain,” but Dakota shot him a dirty look and he shut up and let her continue.

“She grew up on Vediovis, and has a real dark streak, just like her eyeliner,” Dakota went on.

“Vediovis?” said Hallam, feeling a shiver rattle down his spine as he remembered his last trip there. “She must be made of titanium to have crawled her way off that rock and made something of herself.”

Vediovis used to be the primary mineral and resource mining planet, right up until they discovered Pomona, the tenth bridge world, Hallam remembered. Pomona was so resource-rich that all the major mining guilds quickly switched their operations, leaving the population of Vediovis high and dry, and jobless. Criminal gangs swooped in to offer an alternative source of work, which was primarily cultivating drugs. Those that didn’t work in the fields ended up in the underworld sex industry, which became the only reason for any off-worlder to dare to visit the planet. Even so, most sane people avoided Vediovis like the plague, and those that did visit typically left with a new disease or addiction of one sort or another.

“And what about the catwalk model turned assassin?” Hallam went on, now casting his eyes over to the younger of the two women. “Let me guess, her name is ‘Ivana Spendalot’?”

“Very droll,” said Dakota, rolling her eyes, “but, unsurprisingly, incorrect. That’s Alexis Black, although you’re on the money about her being rich and loving to flaunt it. She has a subtler way of going about her business, but together with Draga, they’re a pretty mean tag team, like sugar and spice.”

“So these guys are hired guns?” asked Hallam, more intrigued than ever.

Dakota nodded. “Rikkard was a US Space Force Marine, special ops, but rumor has it that he rubbed the chain of command up the wrong way, and so never advanced past captain. He left and started his own private army out on Pomona, just after it was founded, and made his money fighting off all the pirates and criminal gangs looking to steal the mountains of precious metals and minerals they were digging up out there.”

Hallam nodded, beginning to get an understanding of why the two heavies quickly decided to back down and scarper.

“You see that long belt-like thing draping from Rikkard’s waist?” said Dakota, rousing Hallam from his daydream. Hallam looked over and spotted the object, but had no idea what it was. “That’s a scabbard…” Dakota continued, answering the question, before Hallam had time to ask it.

Hallam snorted again. “Come on, you expect me to believe that guy wears a sword?”

Dakota nodded and flashed her eyes. “Believe it… It’s an old medieval-style one. And get this; it’s called a Black Prince sword…”

Hallam wafted a hand at Dakota dismissively. “This is too much, even for you,” he said, trying to convince himself that Dakota was just pulling another one of her tricks on him. Yet, over the last few months, he’d learned to read Dakota’s tells, and in his gut, he knew she was telling the truth.

Hallam turned away from the mercenary trio and looked back at Dakota, frowning again. “How come you know so much about these guys anyway?” he asked. “I doubt you came across many mercs ferrying scientists and other nerds around the peaceful and safe forests of Fortuna and Tellus.”

“I take an interest in more than just what’s in front of my nose, unlike you,” Dakota hit back. “And I’d still be flying those ‘nerds’ on their scientific expeditions, if it weren’t for the Consortium buying up the company and shutting us down. Ignorant assholes…”

Mention of the Consortium and how they ruined her previous career was one of the few triggers that managed to crack Dakota’s normally unbreakable aura of cheerfulness. Hallam hadn’t meant to reopen the old wound and regretted having brought it up, because he could see that Dakota’s mood had turned blacker than Draga Vex’s eyeliner.

Hallam was then distracted by Cad Rikkard and his crew, who were now heading toward the door. Alexis had hung back with Cad and had her arm draped over his shoulder, while she gloated about their winnings. Draga Vex had moved out ahead and appeared annoyed by the others’ dallying. She turned around to hurry them on, walking backwards toward the door as she did so. Then there was a loud crash, as Draga backed straight into the robot waiter, sending it, and the plates it was carrying, crashing to the floor right next to Hallam’s table.

Hallam looked down at the mess and saw that the food that had just been spread across the dimpled metal floor of the bar was theirs.

“Oops…” said Draga, looking at the flailing robot and the mess she’d caused before turning back to her companions and adding, “I guess robo-waiter here should have been watching where it was going.”

Alexis laughed, and even the stoic-looking male mercenary appeared to smile, but before Hallam knew what was happening, Dakota had sprung to her feet and squared off against Draga.

4

Dakota’s hands were already balled into fists as she stepped up to confront the mercenary, Draga Vex. Hallam could see that Dakota was still fuming from being reminded how the Consortium shut down her business. Unfortunately, Draga Vex had inadvertently become the target for Dakota’s venting anger. She couldn’t have picked a worse target if she’d tried. Hallam knew that Dakota was more than capable of handling herself, but after what she’d just told him about the striking female hired gun, he hoped she hadn’t bitten off more than she could chew.

“Oh, well done, Elvira. Why don’t you look where you’re going?” Dakota snarled.

Draga Vex turned around slowly and scowled at Dakota. They were roughly the same height, but Draga had a good twenty pounds on Dakota, and none of it looked soft.

“Why don’t you sit your ass down before I put you down?” replied Draga, jabbing a finger into Dakota’s sternum.

It was like the female mercenary had just flipped a pressure valve. Dakota surged forward and shoved Draga hard to the chest, sending her staggering back. She clearly hadn’t expected Dakota to attack her and was caught off-guard, tumbling over an adjacent table and scattering yet more plates and drinks to the floor.

Alexis Black unwrapped her arm from around Cad Rikkard’s neck and surged toward Dakota, but the mercenary was immediately hit with a powerful right cross and sent down. Cad’s face, calm and impassive up to that point, now twisted with anger. Evidently, Dakota laying out Alexis had triggered something inside him that suggested their relationship was more than just professional. The mercenary grabbed a steak knife from the table behind him and stalked toward Dakota, whose guard was raised. Then Draga appeared at Dakota’s side and slammed a punch to her head before grasping Dakota’s arms and holding them back.

Hallam sprang up, propelling his chair out behind him, and blocked Cad’s path, but then the blade swung and he felt a stinging sensation on his left shoulder. Blood wet his shirt, and he pressed a hand to the wound, more surprised by it than in pain.

“Get out of the way, or the next cut will be to your throat!” growled Cad as Alexis Black climbed to her feet beside him, looking equally furious.

“You’re not getting past, so just back the hell away!” said Hallam, raising open palms toward the mercenary. Blood dripped from his right hand and splattered on the floor, coloring his scattered golden yellow fries with a splash of red.

Cad didn’t respond in words and just thrust the blade toward Hallam, but his own prior CSF training kicked in. He dodged the angry strike and stripped the weapon from Cad’s hand, then thrust a kick to the man’s gut. The mercenary staggered back a couple of paces but didn’t appear to be hurt.

“Kill them!” yelled Alexis, suddenly looking wild-eyed and feral.

The door to the bar then swished open and heavy boots thudded inside, shortly followed by forceful shouts of “Hands on your heads, now!”

Hallam glanced behind to see three Consortium heavies, equipped with sidearms.

“You, let her go and hands on your head. Do it now!” the lead heavy yelled, aiming the order at Draga Vex. The female mercenary reluctantly complied, shoving Dakota into Hallam’s back before stepping away and lightly touching her fingertips to her temples.

Hallam and Dakota pressed their hands to their heads, while the red-faced Cad and Alexis did also, but with the same half-hearted disdain as Draga Vex.

“It’s okay, we were just having a light disagreement with the gentleman and lady here,” said Cad, lowering his hands and turning toward the lead CSF heavy.

“Keep your hands…” the heavy began, but then he seemed to recognize Cad and cut his sentence short. “Mr. Rikkard, I didn’t know it was you,” he continued, and Hallam realized their sudden reprieve may have been short-lived.

“Not to worry,” said Cad smoothly. “Like I said, this was just a simple disagreement, nothing to concern yourself with.” Then Cad turned to Hallam and shot him a saccharin smile. “Isn’t that right, Mr.…?”

“Knight, Hallam Knight,” answered Hallam, also lowering his hands. Then he turned to the security heavy. “And yes, it was just a misunderstanding. I’m sorry for the disruption.”

All the others now lowered their hands, and the heavies also lowered their weapons. Hallam took a breath and glanced at Dakota, who still looked furious. She wasn’t one to back out of a fight, and in her book, Draga Vex had finished theirs with the upper hand.

“I’ll pay for the damages and to replace the food that my associate accidentally knocked over,” Cad continued. “I assume that will be satisfactory?”

The lead heavy holstered his weapon, prompting his companions to do the same.

“Yes, that will be satisfactory, Mr. Rikkard, thank you,” replied the heavy, turning to Hallam. “If you’d like to take a seat at another table, we’ll see that a medic attends to your wound.”

“Don’t we get a say in this?” snapped Dakota, throwing her hands out wide. “That asshole attacks someone with a knife, and you just let him off without even a slapped wrist.”

The enforcer’s face hardened a touch. “Mr. Rikkard is a trusted partner of the Consortium, and I take him at his word,” he replied, pointing an accusatory finger at Dakota. “You, on the other hand, have already been warned once today. I strongly suggest you do as I say.”

Dakota looked ready to argue back again, but Hallam was quick to intervene, keen to prevent the situation from flaring back up.

“That’s fine; we’ll just take a seat at the table back there and wait for our food,” said Hallam, ushering Dakota away. She still looked pumped up, and spoiling for a fight.

Cad stepped deftly between the mess of food and crockery on the floor and stood at Draga’s side. Alexis Black circled around behind the group of enforcers, before joining her companions.

“My apologies again, Mr. Knight,” said Cad with the same smooth but insincere politeness. “Until we meet again.”

Then the three members of the Blackfire Squadron turned and headed toward the door. No one in the bar uttered another word until they had gone.

“Why did you just roll over like that?” grumbled Dakota as they arrived at their new table and sat down. “He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with stabbing you, no matter how pally he is with the Consortium.”

Hallam grabbed a napkin and pressed it to the wound on his shoulder. It stung, but thankfully, it wasn’t deep. He then took another napkin, poured water onto it from the carafe on the table, and wiped the blood from his hands.

“I didn’t ‘roll over,’ Dak,” replied Hallam, annoyed that Dakota was now venting at him. “You had just spent the last few minutes telling me how much of a bunch of badasses those guys were. I figured stopping you from getting killed was better than letting that dark-haired mercenary pound you to dust.”

“Knight by name, knight by nature, huh?” said Dakota, rocking back in her chair and folding her arms. “I could have taken her. She doesn’t scare me.”

Hallam shook his head. “I don’t doubt that, but she should. She scares the hell out of me.” Then he grabbed a bread roll from the table and tore into it. “And I wasn’t acting as some sort of knight in shining armor,” Hallam continued, not wanting to stand for Dakota’s “white knight” insinuation. “I was just having your back, like partners are supposed to do.”

Dakota planted all four legs of the chair back on the floor and leant forward, taking Hallam’s hand in hers. “I know, I’m just angry,” she said, with a touch more softness to her voice. “Sometimes it just comes out, you know?”

“I know,” said Hallam. He did understand; his own experiences with the Consortium had hardly been favorable either. He’d shied away from discussing his past with Dakota, for the same reasons she preferred not to be reminded of hers – because it hurt. However, he now realized that talking about his past might help Dakota to see that he truly did know what she was going through.

“I got discharged from the Consortium Security Force for striking a superior officer,” said Hallam. The sudden shock announcement took Dakota completely by surprise. She released his hand but stayed quiet, watching him intently. “I joined up later than most after getting fed up of scraping together a living on Earth,” Hallam continued, staring off into space. “The bridge worlds were where the real opportunities were, and I’d always had a knack for flying, so I took a shot at the accelerated training program. Graduated top of my class.”

“No need to brag about it…” said Dakota, smiling, but Hallam was still in his own little world.

“I got moved to the advanced combat training center,” Hallam went on. “The guy in charge was this Deputy Chief named Dexter Stone. A real asshole. Couldn’t keep his hands to himself.”

Dakota nodded. “I think I know where this is going…”

This time, Hallam looked at her and smiled, nodding gently. “He’d been playing this wandering hand game with the female students for weeks, and we’d all talked and even joked about it, but no one wanted to call him out or report it. The chance at a shot to fly fighters for the Consortium out in the bridge worlds was worth too much, to all of us. It was our golden ticket to a better life.”

“So, one day, he did it again and you snapped and popped the SOB in the mouth, right?” said Dakota, guessing the rest of the story. “You are a knight after all!”

Hallam laughed and shrugged. “I got him real good too, right on the kisser. You would have been impressed.” Dakota laughed and nodded appreciatively. “I put that asshole flat on his back, out like a light. It was a sweet moment, until they kicked me out anyway.”

Dakota grabbed half of the bread roll that Hallam had torn open earlier and bit into it heartily. “So why work for the Consortium as a bridge runner?” she said through a mouthful of bread.

Hallam toyed with the other half of the roll, ripping off small chunks and tossing them onto his side plate. “Same reason as you, I suppose,” he said, not having really thought about it for a while. “I had the skills – they couldn’t take that away from me – and bridge running earns decent money, thanks to the hazard pay. Plus, it got me off Earth.”

Dakota swallowed the mouthful of bread and nibbled off another piece. “But if you are such a hot-shot pilot, how come you joined as a gunner and not a bus driver like me?”

Hallam cocked an eyebrow at her, “No offense, but when you’re used to flying state-of-the-art space combat fighters, these hulking tankers don’t really cut it.”

Dakota made a sort of harrumphing sound, then threw a chunk of bread at Hallam. It bounced off his forehead and landed in his water glass. “I see… tanker driving is beneath you, is it?”

Hallam held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture, but Dakota just smiled again. Then the robotic waiter, who had obviously been righted again and cleaned up – though Hallam could still see some burger sauce on its chassis – arrived with their food. It set down two beers, followed by Hallam’s cheeseburger and finally Dakota’s Hawaiian pizza.

Dakota grabbed a slice and attacked it enthusiastically. “Well, hopefully, we can get through tonight without any more unpleasant experiences,” she said, this time through a mouthful of food.

Hallam’s face scrunched up as he watched Dakota massacre the pizza. “I don’t know. Even after everything that just happened, I think the most upsetting thing I’ve seen tonight is you eating that monstrosity of a pizza.”

Hallam picked up his burger, but before he could bring it to his lips, he was hit in the face by something wet and slightly squishy. He looked down to see a chunk of cooked pineapple on his plate, nestled amongst his fries, before looking up to see Dakota flashing her eyes at him.

5

Draga Vex launched a thumping front kick at a stack of metal containers, sending them crashing down. The contents spilled out all over the deck of Cad Rikkard’s private hangar on the Centrum, but Draga was too furious to care. Alexis Black stormed in moments later with Cad Rikkard a second behind.

“We should go back and gut them while we still have the chance,” Alexis snarled. “Take them out quick and clean, before they even know what hit them.”

Cad looked at the scattered contents of the containers, a mix of food supplies and maintenance equipment, and sighed.

“I don’t suppose you’re going to pick all that crap up?” Cad asked, directing the question to Draga.

The mercenary merely folded her arms and stared back at him, her fierce eyes framed by the jet-black eyeliner. “Alexis is right; we can’t let this stand,” she said, ignoring Cad’s flippant question. “That man – Hallam Knight – humbled us, publicly. You know better than anyone how quickly word can spread. Soon he won’t be the only one who thinks he can stand up to us.”

Cad scowled and stepped across to the control panel beside the hangar door and pressed a button, causing the thick double doors to slide shut. He then punched in another sequence of commands, and a small army of maintenance bots scurried out of compartments in the wall. They began a ballet of interlinked maneuvers, with some collecting up the spilled supplies, and others re-stacking the containers once they were filled again.

Suddenly, Draga launched a kick at one of the smaller robots, punting it toward the far side of the hangar. “Damn it, Cad, forget the supplies! I can’t believe you’re going to let this slide,” she snapped.

“Of course I’m not going to let this slide,” Cad hit back, stepping between the two women. “But even I can’t just waltz into a Consortium bar and murder two bridge runners in full view of everyone.”

“You were ready to fillet that guy with a steak knife earlier,” said Alexis, appearing calmer now that Cad had confirmed some form of retaliation was necessary. “What’s different now?”

“The difference is now I’m thinking clearly,” replied Cad firmly. “You two need to clear your heads too. This isn’t Pales or Vediovis; we can’t just take someone out and bury them in the mountains. We need to be smart.”

“You don’t pay me to be smart,” said Draga, still with her arms tightly folded.

“No, I pay you to do what I tell you,” replied Cad, with his usual smooth confidence.

“So what’s your plan?” Alexis cut in. “I assume you do have a plan?”

The corner of Cad’s stubble-fringed mouth curled up into a self-assured smile. “I always have a plan. It’s why I asked the guy his name,” said Cad smugly. “Hallam Knight is a gunner on Consortium Armored Tanker RS-13. And Consortium Armored Tanker RS-13 just so happens to be docked in the adjacent hangar.”

Now it was Alexis whose lips curled into a smile, though Draga remained stony; it took more than Cad’s smooth words to impress her. Alexis moved to the hangar’s computer terminal and accessed the station’s structural models. These were normally highly-classified files, but Cad had previously been granted access. This was so that his Blackfire Squadron could familiarize themselves with the subtle nooks and crannies of the station in the event that Darkspace Renegades managed to board, and he was tasked to hunt them down.

“We can bypass the main door to the hangar if we move through these service crawlspaces,” said Alexis, highlighting the route with her finger. “I can intercept the security camera's data stream from this network and switch and feed their system with a dummy image. Then we drop down in to the hangar and sabotage their ship.”

Draga finally unfurled her arms from around her chest and stepped beside Alexis, peering down at the schematics with narrowed eyes. “That’s all well and good, but how will anyone know it was us?” she asked, turning to Cad. “We need to send a message.”

Cad shook his head. “Not this time, Draga. We can’t be associated with the destruction of a Consortium Tanker; it could cost me my contract.”

Draga grunted, but then Alexis chimed back in. “I wouldn’t worry about people not taking the hint,” she said, wiping her activity history before shutting down the computer terminal. “A couple of tanker drivers get into a fight with us on the Centrum, then a day later, their atoms are scattered across a hundred light years of space as a result of a freak bridging accident.” She flashed her eyes, “Everyone will assume we did it, but there’ll be no way to pin it on us, so our contract will be safe. If anything, it will only enhance our reputation.”

Draga grunted again. “Fine, but I still prefer my plan to just snap their necks and be done with it.”

“Objection noted,” said Cad smoothly. “Now grab the gear you need and let’s get this done. We’re due on Carmentis in a couple of days to facilitate a quick end to a dumb turf war.”

“Facilitate how?” asked Draga, appearing more interested in their next job than their current task.

“Let’s just say it’s the sort of job that suits your less-than-subtle approach to dispute resolution…” replied Cad as he walked toward the open cargo bay of his fighter craft.

“Good, then let’s get this done so we can move on,” said Draga.

“Are you going to grab one of your many weapons?” asked Alexis, returning from the cargo hold of her fighter, which was emblazoned with a raven skull emblem, similar to the pendant she wore around her neck.

“If we meet any resistance, I’ll deal with them with my fists,” Draga replied coldly.

Cad then returned from his hangar with a sidearm clipped into his holster and the ornate black and gold hilt of a sword protruding from his scabbard.

“Not stabbed enough people today?” teased Alexis, pulling on a close-fitting backpack and slotting a palm computer into a holster on her hip.

“There’s a good chance we might run into a dock worker or maintenance crew,” replied Cad. “So it’s best to be prepared.”

Alexis led them away toward the crawlspace entrance and began using a combat multi-tool to remove the bolts securing it in place.

“I hope we do run into someone,” said Draga, still seeming to be in a stormy mood. “First those idiot card players backed out of a fight, then you stopped me from pulverizing Knight and his cocky little friend. Someone needs to bleed tonight, and I don’t care who it is.”

Alexis removed the final bolt, then lifted the access panel to the crawlspace off the wall.

“I’ll go ahead and make a start on bypassing the security feed,” said Alexis, ducking into the crawlspace.

Draga motioned to enter the crawlspace next, but Cad grabbed her arm and held her back. “Bleed someone if you need to,” he said, fixing Draga’s penetrating, black-framed eyes with his own unblinking stare, “but I don’t want any bodies, is that clear?” His tone was intentionally harsh, to make sure Draga got the message. She may have been more than just a member of his team – she was also his friend – but there was a time and a place for letting off steam, and this was not it.

The stark change in Cad’s demeanor cleared the storm clouds circling above Draga, as if they were suddenly standing in the eye of a tornado.

“I understand,” said Draga, calmly and without any resentment. “No one will die, at least not today.”

Cad released his hold and smiled, allowing some of his usual character to bleed through his rocky expression. “Now let’s rig this tanker to blow, so we can put your talents to good use again.”

6

By the time Cad Rikkard had hauled his way through the crawlspace to the hangar where Hallam Knight’s tanker was docked, Alexis Black had already rigged the security bypass. Security systems and computers in general were Alexis’ specialty – or the “tech stuff,” as Cad liked to call it. Cad employed this phrase often, much to the annoyance of Alexis, who didn’t take kindly to her talents being described in such mediocre terms.

The three members of Blackfire Squadron all had their unique abilities, which complemented each other like a blade and scabbard. Draga Vex’s talent was far easier for Cad to understand and describe, but she was far from a blunt instrument – though she could be used as such when required. More broadly, Draga’s specialty was pain, and inflicting it in such a way that Cad got the outcome he desired. Whether it was extracting information with excruciating efficiency or simply storming a camp or stronghold with brutal ruthlessness, Draga had the requisite tools in her arsenal. So long as Cad fed her hunger, Draga was happy.

As for himself, Cad was the businessman. Though he wasn’t known for his modesty, he didn’t describe himself as the brains of the operation, as this was too simplistic. Each of them was as sharp as their respective blades, and everyone contributed ideas and strategies, but it was Cad who called the shots. He picked the jobs, he negotiated the pay, and he collected when the job was done. And if the job allowed him to indulge his own personal hobby – namely swords, and their employment in dealing death – then so much the better. However, what Cad Rikkard cared about above all else was his reputation. Like the blade of his sword, his name had been forged in the heat and fire of battle. He was the best and would do anything to protect this status and reinforce his superiority. This was why Hallam Knight had to die. He’d made him look weak, and to Cad, that was more agonizing than any form of torture.

“What took you so long? I thought we’d have to do this without you,” said Alexis as Cad dragged himself inside the crawlspace junction.

“Yes, well this is a lot easier when you’re only a hundred and thirty pounds,” said Cad, trying to shuffle his frame into a more comfortable position. He was solidly built, but at five feet ten, he was hardly a man mountain. “How the hell do they expect anyone to work in here?”

“Maintenance is mostly done by bots these days,” replied Alexis, packing her compact palm computer back into its pouch. “We’re probably the first people to come in here since the Centrum was built.”

“This is fascinating, but are we ready to get on with this or not?” complained Draga, who looked as uncomfortable as Cad felt.

“We’re done; the security feed will just show an empty hangar. I’ve set it up to loop the recording from the last hour, with some on-the-fly digital modifications so that the security system’s AI doesn’t flag it as a duplicated feed.”

“Smart…” said Cad, genuinely impressed.

“That’s my job,” replied Alexis. “Now we just need to take that crawlspace directly to our right and drop down at the next junction.”

They continued on through the narrow tunnels with Alexis again out front, until they reached another access panel. Alexis removed the bolts and gently slid the panel across. Draga moved up to the opening and peeked outside before quickly ducking back into the crawlspace.

“There’s one CSF Enforcer inside; looks like he’s catching up on some sleep, useless asshole,” said Draga.

“Take him out, nice and clean,” said Cad, aiming a finger at Draga. “But remember what I said. And don’t let him see your face. You’re quite memorable.”

“The only thing he’ll be seeing is stars,” said Draga, stepping out of the opening with a nimbleness that was unexpected for someone with her powerful physique and unyielding posture. A few seconds later, there were several dull thuds and muffled grunts. Cad then moved out of the crawlspace to see the enforcer draped over Draga’s shoulder like some animal she’d killed on a hunt. Blood was dripping from his lip and nose.

“Don’t worry, he isn’t dead,” said Draga, anticipating Cad’s next question. “What do we do with him, though? We can’t have him raise the alarm before the tanker departs.”

Cad rubbed his stubbled chin and peered around the room. He was annoyed that he hadn’t considered the problem of what to do with anyone they encountered inside. He was already regretting their little revenge plan, but as was often the case, his pridefulness overrode his better judgment. Cad was the top private mercenary in all twelve systems, with a one hundred per cent record of getting the job done. Dealing with the Consortium’s cantankerous boss, Damien Doyle, as well as other similar tyrants, had forced him to develop a thick skin. He could tolerate a lot of things, but being humiliated was not one of them. Hallam Knight had slighted him, and something had to be done. However, Cad now realized that to get this job done would require more extreme measures than he’d anticipated.

“Dump him inside one of the empty supply crates,” said Cad, pointing to a likely candidate at the rear of the hangar. “Alexis can then hack its status indicator and show it’s for loading onto the tanker.”

Both women looked at each other, then cocked eyebrows at him. “What happened to ‘I don’t want any bodies’?” asked Draga.

“I’m amending it to ‘I don’t want any bodies left on the station for someone to find and use to tie us back to their murder’, okay?” answered Cad, a little testily.

“Suits me just fine,” said Draga, pacing over to the empty container and dumping the body of the unconscious enforcer inside. Alexis then moved over to the container and started to hack into its status panel.

“Go watch the door,” Cad said, turning back to Draga. “Hopefully, we won’t be disturbed, but you know what to do if we are.”

Draga smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Alexis returned to Cad’s side as Draga headed away. “It’s done. When they scan it, the container will read as 'essential supplies.' Food, water, that sort of thing. They’ll load it on-board with the Randenite barrels.”

Cad nodded, finally satisfied that things were getting on track. His initial plan may have been flawed, but he prided himself on his ability to adapt. It was why he was still alive. No plan, no matter how well considered, played out exactly as expected. Life was inherently unpredictable; survival in his line of work was a case of adapt or die.

“Do your thing while Draga watches the doors,” said Cad, resting a hand on the hilt of his sword like an eighteenth-century army general posing for a portrait.

“I’m going to need a hand accessing the control systems for the Shelby Drive,” Alexis said to Cad before heading toward the movable staircase that climbed up to the tanker’s main access hatch. The thick blocks of armor that covered the inner hull were already swung up to reveal the inner door.

Cad followed Alexis, looking up at the battle-scarred tanker, which seemed to be missing a number of sections of its armor. He scanned his eyes around the hangar and saw that replacement armor blocks were lined up at the far end, presumably awaiting installation.

“We need to hurry,” said Cad, realizing that repair work on the armored tanker had yet to be fully completed. “It looks like this tanker took a pounding on the way here. A maintenance crew could arrive at any moment, and there’s only so many people we can stuff inside crates before someone starts to get suspicious.”

Alexis nodded and quickened her pace. Using her compact palm computer, she worked fast to bypass the tanker's locking mechanism, and the hatch swung open. Alexis hurried inside as Cad cast a glance over to Draga, who was positioned next to the main hangar door, cautiously peeking through the porthole window. She saw Cad looking over and gave him a thumbs-up.

Ducking through the hatch, Cad then rushed through the internal space of the tanker, which was surprisingly claustrophobic, considering the bulk of the craft. He found Alexis inside the main engineering section at the rear of the vessel. It was separated from the front section by a thick metal door. Variations of this shielded compartment existed on all ships equipped with Shelby Drives, due to the radiation risk the unique engine system posed. Cad had seen the effects that Randenite radiation had on the human body firsthand. Even a small leak from a malfunctioning Shelby Drive could prove fatal in a matter of hours. Their demises were also far from pleasant, and shocking even to someone as used to death as Cad was.

The exotic material may have proven to be the key that unlocked interstellar travel, but flying along the bridges wasn’t without risk, and being inside the tanker’s engineering section reminded Cad of this fact more than he cared to admit.

“I’m going to need you to haul back on this pressure valve so I can access the main reactor assembly,” said Alexis, gathering a collection of tools from her backpack, which she’d slipped onto the deck.

Cad moved over to the lever that Alexis had indicated and stood ready. “This isn’t going to end up cooking my balls or anything, is it?” Cad asked, starting to regret proposing the plan in the first place.

“Only if I mess this up,” said Alexis as she finished removing a panel from the main drive housing. “Okay, on three, pull that lever. Three… two… one… pull!”

Cad sucked in a deep breath then pulled down hard. It required every ounce of his not inconsiderable strength to make the lever budge, but eventually, it started to move, and he saw a section of the drive open up.

“Hold it there!” Alexis called out, diving inside the opening with a rectangular-shaped device in her hand that was roughly the size and shape of a chewing gum pack. “Just five more seconds…”

Cad would have cursed at her if it wasn’t for the fact that he was still holding his breath. His fingers were already stinging and his biceps burned from the effort.

“Okay, let it go,” Alexis added after what felt like an hour, but was actually closer to the five seconds she had estimated. She then glanced anxiously up at the Randenite radiation indicator on the wall and breathed an audible sigh of relief. “It’s okay, no radiation leaked out, so we’re done. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

Cad shook the feeling back into his hands and blew out a breath before gulping in more air. “So this sucker will blow when they try to bridge to another world?” Cad asked, following Alexis back along the central walkway of the tanker.

“Oh, it’s way better than that,” replied Alexis, smiling back at him. “I slipped a hijacker onto the Randenite fuel control circuit. It will kick in a few minutes after launch.”

Cad shrugged and shot her an uninspired look. “What does that mean in English, Alexis?”

Alexis scowled. “It will take over their fuel control system and start pumping too much Randenite into the drive. It will read within norms from the cockpit, but even if they wanted to do anything to stop it, they won’t be able to. The hijacker will block their access. A few hours after entering bridge space, the drive core will crack, and when it pops, they’ll end up scattered over a dozen light years.”

Cad released a grunt of satisfaction. “So long as that asshole Knight is dead, I don’t care,” he said as they reached the hatch. “I’m impressed you even know how that drive works at all,” added Cad as Alexis slung on her backpack again. “I thought only the wunderkind, Shelby Rand, understood them, before she got killed anyway.”

“I haven’t a clue how the damned thing works,” admitted Alexis. “All I’ve done is the equivalent of over-fueling an old combustion engine.”

Cad snorted a laugh then stepped down the metal staircase to the hangar floor, with Alexis close behind.

“I wish we could be around to see this thing pop,” said Cad, thumping a fist on the tanker’s armored hull as he started to make his way back toward the crawlspace hatch.

Suddenly, Cad heard a short, sharp whistle, and he froze. He recognized Draga’s warning call straightaway and shot a glance over to the hangar exit. Draga was tucked in behind a fork lift, but the door to the hangar was now open, and two Consortium heavies in their customary black uniforms were heading inside.

7

The two CSF Enforcers strolled into the hangar chatting and joking with each other. For several seconds, they remained oblivious to the presence of the intruders, until one of them spotted Cad, and their jocularity came to an abrupt end.

“Jam their radios,” Cad said to Alexis as the two heavies started to approach them. Both had wrapped their hands around the grips of their sidearms, though neither had yet drawn their weapon.

“Hey, this hangar is restricted. What are you doing here?” one of the enforcers called out, now displaying far more caution as he inched closer to Cad and Alexis.

Alexis drew her palm computer from its pouch and worked fast to jam any outbound frequencies.

“Hey, put that down,” ordered the enforcer, drawing his weapon and aiming it at Alexis. The second enforcer followed suit while speaking urgently into his earpiece microphone, but from the frustrated look on his face, Cad knew that Alexis had already blocked his transmission.

“No need for concern; we simply wandered into the wrong hangar,” said Cad, casting his eyes beyond the duo of heavies to see Draga advancing with the stealth of a puma. She had a crowbar held low in her right hand. “We’ll just be on our way.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” said the lead enforcer, glancing down to the sidearm and sword hanging from Cad’s belt. The man’s eyes sharpened and his grip on the pistol tightened. “Drop the weapons and place your hands on the wall.”

There was no sign of stress in the enforcer’s voice; for the most part, the Consortium security forces were well trained and disciplined. There were always a few rotten eggs, such as the guard they had caught napping earlier on, but Cad could tell that the man facing him now was of a different caliber. He wouldn’t falter, or back down, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“I said drop it!” the enforcer yelled at Alexis, and this time, she complied, placing her palm computer on the deck.

“Okay, already; it’s just a computer,” Alexis hit back in a whiny, hacked-off tone. “Take it easy, for crying out loud.”

The enforcer then seemed to spot something behind Cad and frowned before again focusing his attention back on the intruders. Cad glanced back, saw the crawlspace cover still sitting against the wall, and sighed. Adapt or die… he reminded himself.

“Call it in, Cody,” the lead enforcer called back to his partner. “We’ve just caught ourselves a couple of Darkspace Renegades.”

Alexis suddenly let out a high-pitched laugh, which caught both heavies completely off guard.

“What’s so funny, lady?” said the lead enforcer, scowling at her. “You’re about to get locked up for a long time, assuming you don’t get ghosted first.”

“Well, two things, really,” said Alexis, casually bending down to pick up her palm computer.

“Hey, leave that on the deck!” the enforcer shouted, but Alexis ignored him.

“The first is that we’re not Darkspace Renegades, though it’s amusing that you would think so.” She glanced at Cad. “I guess that’s more of an in-joke between us, though,” she admitted, shrugging.

“Lady, put the device down, or I will shoot you!” the enforcer yelled again, slipping his finger onto the trigger.

“And the second is that you’re about to die,” Alexis continued, and for the first time, Cad saw fear behind the thick-set enforcer’s eyes.

Suddenly, an organic crunch filled the space between them, and the enforcer called Cody groaned and crumpled to the deck. The other enforcer spun around to see Draga Vex, crowbar in hand, dripping with blood. The enforcer raised his pistol at her, but Draga slashed it out of his grasp before he could take the shot. Again, the crunch of bone preceded the howl of pain. Draga raised the improvised weapon again, but the man spasmed and croaked, as if his windpipe had suddenly been crushed. Draga lowered the crowbar as the tip of a blade pushed through the enforcer’s chest, cutting cleanly through his armor. It vanished just as quickly, before the man fell, revealing Cad Rikkard, Black Prince sword in hand. Blood was running along the central ridge of the blade, which shone brightly under the harsh lights of the hangar.

“He was mine,” complained Draga, tossing the crowbar to the deck with a sharp clatter.

“Why should I let you have all the fun?” replied Cad while cleaning the blade on the dead guard’s black pants. “Lock the door, then help me get these two into the container.”

Draga grumbled and stormed away while Cad turned to Alexis. “We’ll need to get rid of this blood too. Can you hack the hangar’s cleaner bots to take care of this mess, but wipe it from their memory?”

Alexis nodded and activated the palm computer that was still in her hand. “I’ll get us clearance to leave too,” she said, quickly cycling through the various commands on the device. “It’s probably best we’re not still here when these three heavies start to be missed.”

“Agreed,” said Cad, sheathing his sword as an assortment of maintenance and cleaner bots popped out of their compartments and got to work mopping up the blood. Then he looked at the two dead bodies and tutted. “All this trouble just because two uptight, lowlife bridge runners got all arsey about food they didn’t even have to pay for.”

Alexis sighed and nodded, “I know, right? Some folk just take things way too far.”

8

Hallam yawned as he climbed the metal staircase to the hatch of the armored tanker. Their far-later-than-expected dinner, plus the drinks he and Dakota had consumed afterwards in order to wind down, had meant that he’d had less than five hours of sleep. As usual, Dakota, takeaway cup of black coffee in hand, looked far sprightlier than he did.

“How can you be so damn chipper this early in the morning, after so little sleep?” he asked, stepping through the hatch and yanking on the lever to close it.

Dakota shrugged, slurping loudly on her coffee. “I’ve never needed more than around four or five hours of sleep.”

Hallam followed her along the corridor and into the cockpit before slumping down in his seat and letting out a long, weary groan. “Is that a skill you can teach me? Because I could probably do with an extra four or five just to feel human again.”

“I’m afraid not,” said Dakota as she dropped into her seat with far more decorum than Hallam had managed. She then placed her coffee into the cup-holder she had retrofitted to the chair. “This stuff really helps too,” she added, tapping the lid of the takeaway cup.

Hallam made a “yeurgh” sound and stuck out his tongue. “No thanks. I don’t know how you stomach that stuff. It tastes like burned toast.”

Dakota snorted and tapped Bob the bear on the head, shooting it a cheery “hello.” She then moved on to the launch checklist.

“Well, you can go ahead and cop a few extra zees while I take her out,” said Dakota, running through the list. “Though if you can check through our launch notifications before you nod off, that would be helpful. Heaven forbid you actually do some work this morning…”

Hallam replied with an affronted huff and activated his computer console before switching to their notices and orders.

“Looks like the usual stuff to me,” Hallam said as he scanned along the list. “The repairs were all finished, so that’s good. And we’ve been loaded with an additional container of ship supplies,”

“Why?” asked Dakota, taking another slurp of coffee. “They only gave us a crate on Vesta, two stops back. How much canned soup do they think we can drink?”

Hallam shrugged. “Who knows? But I’m not complaining, so long as the crate includes some more mini pretzels. I love those things.”

“You’ll look like a damn pretzel if you eat any more of them,” replied Dakota as the thrum of the ship’s engines started to climb.

“Other than that, we have a full consignment of Randenite and are ready to go.” Then he read the final entry and swore.

“That doesn’t bode well,” said Dakota, knowing that Hallam very rarely cursed.

“We’ve been reassigned,” said Hallam darkly. “Our first stop is now Minerva.”

“Oh, crap,” replied Dakota, realizing now why Hallam was so cross. “What are they sending us to that backwater hell-hole for? I thought Riggs and Naomi drew the short straw for that gig.”

Hallam tapped on the reassignment order to get the full details, then read the report as Dakota maneuvered the tanker out of the hold, radioing their sole remaining escort to form up with them once they were clear of the dock. Hallam barely noticed as the bright lights of the hangar bay were replaced by the inky blackness of space; he was too caught up in what he was reading. He reached the end of the report and shook his head.

“Riggs and Naomi did get that job, but it says here they got attacked,” he said despairingly. “Their tanker was interjected by Darkspace Renegades en route from Orcus to the Centrum. Looks like no one made it.”

Dakota sighed and flopped back in her seat. “That’s too bad. I liked Naomi,” she said wistfully.

“Too bad? That’s one way of putting it,” said Hallam, slightly taken aback by Dakota’s easy-going reaction. “I just hope that means those terrorist assholes have had their pound of flesh for the week, because now we have to fly out into the badlands with only one escort fighter.”

“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” replied Dakota, again seeming surprisingly nonplussed by the prospect of another renegade attack. “Anyway, they’re not terrorists; they’re just fighting for a cause they believe in.”

Hallam laughed. “That’s kind of the definition of terrorists, Dak,” he said, more unkindly than he’d planned, but his own fear and anger had colored his response. “That and the fact they blow stuff up to get their own way.”

“You should pay less attention to the lies that come out of the BridgeNet news networks,” Dakota hit back crabbily. “You know that slimeball Damien Doyle controls almost everything that those channels spew out, right?”

“You know I detest Doyle and his propaganda networks as much as you,” Hallam answered. He could feel that this conversation was heading toward a row, but it had already gone too far, and now he couldn’t stop himself. It was like a powerful underwater current, drawing him out to sea. “But whatever their reasons, you can’t justify murdering innocent people. Hell, Dak, those renegades are trying to kill us. Why are you defending them?”

Dakota steered the tanker toward the gate beacon for Minerva and activated the bridge synchronization clock so that their escort could bridge with them. Despite being the farthest bridge world from Earth by some distance, Minerva was linked to the Centrum by a direct bridge, although it would still take around twelve hours to reach the planet.

“I’m not defending the loss of life,” Dak answered after locking in the autopilot for the bridging sequence. “But we’ve both seen firsthand what the Consortium is doing to these new worlds. They screwed up Earth already, and now they’re doing the same to these other planets. Besides, this Randenite stuff is more volatile than the stock market. And the only person who actually knows what the hell it’s made of died a decade ago.”

Hallam rubbed his face and stared out into the empty space ahead. He hadn’t bothered to shave that morning and wished he had; there was something about being unkempt that made him feel mentally disheveled too.

“I hear you, Dak,” Hallam eventually replied after giving her comments some thought. “And maybe you’re right, but there has to be a better way. Without this Randenite, there are millions of people who will get cut off, from Earth and the other planets. It’s always the innocents that suffer, Dak. Good intentions and the moral high ground don’t stop people from starving.”

Dakota didn’t answer, but Hallam could see that the conversation was driving a wedge between them, so he decided to drop it. They both sat in silence for a time, until the pulse of the Shelby Drive system rose to a crescendo, and there was a brief flash of red before the tanker entered bridge space. Hallam could see that their escort fighter had slotted in behind them in a perfect slipstream. Barring any interjections from the renegades that Hallam and Dakota had just been arguing about, it would be another half a day before they reached Minerva. And he didn’t want to spend that time rowing with Dakota. He knew she needed space, so he decided to give her some time alone.

“Anyway, hopefully, we don’t have to worry about renegades on this trip,” Hallam said, pushing himself out of his seat. It took more effort than it should have done, and he realized he was much more tired than he’d originally thought. “I’m going to grab a couple of hours of shut-eye; buzz my cabin if you need me for anything.”

Dakota nodded, but didn’t look at him, and idly slurped from her coffee again, which Hallam guessed was probably lukewarm by now. He was about to head out when he noticed that there was an orange light on the Shelby Drive status panel. He tapped the indicator, one of a number relating to their Randenite fueling system, and read the more detailed report, but the value was still within norms. He turned to Dakota with the intention of suggesting she keep an eye on the fuel pressure and flow rate, but the stormy look on her face made him think twice. He sighed again before heading out of the cockpit and toward his bunk.

9

Hallam woke with a start to the sound of the warning alarm blaring inside the cabin and the strip lights that ran along the middle of his walls flashing red. He rolled out of his bunk and dropped heavily onto the deck, still groggy and disorientated from the rude awakening. It took Hallam another few seconds to gather his senses before pulling on his boots and staggering to the door. It swished open automatically, and the blare of the alarm assaulted him even more severely. The main central corridor was flashing red, like his cabin, and now that he’d regained his balance, he could feel a deep vibration through the deck and walls.

“Dak!” he cried as he stumbled along the corridor, struggling to maintain a straight line. “What the hell?” he said out loud as each step took him further off center. Then, without warning, he was slammed to the opposite side of the corridor and pressed against the wall, as if the entire space had been turned by ninety degrees. Hallam righted himself and tried to shake the fogginess from his mind. To his astonishment, he was now standing upright on what should have been the wall of the corridor. “Dak!” he cried out again as he forced one foot in front of another and eventually made it to the cockpit door. The gravity shifted again, and he was tossed to the opposite wall, landing face first. He tasted blood and spat out a tooth before pushing his body up and clawing his way into the cockpit.

“Hal, are you okay?!” Dakota called out from the pilot’s seat. She was strapped in, but her shoulder-length chestnut hair was flowing out perpendicular to her body, as if it had been fixed there by an industrial-strength hairspray.

“I’m a bit battered, but I’ll be fine,” Hallam answered as he pulled himself up across the back of Dakota’s seat, managing to grab the arm of his own chair. “What the hell is going on?” he added after perching himself on the inner armrest and peering at the various consoles and status panels. The he saw the normally smooth and opaque wall of bridge space outside the ship was turbulent, like white water on a breaking wave. Through the chaos of color and light, he was sure he could see stars.

“We have a malfunction in the Randenite fueling system,” Dakota answered. She was trying desperately to haul the tanker away from the edge of bridge space, but it seemed to be caught there, like a wheel stuck in a groove. “It hit without warning. The fuel pressure status indicator was reading a little high, but still within norms. Then all hell broke loose.”

“Have you tried throttling back or running a diagnostic on the fuel control system?”

Dakota shot him a dirty look. “Of course I have, but none of my inputs are having any effect.”

Hallam struggled to reach his computer terminal, then cycled through the menus until he reached the operational readout for the Shelby Drive. He assimilated the data as rapidly as he could and spotted the problem, swearing for the second time that day.

“Our link to the control unit has been cut off somehow,” Hallam called back to Dakota. “The drive is being injected with too much Randenite, but the sensors are reading it as normal.”

“Tell me what to do!” Dakota cried back, glancing over at Hallam, imploring him for an answer.

“We have to drop out of bridge space, right now,” Hallam called back. “Cut all power to the Shelby Drive.”

Dakota’s eyes now grew wide with fear. “But the stresses will tear the ship apart,” she answered. “That’s like curing the patient by killing him!”

“Not if we control the shut-down,” said Hallam, but then the breath was stolen from him as another series of brutal shimmies hammered through the deck, shaking Hallam off his perch. He reached out and caught the headrest, sparing himself from another hard fall, which would most likely have sent him crashing into Dakota. He then felt something pushing against his feet and saw Dakota twisting toward him, hands grasped around the soles of his boots.

“Push against me!” Dakota called out as Hallam felt her take up some of his weight.

Hallam pressed down, feeling Dakota’s hands push against his legs, until he managed to haul himself back onto his perch. He then made a series of rapid calculations and adjustments, as Dakota shook the pain and numbness from her fingers.

“I’ve sent you the shut-down sequence,” Hallam called back. “Run it now!”

Dakota pulled up the data that Hallam had just sent to her console and initiated the process as he’d laid it out.

“How do you know so much about Shelby Drives?” Dakota wondered as she worked. Hallam remembered that she talked a lot when she was nervous. “I thought they were a dark art known only to a seldom few.”

Hallam adjusted his position on the arm of the chair, trying to get more comfortable, but his backside was already going numb.

“I just sort of get how they work, at least a little,” Hallam answered, remembering his time in the CSF advanced training center. “The other CSF students used to call me Randy Knight. Get it?”

Dakota shook her head but managed a smile. “That’s a terrible joke, which could also mean something else entirely...”

Hallam nodded and laughed. “Yeah, I guess it was pretty bad.” He hadn’t thought about that time of his life for years and found it strange that it would come to him now. Then Dakota cursed and thumped her fist on the arm of her chair, and Hallam felt his stomach turn over. “What’s wrong?”

“The ECU glitch has locked me out of the Shelby Drive throttle control too,” Dakota answered as another wicked shimmy rocked the cockpit. “No matter what I do, the drive just keeps being fed with more Randenite. I can’t slow down, shut down, or anything in between!”

More alarms sounded and Hallam saw that their port-side armor was being stripped away, like a car continuously scraping an alloy wheel against the curb.

Hallam stretched over to read the information on his panel, but the sensors were still showing the levels as within norms. He racked his brains for a solution, but all he had were suppositions. “If it’s a fault in the Shelby Drive unit itself, maybe a fried or faulty component, then it can’t be fixed from here.”

Dakota pounded her fist on the arm of her chair again. “Damn it, the Consortium engineers are supposed to check and test the Shelby Drive system before each departure.” Then she turned to Hallam, looking lost and desperate. “What do we do, Hal? I’m all out of ideas…”

Hallam hadn’t yet reached the same level of despair as Dakota; he knew there was one option left, but he also knew she wouldn’t like it. He didn’t like it himself.

“I can maybe bypass the fault from inside the engineering section,” said Hallam, fixing Dakota’s anxious eyes, which only grew more fearful as Hallam spoke the words.

“Hal, you can’t go in there!” Dakota hit back. “The reactor shielding is cracked, and the drive is already running hot. The radiation will kill you!”

Hallam already knew this, but it didn’t change what he had to do, and why he had to be the one to do it. “It’s the only way, Dak. If I don’t, then we both die.”

Dakota shook her head. “Then we draw straws or toss a coin to see who goes,” she argued, but Hallam held firm.

“Dak, I saw that the fuel system was out of whack as soon as we departed the Centrum,” said Hallam with a regretful tone. “I saw it and I did nothing.” Then his head dropped low. “No, it was worse than that. I saw it, and I just skulked off to my bunk without saying a word.”

“Hal, this isn’t your fault…” Dakota began, but Hallam had made up his mind.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Hallam answered. “It has to be done. And since we don’t have any straws or coins, and you don’t know one end of a Shelby Drive from another, I get the duty.”

Dakota was about to argue back again, but Hallam had already launched himself from the arm of the seat toward the cockpit door. He caught the frame, barely, and felt his knees slam into the metal wall. He bit down against the shooting agony rushing through his body and began climbing.

He heard Dakota shouting after him to stop but continued on, dragging his body up and into the corridor. It was still tilted by ninety degrees, due to the distorted gravity well caused by the malfunctioning Shelby Drive. With his knees stinging, Hallam then ran along the corridor, stumbling every few meters as the tanker continued to shudder and twist under the strain, until he reached the door to the engineering section.

The door was locked, and Hallam reached for the emergency release lever. He swallowed hard as he saw the bright red ring of light surrounding it – a light that meant the compartment was flooded with dangerous levels of Randenite radiation. Hallam looked back, seeing Dakota calling out to him from inside the cockpit, but her words were consumed by the noise of the ship being torn apart. He tried to put her out of his mind, just as he tried to put the red ring of light out of his mind, but there was no escaping the consequences of what he had to do. Hallam closed his eyes and yanked down hard on the release handle.

The door slid open and Hallam was assaulted by yet more alarms, on top of the calamitous racket from the Shelby Drive, which was on the verge of melting down. He darted inside and slammed the button to close the door before turning the manual locking ring to ensure it couldn’t be opened again. Through the porthole window, he could see the door to the cockpit also closing – an emergency protocol when radiation was detected in the central corridor. Like it or not, there was no going back now, Hallam realized.

Running over to the main Shelby Drive assembly, Hallam activated the internal comm and patched himself through to Dakota in the cockpit.

“Dak, I’m inside,” he called out, having to shout nearly at the top of his voice to be heard over the din. “I’m going to access the Shelby Drive and try to manually cut the fuel supply.”

“Hal, get out of there!” he heard Dakota cry back, though her voice was crackly and muted. “We’ll find another way.”

“There’s no time; just sit tight and you’ll get out of this alive,” Hallam shouted back, working furiously to remove an access panel to the fueling system.

His idea was to manually activate the fuel shut-off valve, in the hope that starving the Shelby Drive of Randenite would cause it to stall and kick them back into normal space. In truth, he had no idea if it would work, or even if such a valve existed in the tanker’s fuel system. All he had were some vague memories of Shelby Drive operation lectures he’d sat in at the CSF training academy. It was thin, but it was all he had to go on.

Hallam tossed the access panel to the deck as the ship was rocked by another series of hard shocks. He grabbed on to the drive housing to steady himself as the sound of bulkheads and armor plates creaking and buckling echoed around the room. He heard Dakota’s voice again over the comm, but the words were distorted and indistinct. Pulling himself back toward the drive assembly, he dove inside, looking for something he might be able to recognize, but the internals of the tanker’s Shelby Drive were a million light years away from anything he’d studied.

With desperation taking hold, Hallam was about to start grabbing at random wires and pulling, but then he noticed something that looked out of place. It was a small black box, attached to one of the control boards, but stuck on at an angle that made it look foreign to Hallam’s eyes. Instinctively, he reached in and closed his fingers around it, yanking the device away from the board. Immediately, the strained pitch of the Shelby Drive altered and he could feel the vibrations through the deck lessening, if only by a fraction.

“You did it!” Hallam heard Dakota yell over the comm. “I have control again. Stand by…”

Hallam waited and the rapid pulse of the Shelby Drive abruptly stopped and he was thrown to the front of the compartment like a rag doll. When he came to his senses again, more alarms were ringing out, and there was a heavy thumping reverberating through his back. Then he thought he heard voices and called out to Dakota, but the muffled cry he heard in reply didn’t sound like it had come through over the comm.

The thumping came again, and Hallam managed to push himself back to his feet, clawing against the wall for support. Then he realized what the cause of the banging was; Dakota Wulfrun was outside the door of the engineering compartment, hammering against the thick porthole window.

“Hal, it worked, we’re back in normal space!” Dakota yelled, though her words barely carried into the compartment. “But the ship is crippled, and the hull is buckling. We have to jettison before there’s a breach.”

Hallam looked down at the door release lever; the surrounding panel of lights was still bright red. He knew that if he opened the door, all it would do was condemn Dakota to death too.

“Dak, you have to go without me,” Hallam shouted, though his throat felt sore and his head was still pounding despite Dakota having stopped thumping the door. “If I leave this compartment, you’ll be exposed too.”

“We can get you help,” Dakota yelled back. Hallam could see her trying to haul back on the door release lever on the opposite side, but with the manual locking ring activated, it was impossible to open the door. “We can get you to a hospital!”

Hallam shook his head, “Dak, we don’t even know where the hell we are. Our Shelby Drive is busted, and even if our escort fighter managed to drop out of bridge space close by, it will be hours before we’re picked up and flown back to the Centrum. We both know I’ll be dead long before then.”

The creaks and groans emanating from the tanker’s battered hull grew louder, then another alarm blared out in the cabin. Hallam knew by its pitch and pattern that it signified a hull breach. They were out of time. He knew it, and as he met Dakota’s eyes for the final time, he knew that she did too.

“Dak, you have to go, please,” Hallam called out, though his voice was giving up, along with his body. “If you don’t make it out, then I did this for nothing.” Hallam managed a weak smile and slipped back down to the deck with his back pressed against the metal.

Hallam could no longer hear Dakota’s cries, but the thuds resonating through his bones told him she was still hammering against the door.

“Go!” Hallam called out, but his cry was nothing more than a croak. He drifted in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of the alarms still blaring out around him. Then the thump of fists pounding against metal finally stopped, and Hallam smiled. Thank you, Dak, he said to himself, grateful that at least one of them would live.

Hallam sighed and closed his eyes. All he could do now was wait for the tanker to finally collapse, and for the emptiness of Darkspace to consume him.

10

The alarms inside the engineering section of Hallam’s stricken armored tanker continued to blare out, but the sounds were now merging into one long drone that his mind had filtered out. The aches and pains in his body had also grown more acute, but compared to the agony of waiting for the ship to implode and expel his lifeless body into the void, his physical injuries were inconsequential. Soon he would be dead, and suddenly, the stark realization of this fact hit him like an uppercut.

Hallam had never contemplated his death before, but now that it waited for him only a short time in the future, he felt no sense of comfort or relief. All he felt was disillusionment, not at his failures and mistakes, but at the fact that he’d not pulled his thumb out of his ass and done more with his potential. He knew he could have done so much more with his life, but now he would never have the chance to prove himself. Even when it came to dying, Hallam was a disappointment, he realized.

For a time, Hallam simply drifted in and out of consciousness, slipping between absurd dreams and his even more absurd reality. He dreamed of being back in his apartment in the Consortium residential block on Vesta. He was hiding under a table as the building was rocked by a mighty earthquake, so powerful that the walls began to fold in around him. It was strange, not only because there was no seismic activity on the continent where he lived, but also because, for reasons unknown, there was a large Shelby Drive installed where his TV used to be.

Over the next few minutes or hours – time had become a blur, along with everything else – Hallam continued to drift in and out of consciousness. Yet, even during his periods of wakefulness, he was plagued with feverish hallucinations, so that soon Hallam was unable to tell the difference between being awake and dreaming. One moment he was in the engineering section of the tanker, and the next he was floating along the central corridor, as if carried on a cloud. He looked up and saw Dakota Wulfrun staring back at him, smiling, as if nothing was wrong. Then the image of her changed and he was instead confronted with a faceless figure in a dark, black helmet. He screamed, but like the blare of the alarms, his frightened shouts just merged into the background drone that his mind had already blocked out.

Hallam struggled, fighting against the invisible forces that seemed to be pressing down on his shoulders and legs before a sudden sharp pain in his neck paralyzed him. The helmeted black figure appeared above him again, dark and threatening, and continued to stare down at Hallam as his breath gave way and the corridor around him faded to nothing.

11

Hallam opened his eyes and found himself lying in a bed and staring up at a corrugated metal ceiling. There were no violent rumbles or shimmies shaking the room, and there was no sound, besides the regular bleep, bleep, bleep of a machine he could see to his side. He raised his arm and saw that there was an IV line inserted into it, with the tubes snaking off into the machine, plus a dozen or so wires connected to various parts of his head and chest. He should have felt relieved to be alive, assuming he wasn’t already in some bizarre version of an afterlife, but something about the situation felt off.

Sitting up in the bed, he discovered he was wearing a medical gown and that he was in what appeared to be a small hospital ward, though it didn’t look like any hospital he’d ever seen before. The equipment looked new and sophisticated, but the room itself was rudimentary, almost like the inside of an industrial unit or freighter. Even more curiously, he was the only one there.

The strange, almost eerie location, plus the unexplained nature of how he had got there, continued to fuel a sense of uneasiness. Hallam’s instincts told him to leave, but as he reached down to remove the numerous pads connected to his skin, a woman dressed in blue medical scrubs walked in through an open door opposite his bed. She stopped abruptly and her eyes widened, either in shock or fear, then she darted back outside again without uttering a word.

Hallam had only spent time in hospital once in his life, after a Darkspace Renegade attack three years ago left him with a collapsed lung. He didn’t remember too much about his stay, other than the crushing boredom of waiting to be discharged. However, one thing he did know for sure was that no doctor or nurse he’d encountered then had ever run away immediately after seeing him sitting upright in bed.

Hallam’s fight or flight response had now fully kicked in, and he tore out the IV and ripped away the wires before sliding off the bed. The metal floor was ice cold, and the sudden chill stole the breath from his lungs. He looked around for his boots, or any kind of footwear, but there was nothing in sight. With panic starting to take over, he ran to a nearby cupboard, though his legs almost gave way underneath him, and flung open the doors, before rifling through the contents, looking for something more substantial to wear.

“I’m afraid we had to burn your clothing,” said a female voice with a measured, authoritative tone, like that of a professor. “Because of the radiation, you see.”

Hallam twisted to face the new arrival, slamming the door of the cupboard shut, as if trying to hide the fact that he had been snooping around inside.

“I apologize if I or my associate startled you,” the woman added casually. “To say that we don’t get many visitors here would be something of an understatement.”

Hallam could now see that this woman was different from the first, who had bolted at the sight of him. She was older, perhaps in her late fifties, Hallam guessed, and was dressed in a pair of dark, utilitarian pants with a matching jacket. To Hallam’s eyes, they looked vaguely military but bore no emblems or insignia. They also did not suit her, Hallam thought idly.

“I did find this in your jacket pocket, however,” the woman continued, holding up the small device that Hallam had removed from the armored tanker’s Shelby Drive system. “It is a very sophisticated piece of technology, and also what was responsible for your unfortunate accident.”

“Sabotage?” wondered Hallam, propping himself up against the cupboard for support. The surge of adrenaline was wearing off, and he was already feeling his strength ebb away. “Are you suggesting that Darkspace Renegades sabotaged the tanker while it was docked at the Centrum?”

The woman shook her head. “Not renegades,” she said, sounding entirely confident in her assertion. “Though who was responsible is a mystery I would very much like the answer to.”

Hallam laughed. “You and I both.” He then stepped away from the cupboard and stood beside his bed, grabbing the footboard to steady himself. His legs were weary, though he felt no pain.

“Where exactly am I?” Hallam asked, beginning with the most obvious question first. “The last thing I remember, I was sealed in the engineering section of my tanker, which was about to tear itself apart.”

“Yes, that’s where we found you, though to say we were surprised to discover you were still alive would be another understatement,” the woman answered. Hallam noted that she had conveniently avoided answering his question. “Your tanker drifted into the gravity well of this planet, and by another incredible freak of chance, it ended up in orbit around it.”

Suddenly, Hallam remembered about Dakota and panic set in again, wondering if she had made it out before he had been rescued.

“Wait, there was someone else with me,” Hallam said, his tone rising sharply. “She was the tanker’s pilot; her name is Dakota. Did you see her? Did she jettison safely? Is she here too?”

The woman thought for a moment, puckering her lips as she did so, before finally shaking her head gently. “There was no one else on-board when we got there,” she eventually answered, and the words felt to Hallam like a kick in the gut. “One of the disaster pods was missing, but I’m afraid we didn’t detect any distress signals.”

Hallam nodded, feeling the knot in his gut tighten. He knew it was possible the CSF escort had doubled-back and picked her up, but it was equally possible Dakota’s pod was still out there, lost in the void. He had a sudden urge to leave and go looking for her.

“I need to get out of here. Dak could still be out there,” Hallam said, taking an uneasy step toward the door before his legs buckled. He grasped the footboard of the bed just in time to prevent himself from falling flat on his face.

“I have people out looking already,” the woman said as she cautiously entered the room. However, instead of approaching Hallam directly, she circled around to the opposite side of the bed, leaving several meters between them. “You’re in no condition to conduct a rescue mission, as I’m sure you’re beginning to appreciate.”

Hallam watched the woman intently as she drew closer, still wary of his mysterious benefactor. She wore her years well, Hallam thought as the woman moved under the harsh strip lights of the ward, affording him a closer look at her face. There was a gravitas about her appearance, despite the casual manner in which she’d addressed him. Yet the worry lines on her kindly-looking face also hinted at a sense of loss.

“You were quite a find,” the woman went on, as if she was describing discovering some loose change down the back of a sofa. Her tone was sociable and she did not appear threatening, which helped to ease Hallam’s anxiety, as well as his pulse. “Considering the level of Randenite radiation you were exposed to, I gave you a ninety-eight-percent chance of dying,” she continued, sitting down on the edge of the bed adjacent to Hallam’s. “However, I decided to treat you using a regenerative cell technology I developed, with some untested gene therapy and genetic engineering treatments thrown in for good measure,” she added, idly tucking in the corner of the bedsheet with slender, expressive fingers as she talked. “All of it was wildly experimental and extremely dangerous, of course, but since you were going to die anyway, I considered there was nothing to lose from making the attempt.”

The nonchalant way in which she had described using Hallam as a laboratory guinea pig almost caused him to laugh out loud.

“Well, whatever you did seems to have worked, so I guess I should be thanking you for saving my life,” Hallam said. “Although, if you don't mind, it would be nice to know who I’m thanking, and where the hell I am.”

The woman sighed, then clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, making a sort of tutting sound.

“Yes, well that is a little difficult to explain,” she said while looking at Hallam through the top of her laser-blue eyes. “You see, I also didn’t believe you’d survive the treatment, yet here you are, alive and well. And now I’m in a quandary as to what to do about it.”

There was something about the woman that Hallam found oddly familiar, but he couldn’t quite place why. It was like she was someone he’d once met at a party, years ago, but had never seen since. Yet, although she had been friendly and seemed non-threatening, Hallam was growing weary of being kept in the dark.

“Look, I’m grateful that you saved my life, but I think I’m owed some answers,” said Hallam, taking on a more assertive tone. He then gestured to the room they were in, “For starters, what is this place? It doesn’t look like a regular hospital. And why did that nurse or doctor or whoever she was freak out when she saw me?”

The woman studied Hallam for a moment, perhaps thrown by the sudden gear-switch in his attitude. She remained seated on the edge of the bed opposite but stopped toying with the bedsheet and rested her hands on the thighs of her military-style pants.

“I’ll answer your questions, but first, I’d like you to answer some of mine,” she said, also taking on a more assertive tone. Hallam was about to complain again, but the woman headed him off, “I’m sorry for being so evasive, and I promise all will become clear in time. I ask that you indulge me for a moment, if that is okay?”

Hallam moved around to face the woman, then also sat down on the edge of his bed. Partly, this was to appear less standoffish, but mostly, it was because his legs felt like dead weights.

“Okay, since I don’t know where I am and so can’t go anywhere anyway, I’ll indulge you. For now,” Hallam answered, aware that his bare, hairy knees were now sticking out beneath the hem of his gown. He felt suddenly exposed, which put him even more on edge.

“Why did you not file a complaint against your superior after you were dishonorably discharged from the CSF advanced training academy?”

Hallam shot upright, as if the bed had just jolted him in the backside with an electric shock. “What? How the hell do you know about that?” he answered, feeling attacked.

“I know all about you and your life, Mr. Hallam Knight,” the woman replied as casually as ever. “What I’m curious about is what you intend to do with the rest of it, now that you have been given a second chance?”

Hallam suddenly felt like he was about to throw up. “How do you know my name?” he demanded before rapidly backing away, knocking into the bed and causing it to screech agonizingly across the cold metal floor. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but I want out, right now!”

“You’re free to go as soon as you’ve answered my questions,” said the woman, remaining calm with her hands still pressed neatly onto her thighs. “Your record shows that you were an excellent CSF candidate,” she went on. “Top of your class. An exceptional pilot, with keen instincts, and also a strong moral compass. You stuck up for your classmates, despite knowing what it would cost; that was noble.”

“For all the good it did me,” said Hallam with his back now pressed against the wall. “Where are you going with this? Why do you give a damn about my crappy life?”

The woman also stood up, but she didn’t advance toward Hallam, and he wasn’t sure what he’d have done if she had.

“The Consortium ruined your life, Mr. Knight, and you let them,” the woman said with a sudden frostiness that made it seem like a personal attack.

“I didn’t let them,” Hallam hit back, growing angry at being interrogated by this stranger. She may have saved his life, but that didn’t give her the right to attack his life choices. “What was I supposed to do?” he added, becoming defensive. “I’m just one man against the richest, most powerful organization in the galaxy. The Consortium is practically above the law; I’m just an ant they chose to step on.”

Unexpectedly, the woman smiled. “So what if you could step on the Consortium for a change? Would you?”

Hallam snorted. “An eye for an eye?”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s not who I am,” Hallam answered, growing in confidence. “I don’t want payback; I never did. I wanted justice, for me and for the other people that asshole Dexter Stone abused, either mentally or physically. The Consortium shouldn’t have been allowed to do what they did, and I’m sure they’ve done the same or worse to hundreds or thousands of others. But I’m also not stupid enough to think I can do anything about it.”

“It is not stupid to believe that you can make a difference, Mr. Knight,” the woman answered with composed conviction. “And it is also not foolish to want to either.”

Hallam stepped away from the wall and walked up to the woman. His shock at her knowing his name and his life story had worn off, and now he’d had enough of being torn into by someone he didn’t even know.

“I’ve answered your questions,” Hallam said, standing tall, despite his legs and back burning from the effort. “Now it’s time you answered some of mine, starting with who you are.”

The woman folded her arms and idly fidgeted with the collar of her jacket as she pondered whether or not to answer the question. For something as straightforward as giving her name, Hallam wondered why it was taking her so long to decide. Then he got his answer, and it nearly knocked him off his feet.

“My name is Doctor Shelby Rand.”

12

The revelation that his rescuer was Dr. Shelby Rand had knocked the wind from Hallam’s sails, like a swift punch to the groin. However, as soon as the scientist had said it, Hallam knew she was telling the truth. It didn’t matter that the enigmatic genius had been dead for ten years; she was still the most famous woman in the galaxy. Her hairstyle had changed, and she was obviously a decade older than in the last photo she had posed for, but Hallam could clearly see it was her, right down to the small beauty mark on the left side of her mouth. It was so obvious that he kicked himself for not having seen it sooner. Though, in fairness, Hallam had to remind himself that dead people usually remain dead, rather than turning up on some mystery planet, deep in the Darkspace.

The shock announcement had also proved to be enough of an ice breaker for them to move their discussion beyond the small hospital ward where Hallam had woken up. Dr. Rand had provided Hallam with some clothes – the same style of jacket and trousers that she was wearing – and led him to a small canteen area. Hallam could see that there were dirty mugs and plates on the dozen or so tables inside, and guessed that the room had been purposely cleared of other people before their arrival. Hallam got the distinct feeling that their location was just as much of a secret as Shelby Rand’s existence.

“I have about a million questions,” Hallam began as Dr. Rand brought a glass of water to the table, then sat down opposite.

“I don’t doubt it,” said Dr. Rand while crossing her legs and resting her hands on her thigh. “Maybe it’s just better if I give you the condensed version, though, for the sake of time, and our sanity.”

Hudson snorted, surprised at her directness, but then shrugged and sat back in the chair. “Okay, I’ll hear what you have to say,” he said, picking up the glass of water and raising it to his lips. “But I’ll still have some questions.”

“You’re in a Darkspace Renegade hideout,” Dr. Rand began, and Hallam spat out the water that he’d just poured into his mouth, spraying the table with a fine mist. Dr. Rand scowled at the mess and grabbed a napkin to mop it up. “To be more precise, you are on an installation built on the surface of a moon, orbiting a rogue planet. We have several such installations; I just so happened to be visiting this one, when your tanker was captured by the planet’s gravity well.”

“A Darkspace Renegade hideout?” Hallam repeated, but the words sounded no less insane coming out of his mouth than they had from Dr. Rand’s. “But they’re terrorists and killers! Why the hell have you brought me here?”

Shelby finished mopping up Hallam’s spittle and tossed the napkin into the center of the table. “The Darkspace Renegades aren’t what you believe them to be, Mr. Knight,” she went on, returning to her previous, cross-legged position. “We’re not fanatics, trying to curtail humanity’s reach into the stars for purely dogmatic reasons. There is far more at stake here than you know.”

“Wait, you’re their leader?” Hallam said, suddenly understanding why no one had heard anything from the genius scientist for the last ten years. “The cyberattack on the Randenite refineries, and the attacks on the tankers; that was all down to you?”

Dr. Rand nodded calmly. “Yes, all of it.”

“But why?” Hallam said, feeling like he’d just stepped through a dimensional gateway into a messed-up parallel universe. “You invented Randenite and the Shelby Drive; they’re even named after you! The discovery of the bridges and all of these new worlds; it’s all because of you. Why the hell would you try to tear it all down?”

Dr. Rand sat forward, leaning in toward Hallam with her hands pressed onto the table. “Because unless I stop all travel along the bridges, there won’t be any bridge worlds left to travel to,” she said with a sudden intensity. “And there won’t be an Earth. At least, no Earth as it is now.”

Dr. Rand’s eyes remained locked on to Hallam’s, and suddenly, she looked like a different person. The casually aloof stranger who had greeted him in the hospital ward had been replaced with a woman who looked hungry for a fight. The military-style clothes she was wearing now seemed to suit her a whole lot better, Hallam realized. However, it wasn’t just the change in her posture and tone that had got Hallam’s attention; her words had rattled him too.

“Okay, Dr. Rand, I'm all ears,” said Hallam, sitting more upright. “Let’s hear it.”

Dr. Rand also sat back, but her posture remained rigid and there was still fire behind her eyes. “Thirty-six years ago, I commanded a mission to Mars,” she began, adding with a subtle eyebrow raise, “You’ve probably heard about it.”

“Yeah, at school,” Hallam replied. “Everyone knows what you did, Doc. You’re just about the most famous person in history.”

Dr. Rand managed a weak smile, but then her expression shifted again, and Hallam recognized the same look of loss he’d spotted when they first met. “The truth is that very few people actually know what I did, Mr. Knight,” she said ominously. “The broad strokes of the public story are correct, but the devil – quite literally in this case – is in the details.”

Now it was Hallam that leaned in, arms rested on the table. His penchant for gossip was overriding any lingering fears; he felt like Arthur Dent, waiting to learn the answer to the ultimate question.

“We found an alien probe on Mars,” Dr. Rand continued, and Hallam felt a shiver run down his spine. “It had crashed, presumably as a result of malfunction, but it was intact. I was still at base camp at the time it was found, working on some core samples. That is the only reason I’m still alive, and the rest of my team are dead.”

Hallam frowned, but then the pieces suddenly clicked into place. “The alien probe was the source of your inventions?” he said. “It’s how you learned about bridge travel and how you discovered Randenite?”

Dr. Rand nodded. “Unfortunately, by the time we detected the radiation leaking from the probe’s drive core and placed it in shielded storage, it was already too late for my crew,” she went on, her eyes dropping to the table. “I didn’t realize how severe their exposure was at the time.”

Hallam rubbed his stubbled chin and shook his head gently in disbelief at what he was hearing. “So the interstellar bridges, Randenite and the Shelby Drive technology were all derived from this broken alien probe?” he asked.

Again, Dr. Rand nodded. “It was all kept strictly confidential, of course,” she continued. “Damien Doyle didn’t want anyone to know what we had, and he made sure that only I worked on the project to minimize the chance of anyone stealing the secrets I’d discovered.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t consider it yourself,” said Hallam, managing a thin smile of his own. “That information ended up being worth trillions.”

“All in, it is more likely to be in the quadrillion range,” Dr. Rand corrected him. “However, I didn’t care about money then, and I still don’t,” the scientist continued, sounding a little insulted by the insinuation. “I just cared about the work. It was everything to me; everything I’d ever dreamed of. It was like an addiction.” Then her eyes fell low again. “Which is why I didn’t stop, even when I began to suspect the damage my discoveries were causing.”

Hallam’s mouth was dry and he took another sip of water, managing to swallow it that time, without spraying it back out on the table. “The only damage I’ve seen is what your renegade fighters have done,” he said. He was still eager to hear more of Dr. Rand’s story, but at the same time, he hadn’t forgotten that her band of outlaws had almost killed him twice in the last few days alone.

“The damage is not something you can see, at least not yet,” Dr. Rand answered, her tone becoming darker and more intense again. “The Shelby Drive I built was based on the original bridge drive system in the alien probe. But the probe was damaged and so I had to improvise. The probe also used materials and manufacturing processes that I simply could not replicate. In short, Mr. Knight, my drive was a hatchet job.”

Hallam laughed at the absurdity of what Dr. Rand had just said. “Come on, Doc. There are hundreds of your drives powering ships that travel along the bridges every day. I’ve flown in tankers for years, and those drives always purr like kittens.”

“I didn’t say the drives don’t work,” Dr. Rand answered, again a little peevishly. “A coal-fired power station 'works', and so do old internal-combustion engines. The problem, as with those archaic technologies, is the damage the Shelby Drives are doing.”

Hallam frowned. “I didn’t have you down as an eco-warrior,” he said, responding to Dr. Rand’s petulant tone with matching crabbiness. “Is that what this is all about? Reducing ‘Randenite emissions’?” Hallam laughed at his own joke, but the scientist was less than impressed.

“Since I’m obviously struggling to put this into words that you can take seriously, allow me to explain in a more visual manner,” said Dr. Rand while plucking a palm computer out of one of her many pockets. She activated the device and a holo-projection appeared a few meters to the left of their table. “This is a map of the bridge worlds and the interlinking bridges.”

Hallam nodded; it was a rudimentary map he’d seen a million times before, as it was used for basic route planning. He’d memorized the network of bridges long ago, though, so he'd had no cause to look at it recently.

Dr. Rand tapped the screen of her palm computer, and the bridges all changed color. Some were a light green, others were yellow going into orange, and some appeared to be turning red. This was something new to Hallam, and the colors meant nothing to him. However, the more he looked at the projection, the more he realized that the darker oranges and reds seemed to correspond to the more frequently-traveled routes.

“I’m guessing this shows average traffic flow, right?” mused Hallam. “The routes to some of the newer outer bridge planets tend to be busiest, because of all the resource mining.” Then he saw that the route to the leisure planet, Feronia, was also a dark orange, and he snorted a laugh. “And I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that traffic to the ‘Vegas Strip that never ends’ is so high either.”

“This isn’t showing traffic flow, though there is a direct correlation,” said Dr. Rand, tapping on the palm computer again and zooming in on the bridge from the Centrum to Minerva. “This illustrates how close the bridges are to collapsing. And when they do, the repercussions will be catastrophic.”

Hallam felt another tingle rush down his spine, “Catastrophic how?” he asked, slightly wary of what the answer was going to be. Dr. Rand’s expression had become grave, as if she’d just been given a terminal diagnosis.

“When these bridges collapse – and it is a case of when, not if – they will create ruptures in space that are millions of miles long,” Dr. Rand replied, delivering the words with a cold clinicality. “The ruptures will alter the physics of the surrounding space, creating distortions in the gravitational field of any system of planets connected to the bridge. Planetary orbits will become unpredictable. The mass of an object will no longer have a constant relationship to its gravitational field. At best, the distortions will adjust the orbital paths of stellar bodies. At worst, planets will be thrown into their own suns, or cast out into the Darkspace, or simply torn apart from the new stresses.”

Dr. Rand tapped the palm computer again, and Hallam watched as the holo-image appeared to simulate the collapse of the bridge between the Centrum and Minerva. Almost instantly, the orbits of the planets started to shift in ways that made no sense. One planet was consumed by the Minervan sun, while two more collided, like giant pool balls, smashing each other into billions of pieces. It was terrifying to watch, but at the same time, Hallam couldn’t tear his eyes away from the display.

“And you’re saying this is all because of your Shelby Drive?” Hallam asked, feeling embarrassed that he’d acted like such an ass with Dr. Rand up to that point.

The scientist nodded. “Unless I can stop ships travelling along the bridges, they will eventually all collapse. And when they do, the system of bridge worlds will be destroyed. And so will Earth.” She switched off the holo with a single tap of her finger and sat back again. “It is only a matter of time.”

Hallam blew out a long, dispirited breath and pressed his hands behind his head. As bombshells went, Dr. Rand had dropped a thermonuclear-sized whopper, and he had no idea how to process or make sense of this new information. He still had a dozen other questions, but one in particular had jostled its way to the front of his addled brain.

“So why the hell doesn’t anyone know about this?” Hallam asked, still hugging the back of his neck. “Why haven’t you gone public?”

“That’s the first thing I tried,” replied Dr. Rand as she slipped the palm computer back into her pocket. “I went to Doyle and the Consortium, but they merely dismissed the evidence as theoretical.” Then she shrugged and added, “Though the real reason was that shutting down bridge travel would ruin them. Their entire business now revolves around Randenite and the ability to traverse the bridges. They don’t care about anything else.”

This made perfect sense to Hallam. He’d experienced the Consortium’s utter disregard for anything other than their own interests first hand.

“And as for going public, Doyle controls the media. It didn’t matter how I approached them, I was debunked as a hoax, an impersonator, or a prankster.” Rand then smiled and shrugged. “There are rumors, of course; if you search the darker corners of the BridgeNet, there are about a hundred conspiracy theories about what happened to me and the origins of Randenite. If you piece together parts from a dozen different theories, you actually get to the truth. But only the tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorists believe it. It’s no different from the theories about the moon landings, or JFK or Area 69. I’m just another myth.”

Hallam smiled. “Looks like this time the conspiracy theorists actually got it right, though.”

“For all the good it has done,” Dr. Rand replied. “The truth is, the only way to really reach the mass public is for me to get direct access to the BridgeNet broadcast network, but I’m sure you know who controls that too?”

Hallam sighed. “Yeah, I think I can figure it out.”

“I’ve tried hacking into the BridgeNet, but it’s too well locked down, and even now I haven’t found any way to circumvent their safeguards. As a result, any attempt by me to expose the truth is blocked or automatically erased by the Consortium’s expansive cyber defense network. And if I decided to show my face publicly, on any bridge world, I would have been swiftly captured and made to disappear, if you take my meaning,” Rand went on. Hallam didn’t need the scientist to elaborate; he knew precisely what she meant and didn’t doubt that she was accurate either. “So I was left with only one option. To stop bridge travel, I had to destroy everything to do with my research. And if it wasn’t for the Centrum, it would have worked. But there’s no way to penetrate that fortress, at least not until now.”

Hallam stood up, feeling the need to move. If he’d sat down for any longer, the build-up of nervous energy might have caused him to rupture, like one of the bridges.

“You can’t get to the Centrum, so that’s why you have the Darkspace Renegades target Randenite tankers instead?” Hallam asked. The whole picture was starting to make sense now.

“I’m not proud of it, but I’m afraid it’s a numbers game,” Dr. Rand replied. “There are still over a hundred tankers left in service and around five hundred bridge runners in total. Five hundred souls weighed against tens of billions, Mr. Knight. It’s an ugly calculation, but it’s the only one that solves the problem.”

“Some of those people are my friends,” Hallam hit back, disliking the way Dr. Rand had distilled people’s lives into a simple numbers game. “Damn it, Doc, one of the lives you’re casually dismissing is mine.”

Dr. Rand now also stood and moved to face Hallam. She seemed suddenly eager, as if desperate to reveal a dirty little secret.

“So now that you know, what if you could do something about it?” Dr. Rand asked, locking her sharp, intelligent eyes onto Hallam’s. “If you could help to destroy the Centrum, stop the bridges from collapsing, and prevent the need to attack any more tankers, would you step up?”

“Of course I would!” answered Hallam in an instant. The speed with which he’d essentially agreed to help the band of renegades surprised even himself, and it was a second or two before he could collect his thoughts enough to continue. “But what can I do that you haven’t already tried? I’m just a bridge runner.”

“You’re much more than that, Mr. Knight,” said Shelby with the most enthusiasm he’d seen from her since they had met. “And I don’t just mean because of your thus-far utterly wasted potential.”

Hallam snorted; it was one thing to be self-deprecating, but quite another to have someone you only just met lay down some hard home truths.

“Some combination of your exposure to Randenite radiation on the tanker and my highly experimental treatments, have caused your cell biology to become resistant,” Dr. Rand continued, either unaware of or indifferent to Hallam’s bruised ego. “In essence, through a true freak of chance, you have become the first radioresistant human being in existence.”

Hallam frowned. “That’s great, I think, but it helps you how exactly?”

Dr. Rand now looked even more ardent. “Because it means you may be the only person alive who can get me the one thing I need to destroy the Centrum, once and for all.”

“I’ll probably regret asking, but what’s that?” Hallam replied, feeling his pulse quicken again, through a mix of nerves and anticipation.

Dr. Rand continued to hold Hallam’s eyes with a fervent intensity before finally answering, “I need you to find and steal the original alien probe I discovered all those years ago and bring it to me.”

13

The roar of the transport’s thrusters firing let Hallam know that they were about to touch down. His destination was the principal Consortium headquarters campus on Vesta; his home for the five years he’d been a bridge runner. While he waited for the transport to arrive on stand, Hallam continued to roll the communicator disc back and forth over his knuckles, as if he were entertaining a small child with a clever coin trick. There was nobody in the seat next to him; the exercise simply helped Hallam to think. His mind had been unable to stop racing with thoughts of the secrets he’d learned, and the choices he still needed to make.

The disc was another one of Dr. Rand’s genius inventions, though like the Shelby Drive, it had been adapted from tech salvaged from the alien probe. It was a secure, two-way communications device that propagated electromagnetic signals through bridge space. As such, its range and rate of transmission was simply astonishing, allowing Dr. Rand to call him from millions of miles away, as easily as if she were on the same planet. Dr. Rand had given him the disc before they’d parted ways on the Darkspace Renegade hideout as a means to contact him once he’d had a chance to consider her proposal. A proposal that would inevitably lead him down the path to becoming a rebel; a Darkspace Renegade.

Hallam and Dr. Rand had talked some more before the scientist had agreed to send him back into civilization, and this had allowed Hallam to obtain answers to a few more of his lingering questions. In particular, Dr. Rand had explained how Hallam’s novel radioresistant biology put him in a unique position. It meant that Hallam was the only person alive who could safely remove a key component she needed from the radioactive alien probe without requiring a full-blown hazard suit to even get near it. Dr. Rand hadn’t gone as far as revealing why she needed the probe, despite Hallam pushing for more answers. And she’d either ducked or responded cagily to a number of his other questions too, including how many Darkspace Renegade hideouts there were, exactly how large her rebel band was, and whether the mythical thirteenth bridge planet she supposedly died trying to find actually existed or not.

Hallam hadn’t taken these rebuttals personally, though. He was as much of an unknown to Dr. Rand as the Dr. Rand was to Hallam. Neither had earned the other’s full confidence yet, although if Hallam was honest, the scientist had placed significantly more trust in him than Hallam had afforded her. The mere revelation of her identity and her desire to recover the probe were significant pieces of information that he was sure the Consortium would find of great interest. Hallam didn’t know why he had merited her blind faith, but in a strange way, it made him feel good to know that someone of Shelby Rand’s caliber considered him worthy. It had been the first time he’d felt valued and significant since the disgrace of being kicked out of the CSF.

On the flipside, even if he had revealed his recent experiences to the Consortium, he doubted anyone would have believed him anyway. As Dr. Rand had pointed out, there were already far wilder stories about her survival and current whereabouts circulating on the BridgeNet. One tinfoil-hat theory even had “proof” that Dr. Rand had mutated into a four-armed human/alien hybrid, and was living in the catacombs of Carmentis, preparing to raise a mutant army to enslave the human race.

Despite everything Dr. Rand had said, though, Hallam hadn’t been ready to become a full-blown renegade quite yet. He needed time to think about everything the scientist had told him and work out what he wanted to do. Back in the hideout, Hallam’s “I need time…” line had simply been a way to stall Dr. Rand so that he could return to civilization and some sense of normality. He wasn’t a rebel and he certainly didn’t want to court trouble with the Consortium. Furthermore, even though he’d been genuinely persuaded that the ticking time-bomb of bridge travel had to be dealt with, Hallam lacked Dr. Rand’s conviction that he could be a part of the solution.

What a difference forty-eight hours had made, Hallam thought to himself as he flipped the communicator disc back and forth over his fingers. The trip back to Vesta had afforded him ample time to ponder his options, as well as his life choices, many of which Hallam knew had been poor. And the more he thought about what Dr. Rand had said, the more he felt a compulsion to do something about it. The scientist’s offhand comment about his “utterly wasted potential” had a large part to do with this, Hallam knew. Her comment had cut deeply and stuck in his mind, like an infuriatingly-catchy pop song. Perhaps it had been Dr. Rand’s intention to give him a kick up the ass and stop him feeling sorry for himself. Lord knows he needed one.

The transport touched down and the pressure door opened, filling the stale cabin with the warm, fragrant air of Vesta’s largest southern continent. Like everything that the Consortium’s Chairman and CEO, Damien Doyle, purchased, his HQ’s location on Vesta was the height of luxury, and in the most opulent location imaginable.

Hallam stepped off the transport and walked down the narrow metal staircase, sucking in long, deep breaths. He’d breathed nothing but recycled air for the past week, and the taste and smell of real air was a welcome tonic. Then he spotted a man and a woman waiting off to the side of the arrival door, and sighed. From the style and cut of their suits, and the rigid, mannequin-esque way in which they stood, he knew at once that they were Consortium investigators. Hallam had been debriefed by similar suited members of the Consortium Investigation Branch several times before, after other instances where his tanker had suffered damage during a Darkspace Renegade attack. However, he’d never before been faced with having to explain the loss of an entire tanker, and its precious cargo, and so expected this interview to be far more hostile.

“Hallam Knight?” said the woman, who Hallam could see from the three silver bars on her lapel was the lead investigator. It gave her a rank equivalent to Chief Inspector in a civilian police force; not that the Consortium Investigation Branch ever referred to ranks. They didn’t even use their real names, preferring code names instead. Hallam had always considered this to be trite and even a little silly, but he still couldn’t help feeling a nervous twinge in his gut as the woman spoke his name.

“Yeah, that’s me.” Hallam replied, trying to act casual. He had no reason to suspect the investigators would know that he’d spent time on a Darkspace Renegade hideout, but the presence of such a high-ranking investigator was making him anxious. He could feel a bead of sweat slowly rolling down his temple from his brow, and from the flick of the female investigator’s eyes, he knew she’d seen it too.

“I am Fletcher and this is my associate, Chan,” the woman said in a tone that was neither sociable nor impolite. “If you’d like to follow us, Mr. Knight; we have a few questions regarding the loss of Tanker Romeo Sierra One Three, and also, where you have been.”

14

The investigator who’d called herself “Fletcher” led Hallam through the main terminal building, and into a pre-prepared interview room. The first time that Hallam had been de-briefed by the investigation branch, he’d wondered why they had rooms set up so close to the transport stands. It had been Dakota who had given him the answer – “so you don’t have time to think up a story or invent a convenient lie…” she had told him with an accompanying eyebrow waggle. This comment had never been more pertinent, Hallam realized.

Fletcher’s mention of inquiring where Hallam had been already had him panicking. Do they know I was on a renegade hideout? Do they know I met with Shelby Rand? Do they think I’m a Darkspace Renegade? He tried to push these dark thoughts to the back of his mind to make space for more reasoned assessments. They couldn’t possibly have known where he had been, Hallam asserted. It was just part of their interrogation technique – all he had to do was stay calm and answer their questions, and everything would be okay. It didn’t help that the sudden memory of Dakota was now clouding his thoughts; he still hadn’t been able to find out if she was alive or dead. At least the debrief would give him an opportunity to push the investigators for some new information, he told himself, looking for any sort of silver lining.

“Take a seat, Mr. Knight,” said Fletcher as the two investigators moved to the opposite side of a small, metal table placed in the center of the room. On it was a single glass of water, but besides that and three chairs, the room was an empty and starkly inhospitable space. “We are simply here to ascertain the circumstances surrounding the loss of Tanker One Three. We are not accusing you of any wrongdoing.”

Hallam nodded. “Good to know,” he said, suddenly feeling slightly more at ease.

“At least, not yet,” Fletcher added, and Hallam felt his mouth go dry. He considered reaching for the glass of water, but worried that it might signal to the investigators that he was anxious, and so resisted the urge.

“Before we get started, can you tell me if my partner was also rescued?” Hallam added, keen to learn of Dakota’s fate, and also move the topic away from his potential culpability. “She was the tanker’s pilot; her name is Dakota Wulfrun.”

“We will come on to your partner later,” said Fletcher. Her level tone and expression gave absolutely nothing away. Hallam was about to press her, when the investigator launched directly into her question with barely a pause for breath. “Please explain in your own words the circumstances leading up to the accident,” Fletcher said while activating a small palm computer and staring down at the screen.

Hallam’s pulse suddenly started to race, and he could feel the sweat beading on his brow again. Right up until this point, he hadn’t thought about what he would say to the investigators; he’d been too caught up with what Dr. Rand had told him. However, right now, he realized he had to make a choice – to lie or tell them the truth. He had only a split second to decide; any hesitation would have made him look suspicious.

“There’s not really much to say,” said Hallam, starting with the parts of the story that were true and also not self-incriminating. “We were a couple of hours out from the Centrum, heading to Minerva, when there was a malfunction in the fuel system.”

Fletcher’s eyes remained fixed on her palm computer, but her companion – the one she’d called “Chan” – had kept his eyes locked on to Hallam the whole time they’d been in the room. His unwavering blank stare was deeply unsettling in a passive-aggressive way.

“We didn’t manage to stabilize it in time before the drive system malfunctioned,” Hallam went on. “The next thing I knew, we’d crashed off the bridge and into the Darkspace. We were both forced to jettison before the drive’s core ruptured and the ship blew up.”

And just like that, Hallam had made his choice; he’d committed to the lie. More than that, he’d done it without even a second thought. Lying was not something Hallam was accustomed to, but this one had come freely and easily to him. Even more surprisingly, it hadn’t felt wrong.

“I see,” replied Fletcher, still staring at her palm computer while Chan continued to drill his eyes into Hallam’s skull. “Your pod’s disaster beacon was not detected for almost seventy-two hours. You were fortunate to be found at all.”

“The pod was damaged as I jettisoned,” said Hallam, again improvising his story as the interview progressed. “I managed to get the beacon up and running again. I’m just grateful the SAR team stuck around for so long.”

“Fortunate indeed,” said Fletcher, still without looking up from the pad.

The truth was that Dr. Rand had recovered one of the stricken tanker’s remaining disaster pods before pushing the tanker out of the planet’s orbit and into an endless descent into nothingness. The masked crew of the Darkspace Renegade hideout had then sealed Hallam up inside and shot him back out into the Darkspace.

Being packaged up like a sardine in the disaster pod and jettisoned into the void was not Hallam’s preferred choice. For starters, he wasn’t convinced there would still be anyone out looking for him at the site of their accident. Even if there was, there was no guarantee they’d be looking in the right place. Space was big and empty, and the disaster pod was barely larger than a nineteen fifties “bubble car.” However, Dr. Rand’s assertions that they’d be able to set Hallam’s pod on a course toward the SAR beacon, and that they still had twelve hours before the search was abandoned, had proved correct, much to his relief.

Fletcher remained silent, quietly studying the contents of her palm computer’s screen, while Chan maintained his laser-like stare. The pause lasted for around ten agonizingly slow seconds before the chief interrogator spoke again. “And when did you have time to change out of your Consortium-issue uniform?”

Hallam glanced down at the military-style jacket and pants that Dr. Rand had given him and felt sick. He again tried to think quickly, but this time, he couldn’t avoid stumbling through his words. “Well, I was already wearing this,” Hallam said, trying to sound nonplussed, but even he could hear the new stresses in his voice.

“You were wearing these clothes when you boarded Tanker One Three on the Centrum?” asked Fletcher.

“Yeah… well… I think so,” Hallam answered, still stumbling over his words and trying not to commit to an answer. Fletcher was attempting to catch him out, and he was dangerously close to falling into her trap.

Fletcher then turned the palm computer to face Hallam, and as he looked at the screen, his stomach sank again. The display showed a security camera image of Hallam and Dakota boarding their transport. It clearly showed that Hallam was wearing his normal Consortium uniform.

“Perhaps you can explain this image?” Fletcher continued, maintaining her coldly indifferent tone of voice. Chan had barely moved, and Hallam wasn’t even sure the man had blinked.

“Oh, I remember now,” said Hallam, clicking his fingers, desperately trying to invent a reason for the discrepancy. “I spilled coffee all over myself and had to change. My other uniform was still in the wash, so I just slung on what I had clean.”

“I see,” said Fletcher, turning the palm computer screen away from Hallam. “It says on your file that you dislike coffee,” she went on, and again Hallam felt like he was going to throw up. “In fact, for the last one hundred food and beverage orders you placed at Consortium depots, you have not selected coffee once.”

Hallam smiled and tapped his head, then rolled his eyes. “It was Dak’s coffee that got spilled on me,” he said, eighty percent sure that Dak had been carrying a take-away cup when they boarded the tanker, same as she always did. “Sorry, just a mix-up on my part. It’s been a long few days, you know?”

“Indeed,” said Fletcher, again giving nothing away. Hallam almost wished the duo would launch into a classic good-cop, bad-cop routine, or at least show some emotion; their deathly personalities were starting to creep him out.

“Look, are we nearly done here?” asked Hallam, hoping to cut short the interview before he tripped over his own spontaneous web of lies. “I’d like to check in to my room, then see if I can find out what happened to my partner Dak.”

Fletcher tapped away at the palm computer for several more, painfully slow seconds, before pausing and meeting Hallam’s eyes. “We are done, Mr. Knight. You may leave.”

Hallam felt a rush of relief flood over him, and he stood up, smiling broadly. “Great, well, if I can be of any more assistance, then just let me know,” Hallam said, turning to the door.

“Dakota Wulfrun’s disaster pod was never recovered.”

Hallam froze, then jolted around to face the two investigators. “What? What are you saying?” said Hallam, feeling the gut-punch of fear. “Are you telling me she’s dead?”

“Her beacon was active, and the escort fighter reported that he was closing in on its position,” Fletcher added. “But then it disappeared. I don’t suppose you have any idea where she might have gone?”

Hallam scowled at the investigator. “No, why the hell would I know that?” he said, then kicked himself for losing his cool.

“No reason,” said Fletcher, still displaying no emotion. “Have a good day, Mr. Knight.”

Hallam turned again and grabbed hold of the handle, but he’d barely pulled the door ajar before Fletcher interrupted him again.

“One last thing, Mr. Knight,” Fletcher said.

Hallam sighed and turned his head to look at her, keeping his body facing the door. “Go ahead,” he said, wishing that a sinkhole would open up and suddenly swallow the two investigators.

“How long have you known that Dakota Wulfrun was a Darkspace Renegade?”

This time, Hallam felt his knees almost buckle. He’d never wanted to get away from somewhere more in his life, and that included when he’d woken up in the eerie hospital ward on the renegade hideout. However, the investigator had asked about Dakota, not himself, and this gave him an out.

“What are you talking about? She’s no renegade!” Hallam hit back, genuinely angry at the accusation. “Why the hell would she sabotage her own ship, with her still on it? For all I know, she’s dead or dying out in the Darkspace. You people have a nerve accusing her like that!” Hallam took a breath and bit down hard. He’d lost it, and he needed to regain his composure.

“Sabotage, you say?” said Fletcher, and Hallam could have punched himself in the eye. “An interesting suggestion.” Then Fletcher showed the faintest flicker of a smile and placed her palm computer flat on the table. “That is all, Mr. Knight. Thank you for your assistance.”

Hallam moved swiftly through the door and practically ran out along the corridor, letting the door swing shut behind him.

If Hallam had paused even for a moment and turned to pull the door shut behind him, he might have seen Fletcher tapping a message on her palm computer. And if his eyes were keen enough, he might have also seen who the intended recipient of the message was – the mercenary, Cad Rikkard.

However, Hallam saw none of these things; all he saw was an image of Dakota Wulfrun, banging on the porthole window of a thick metal door. Except this time, she wasn’t hammering on the door to the tanker’s engineering section. She was thumping on the hatch door to her disaster pod as it slipped deeper and deeper into the Darkspace, with Dakota forever trapped inside.

15

Hallam grabbed another can of beer from the six-pack he’d set down on the rock beside him and pressed the self-chill button on the base. While he waited for the can to cool to his selected temperature of forty-seven degrees Fahrenheit, he looked out across the coastline of the campus’ private beach. It was early evening and the sky was already starting to turn a honey-yellow color. The can chirruped softly, informing him that the set temperature had been reached, and Hallam tugged the ring pull, hearing the satisfying hiss of gas escape. He brought the container to his lips and took a healthy swig of the contents before holding up the can to the setting sun.

“Here’s to you, Dak,” he said as the bubbles fizzed on his tongue. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have done better for you.”

Hallam had heard nothing more from the furtive Consortium Investigation Branch since his grilling by “Fletcher,” and he was glad of it. The only other uncomfortable meeting he’d been subjected to was a regular debriefing from his supervisor. It had been uncomfortable because it had begun with the supervisor informing Hallam that Dakota Wulfrun had been officially declared “dead in absentia.” To his surprise, and the chair-shifting discomfort of the review panel, he’d actually cried. For some reason, he’d believed that Dakota had somehow made it back, despite there being no logical explanation for how she could have. She was the closest and best friend Hallam had ever had – she was his only friend, if he was honest. Dakota’s death had hit him way harder than Hallam expected, leaving him totally unprepared for the sudden swell of grief that clouted him like a hard left-right combo.

After that bombshell, the embarrassed supervisor and his colleagues on the panel had wasted no time in ushering Hallam into a psych evaluation. Given his fragile mental state, Hallam was convinced that he’d catastrophically failed the test, but the doctors cleared him anyway. Hallam guessed this was because they were still desperate for tanker crew, especially after losing Tanker One Three and its pilot. This was, no doubt, also the reason he’d been cleared for duty after only two days back at the base. He was due to ship out again in the morning, as Tanker Two Nine’s new gunner. His destination and route hadn’t been revealed to him yet; this was standard practice to minimize the chance of such sensitive information getting into the hands of Darkspace Renegades. However, in reality, there was never much variation in their tanker routes. Extended detours just wasted Randenite, and the fuel was too valuable to burn on elongated joyrides around the galaxy. Most likely, he would be heading to the Centrum via Orcus, then to Fortuna or even, heaven forbid, Earth. Hallam almost preferred the prospect of a trip to Feronia and its endless expanse of casinos and brothels, or the treacherous mining communities of Pomona, to the desperate, crowded, and polluted metropolises of humanity’s home planet.

Hallam belched, letting out some of the gas he’d just gulped down with the last swig of beer, and sat back against the rock. He intended to enjoy his last night in paradise before being cooped up again in an armored tin can that essentially had a giant bullseye painted on its hull.

A few peaceful minutes slipped by, then Hallam felt a curious buzzing sensation in his pants. He shot up off the rock, fearing an imminent nibble from one of Vesta’s many tremorcrabs. These palm-sized crustaceans always vibrated before they attacked to warn off threats, and though they weren’t especially dangerous, Hallam had no desire to be pincered on the ass by one. However, as he inspected the nooks and crannies of the rock cluster, there were no tremorcrabs to be seen. Then his pants vibrated again, and he patted himself down until he located the source. Reaching inside his pocket, Hallam’s fingers touched on the communication disc Dr. Rand had given him. It was gently pulsating. He pulled it out and sat down again, gawping at the device.

Hallam felt a sudden rush of nervous energy, realizing who was on the other end of the high-tech call. He checked around his location, despite knowing there wasn’t anyone around for a mile or more, then pressed the disc to his temple, where it latched on to his skin like a magnet. Sucking in a deep breath and exhaling slowly, he tapped the disc and waited.

“Is it safe for you to talk?” came the voice of Dr. Shelby Rand.

“You could say that; I’m sitting on a rock on a beach with no one around for miles,” replied Hallam, feeling his heart race at the sound of the famous scientist’s voice.

“Have you already been debriefed by the zealots from the investigation branch?” asked Dr. Rand, wasting no time in getting down to business.

“Yeah, they jumped me the moment I landed,” replied Hallam. “I didn’t tell them anything about you or the hideout, in case that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I was more interested, rather than worried,” Dr. Rand replied, a little too indifferently for Hallam’s liking. “But if you had been honest, you would most likely be in a cell now as a suspected renegade, so you made the right choice.”

“I didn’t lie to save my own ass,” said Hallam huffily. “Or yours, for that matter.”

“Then why?”

Hallam nervously twanged the ring-pull on the top of his beer can while he tried to figure out the reason. Why did I lie? he asked himself. It had been an easy lie; the easiest one he’d ever told, despite the fact that lying to a CIB investigator was a serious breach of his contract, and one that could have gotten him banged up for years.

“Hell, I don’t know, Doc,” Hallam eventually replied, again honestly. “Maybe I’m just not a snitch.”

“Or maybe you’re coming around to my proposal?” said Dr. Rand hopefully.

Hallam continued to twang the ring-pull before shrugging for the benefit of no one other than himself. “Maybe, who knows.”

“Well, it’s crunch time, Mr. Knight,” said Dr. Rand, her tone stepping up a gear in urgency. “I need your help, and since my readings put you at the Consortium HQ on Vespa, you’re in the perfect place to get what I need.”

“And what’s that?” asked Hallam, feeling like his privacy had just been invaded. Dr. Rand had clearly also been using the disc to track his movements. He felt like a criminal out on parole with a radio tag around his ankle.

“I need you to get the tanker route plans for this week,” said Dr. Rand, suddenly switching from her professional academic tenor to the more hardened intonations of a renegade leader.

Hallam snorted a laugh. “No way, Doc. I’m not feeding you those routes just so your band of cutthroats can go shoot down and kill more of my friends,” Hallam hit back. Then, with unfiltered bitterness, he added, “My partner is dead, by the way, thanks to you.”

Dr. Rand was silent for a few seconds before her softer voice again resonated through the bones in Hallam’s skull. “I’m truly very sorry about Dakota Wulfrun,” she said, and to Hallam’s surprise, the sentiment sounded heartfelt and sincere. “It was never my intention that innocent people are harmed or killed, Hallam,” she continued, and Hallam noticed the unexpected shift to his given name. “If I could stop the Randenite shipments another way, believe me, I would.”

Then an idea popped into Hallam’s mind out of nowhere, and he sat up, accidentally knocking his beer can off the rock and onto the fine sand below. “Wait, there is a way to stop the tankers, without blowing them to pieces.”

There was a pause of a couple of seconds before Dr. Rand answered, “I’m listening.”

“The Randenite barrels are obviously designed to shield the radioactive fuel inside,” said Hallam, growing with excitement and confidence as he spoke. “But to prevent the barrels from being opened by accident, they’re sealed using an encrypted security code that changes with every shipment. If you can hack that system and release the seals on the barrels, the tankers will have no choice but to dump the shipments. Otherwise, the whole lot will blow.”

“Yes, I know,” said Dr. Rand, her voice containing none of the zeal Hallam’s had shown. “Those codes are impossible to break in the time we have available, before CSF fighter reinforcements arrive,” she continued, not sounding impressed by Hallam’s idea. “And the original codes are buried deep in the Consortium’s secure network. In the same way I can’t break into their broadcast network, I haven’t been able to hack into the system to obtain those codes either. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

Hallam smiled; finally, he knew something that the genius scientist didn’t. “It wouldn’t matter if you did; the codes are actually red-herrings,” said Hallam, and the silence on the other end of the line told him he’d gotten Dr. Rand’s attention. “Each depot is actually sent a physical authenticator, which is changed every week. Only these devices can generate the codes to unlock the barrels. They get delivered by wings of CSF fighters at the end of each tanker rotation. The tanker crews themselves actually have no way to unlock the barrels.”

There was another pause before Dr. Rand answered, “That, I did not know.”

Hallam smiled again. “Maybe you’re not the only genius around here?” he teased. “Actually, I’m not supposed to know either, but then most tanker crew haven’t spent years at the advanced CSF fighter training academy like yours truly. Besides, the cyber-security guys at HQ can’t help bragging, and it only takes a couple of beers to loosen their tongues. The authenticators are all programmed right here, at the campus.”

“If you want to prove you’re a genius then get me one of those authenticators,” said Dr. Rand, not rising to the bait. “Can you do that?”

Hallam rested back against the rock and grabbed another beer from the pack before hitting the self-chill button. “Like I said, I do know some of the boffins in cyber-security. And I have just been reinstated to active service, so I can move around the HQ freely, within reason.” Hallam shrugged again, despite Dr. Rand not being able to see him. “I might be able to snatch a unit, but in all honesty, that’s the easy part. Getting out of this compound and off this rock without being riddled with a hundred bullet holes is the real challenge. No one has ever successfully made it off Vesta with stolen Consortium tech.”

“Don’t be so sure about that,” said Dr. Rand mysteriously. Then she paused again and added, “I can ensure your safe passage off Vesta. So the only question that remains, Mr. Knight, is will you help me?” The beer can chirruped and Hallam opened it, again with a satisfying hiss. “Decision time, Mr. Knight. Are you in or out?”

Hallam pressed his knuckles to his chin and gently rubbed them against the stubble that had grown on it since the morning. He was still angry at Dr. Rand about Dakota’s death, but he also had an opportunity to stop any more tanker pilots from being killed. In addition to that – which in itself was enough – he’d be helping to ensure that the bridges didn’t collapse, potentially saving millions of lives. Weighed against the alternative, which was flying to more desperate worlds in another tanker that Dr. Rand’s renegades would try to shoot down, it didn’t seem like much of a choice.

“Okay, Doc, if you can guarantee me a ride off this paradise, then I’m in,” said Hallam. Curiously, for the first time in a long time, making the decision hadn’t caused Hallam to feel anxious or afraid. He felt good, like he’d done the right thing. Hallam realized he hadn’t felt that way since he’d punched the lights out of his asshole former commander at the CSF training academy. “So when do we do this?” he continued, lifting the chilled beer can to his lips. “I’m supposed to ship out again tomorrow morning, but I can easily pull a sicky and delay by a day or two.”

“You have four hours to get the authenticator and reach the rendezvous,” replied Dr. Rand levelly, causing Hallam to spray his mouthful of beer all over his new Consortium-issue pants.

16

Hallam waved his security ID at the gate and waited as the machine scanned his face to confirm his identity. It was a good job the automated security gates didn’t also scan for heart rate and blood pressure, Hallam thought, because if they did, then he’d register as someone about to have a cardiac arrest.

The gate unlocked and Hallam stepped through the turnstile and into the extravagant main foyer of the HQ building at the Consortium campus. Everywhere he looked, he saw armed CSF security forces all wearing the same stoic expressions. No doubt they had always been there, patrolling the high-security HQ building, but Hallam had never paid them any attention before. Then again, he’d never entered the HQ building with the intention of stealing highly-confidential data before either.

What the hell am I doing? Hallam asked himself with a nervous laugh and shake of the head. The walk back from the shoreline to the HQ had been a sobering one, both in terms of counteracting the effects of the beers he had drunk and coming to terms with what he had just agreed to do. However, the craziest part of it was he still wanted to go through with it. He had even managed to formulate a plan for how to get hold of the authenticator and get outside without tripping a dozen different security sensors. It wasn’t clever; in fact, the sheer absurdity of the plan was its virtue.

“Hey, Hal,” said a young man as Hallam walked through the gate and on to level three, half of which was devoted to the Tanker Division. The man’s name was Vinnie, and he was the gunner on Tanker Three Seven. He had short-cropped brown hair, a neat goatee, and a forlorn expression that told Hallam he was about to offer his condolences for Dakota. “I heard about the Darkspace Renegade attack,” Vinnie continued, straight away proving Hallam right. “I’m really sorry about Dak. I know you two were tight,”

“Thanks, man,” replied Hallam, for some reason mimicking Vinnie’s slightly lazy way of talking. Hallam had called ahead to ask Vinnie to meet him on level three with a vital component to his hastily-conceived plan.

“I’m glad you got out okay, though,” Vinnie added, walking alongside Hallam as they turned a corner toward the cyber security wing. The pressure of what he was about to attempt was already getting to him, and Hallam could feel a bead of sweat forming on his brow. “Man, that must have been a wild ride; cooped up in that disaster pod for like three days?”

Hallam nodded. “It was pretty rough; I’m lucky they found me at all.” He was intentionally keeping his answers brief in the hope of preventing Vinnie from yakking at him until morning. Once he got started, the young gunner could talk for hours, without ever really saying anything at all.

“Hey, maybe we should organize some drinks, y'know?” Vinnie continued, not taking the hint. “Give Dak a proper send off?”

“Sure, sounds good,” said Hallam, trying to walk a little faster without it appearing obvious that he was doing so. “I’ll look into it later; right now, it’s still hard, you know?”

Vinnie gave him a sort of brotherly tap on the shoulder with the back of his fist before replying, “You got it, man, no problem.” Then he jumped in front of Hallam, blocking his path, with an enthused expression. “Hey, why don’t I handle it? Seeing as it’s hard for you and all?”

“Would you?” said Hallam, seizing his opening to get Vinnie off his back, and also to stop him talking about Dakota, which was a genuinely raw subject for him still. Hallam then placed a hand on Vinnie’s shoulder and hammed it up a bit, “That would really help me out, man. I’ve been finding it tough, y'know?”

“Hey, say no more,” said Vinnie earnestly. “Just leave it to me, Hal. I’ll get right on it.” Then he suddenly noticed where they were and looked around with a confused frown. “What the hell are we doing over in hacksville?” he said, and Hallam assumed he was referring to the cyber security wing.

“I wanted to see if Mack would help me out with my new tanker routes in advance of the briefing tomorrow,” said Hallam, which was the lie he’d quickly invented for precisely this situation. “If they’ve got me heading back out near Minerva again, then I need to know now, so I can ask the supervisor to give me a different run.”

Vinnie shook his head, “Damn, man, I hadn’t even thought about it like that,” he said with a sort of doleful enthusiasm. “You could have, like, PTFE or whatever it’s called.”

Hallam nodded, thankful for Vinnie’s good-hearted gullibility. “Yeah, I think I’ve got it bad.” He then swiftly moved on to the reason he’d asked Vinnie to meet him. “Hey, do you have the thing I asked for?”

Vinnie clicked his fingers, “Shoot, yeah, I almost forgot,” he said while rummaging around in his jacket pocket. “I didn’t think you were into this sort of stuff,” he added, pulling out a compact data device.

“It’s not for me,” replied Hallam, feeling his cheeks flush red at the suggestion the adult program contained on the drive was for him. “It’s a little present for Mack; I owe him a favor, and it might also help convince him to give me the routes. I’ve never used one of these myself.”

“You’re missing out, man,” said Vinnie, as if he were talking about the daily special dessert in the HQ canteen. “But he’s going to love you for this,” he went on, handing Hallam the device. “It’s the hottest, reality-definition interactive playmate. The latest and greatest version; my brother works at the developer, so I got it early.” Then he seemed to get lost in his own thoughts and thrust his hands out in front of him, as if he was honking an old-fashioned car horn. “Man, it’s so real, it’s like you can actually reach out and squeeze…”

“I think I get the picture,” Hallam rapidly cut Vinnie off before he went into details he really didn’t want to know or be forced to picture in his mind. He placed the drive in his pocket before surreptitiously wiping his hand on the back of his pants. “What do you I owe you for this?”

Vinnie waved him off, “Nah, man, it’s all good,” he said, slapping Hallam on the shoulder. “You could use a pick-me-up.”

“It’s not for me...” Hallam asserted again, but Vinnie had already rambled on.

“Anyway, I’ll buzz you with the deets about the drinks, man,” Vinnie added, oblivious to Hallam’s blushes. “Take it easy, and I’ll catch y'later.”

“Later,” replied Hallam as Vinnie jogged off back along the corridor. Hallam waited until Vinnie was out of sight, then took a deep breath before pushing through the door into the main office of the Transport Division’s cyber security wing.

“Hold up, sir,” said an armed security enforcer, thrusting out a hand to block Hallam’s path. His sudden appearance and assertively-barked order caught Hallam by surprise; he hadn’t expected to be confronted so soon after stepping inside. “Drop any loose items in the tray, then step through the scanner, please.”

Hallam did as he was directed, adding his ID pass and the drive Vinnie had given him into the tray before passing through the gated body scanner. The enforcer pushed the tray through a separate scanner, looking distinctly bored, then met Hallam on the other side.

“You’re clear,” the enforcer said, handing Hallam back the drive and ID. He then seemed to notice Hallam’s distinctive uniform and collar insignia and added, “What’s a bridge runner doing down here, though?”

Hallam held up the drive and waggled it. “I have a present for Mack. I just thought I’d drop it off personally before I ship out.”

The enforcer suddenly eyed the device with significantly more interest than he had done previously. “For Mack, you say?” he said, now looking at the small piece of tech as if it was a juicy burger. He leaned in closer to Hallam and said, “If that’s what I think it is, can you ask Mack to make me a copy?”

Hallam smiled and nodded; Mack’s reputation as a connoisseur of the more adult arts obviously preceded him. “No problem,” Hallam answered, tapping the side of his nose with his finger and adding, “I’ll drop it with you on my way out.”

The enforcer smiled and thanked Hallam, waving him through into the office. Normally, he would have expected much more of a grilling, but apparently, Hallam’s explanation for visiting was completely legitimate and not at all suspicious.

Hallam made his way through the maze of cubicles toward the back of the enormous office space, which was adjacent to the engineering section. Thanks to Mack’s loose tongue, Hallam knew this was where the new authenticators were programmed each week. And he also knew that Mack led the team that was responsible for doing it. The engineering area could only be accessed by authorized personnel, but so long as Hallam could sweet-talk his way inside, he’d be able to pocket a device, then set off the fire alarms and slip back out.

It was a dumb plan, and Hallam knew it, but it was precisely because it was dumb that it would work. Even if he managed to get the tech out of the building, he wouldn’t be able to smuggle it off campus, without triggering a complex web of alarms set around the campus and at the security perimeter. A sprightly thief who knew the campus layout might be able to make it beyond the campus limits, or even a mile or two further, before being captured. However, there was no escaping the CSF enforcers for long. That was unless, like Hallam, the bandit had been promised a ride off world in the back of a Darkspace Renegade fighter craft.

“Hal, what the hell are you doing here?!” blared Mack enthusiastically as Hallam approached his workspace. Mack always wore a suit that made him look more like an investment banker than a cyber-security white hat. He had the looks and confidence to pull it off too.

“I ship out tomorrow, so just thought I’d pop in and say hi,” replied Hallam, shaking the hand that Mack offered him. He then remembered about the drive Vinnie had given him and felt like wiping his palm again, but resisted the urge. “It seems like weeks since you were back here. Any excitement in the outer bridge planets?”

“No, all pretty standard and boring,” lied Hallam. Mack clearly hadn’t heard about him getting shot down in the Darkspace, and he had no desire to dredge the memories back up again.

“Come on, I was at least hoping for some stories about how you gunned down a few Darkspace Renegades, or went on a wild night in Feronia with that cutie pilot of yours!”

Hallam felt his stomach twist into knots again at the mention of Dakota but fought hard not to show his discomfort. “No, seems like the other bridge runners get all the excitement, I’m afraid.”

“Maybe on the next run, eh?” said Mack as he perched on the edge of his desk. “Do you want to grab a quick drink? Non-alcoholic or coffee-based of course.”

“Is the vending machine through there?” said Hallam, pointing at the tinted glass wall separating the engineering section from the office.

Mack laughed. “The machine in there is pretty good, but it’s off limits to hot-shot tanker gunners, I’m afraid. I’d love to give you a tour, but it would take about a week to get you clearance.”

“Shame, I’ve always wondered what you tech geniuses get up to in there,” replied Hallam while slipping his hand into his pocket and removing the data device. “And to think, I was about to give you this too…”

Mack’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the drive held between Hallam’s fingers. “What’s that? More classic boxing matches? Because if it’s more boxing matches, then I’m not interested.”

“No, this form of entertainment is much more aligned with your particular holographic tastes,” said Hallam with a wry smile.

Mack’s eyes lit up “Oh really? Where did you get something like that?”

“Vinnie’s brother works for the developer,” said Hallam, waggling the drive at Mack. “This version isn’t even available to buy yet.”

Mack pushed himself away from the desk and went to grab the device, but Hallam quickly closed his fist around it. “Just a quick peek inside,” he said, nodding toward the engineering section again. “I promise I won’t touch anything.”

Mack’s foot tapped furiously on the steel-gray ESD flooring as his eyes flicked from Hallam’s hand toward the nearby door to the engineering space. Then he finally caved and let out an irritated growl. “Okay, damn it, but just a couple of minutes, okay?” Mack wagged a finger at Hallam.

“I promise, I’m just curious, that’s all.” Hallam held up his hand and again teased the drive between finger and thumb.

Mack hurried over to the door, pressed his ID to the panel, and waited for the facial scan to complete. A couple of seconds later, the door clicked open. Mack anxiously peered around the office to make sure no one was watching, then in hushed tones, said, “Go on, then, be quick!”

Hallam scooted through the opening before turning and dropping the drive into Mack’s sweaty, waiting hand. “Enjoy…”

Mack vanished out of sight before the door had even latched shut again. Hallam breathed another deep sigh, hardly believing his hairbrained scheme had managed to get him this far. He then moved through the rows of silver benches and stark, white walls, trying to look like he belonged, though in his dark-blue tanker crew uniform, he was hardly inconspicuous. A few curious eyes turned his way, but Hallam continued moving with purposeful haste, and no one tried to stop him. A couple of minutes rapidly slipped by, and still Hallam hadn’t found the authenticators. He knew he was running out of time before Mack came looking for him or someone else inside finally plucked up the courage to confront him and tell him to leave.

Hallam turned down another aisle, bookended by long rows of silver benches, and suddenly, he saw them. The authenticators were lined up in a row of individual programming modules on the far wall, like lines of old public telephones. Hallam hurried toward them, forcing himself to take regular breaths, his eyes dancing around the room to make sure no one was suspecting him. He reached the row of modules and took another deep breath before reaching up and plucking the nearest authenticator off the wall.

“This is totally unacceptable!”

Hallam spun around to see a tall, thin man with circular spectacles peering down at him. He’d been caught red-handed, literally; the authenticator units were all a dark crimson color.

“Sorry, I was just…” Hallam began, not having a clue where he intended that sentence to lead.

“You were supposed to collect this for testing on the validation tanker an hour ago,” the spectacled man went on. “They’re due to be shipped out by midnight!”

“Sorry, I was just,” blabbed Hallam, forced to improvise on the spot, but he again had no idea where to take the sentence he’d started. “What I mean is, I’ll get it back to you as soon as I can.”

“Be sure that you do,” the man snapped back. “I’ll be contacting your supervisor!” he added, wagging a finger at Hallam before storming off.

Hallam forced down a dry swallow and slipped the authenticator into his jacket pocket before almost running back along the aisle. He reached the door, heart thumping in his chest, and slapped the security release button. The door buzzed and he pulled it open, stepping through into the office space again.

A sudden wave of elation overcame him and he smiled, peering around the room, looking for an emergency fire alarm call point. He saw one and sidled up to it, casting a glance back toward Mack’s desk, but he was hunched over his terminal with the data device already inserted into it. Hallam laughed under his breath, and raised his fist, ready to smash the glass. Then all hell broke loose.

17

Alarms rang out inside the cyber-security office, and heavy metal shutters rolled down over the windows. It was as if the room was a fortress preparing to defend against an enemy assault. Before Hallam could gather his wits, a strident, synthetic-sounding female voice announced, “Data security breach detected. Lock-down in progress.”

Hallam was gripped by a primal terror and frantically hammered at the fire alarm panel. The glass shattered, but the alarm system didn’t activate, and the fire doors didn’t unlock. His plan to get outside the HQ building was blown.

“Hal, what the hell did you give me!?” Mack yelled over the warning announcement, which had continued on repeat. Hallam spun around to see Mack standing in front of his console, tie loosened and jacket removed. There were visible sweat patches under his arms. “This drive was riddled with some sort of high-end malware.”

Hallam ran over to Mack’s desk and peered down at his screen, which was black, save for the message “Terminal Locked. Attempted Data Breach Prevented.” He looked up at Mack, who had his hands pressed to the top of his head, upsetting his normally perfectly-coiffured hair. “Didn’t you scan the drive first?” Hallam asked incredulously. “You’re a damn computer security expert!”

“Of course I did; it came up clean!” Mack hit back. “I even ran it in a virtual machine, but somehow it managed to spread to the main network. It would have gotten through too, but some sort of low-level corporate security firewall caught it. I didn’t even know that existed!”

Hallam laughed nervously. “This is the cyber-security department – how can you not know?!”

“For the Tanker Division, yeah!” Mack snapped. “We’re not exactly top of the food chain down here. The geniuses are all up on the ninth floor.”

Hallam looked around the room; the terminals of all the other workers had also been locked, and everyone was chatting in hushed, worried tones. The enforcer at the main door was now blocking the exit, weapon held ready, finger on the trigger guard.

“So what happens now?” Hallam asked Mack, fighting hard to retain his self-control.

“The CIB investigators will be on the way down here, along with a dozen more armed heavies,” said Mack, who was now sweating profusely. “They think there’s a damn spy in here, trying to steal their data. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if that low-level firewall is some sort of honey trap, designed to catch people out. That’s just the sort of thing those assholes on the ninth would do!”

Hallam grabbed Mack’s shoulders and pressed tightly; he was starting to lose control, and that wouldn’t help either of them. “Mack, just calm down and tell me what happens next. How do I get out?”

Mack shook his head, flinging sweat onto his desk and Hallam’s hands. “No one gets out until they have their man. I’m screwed!”

Hallam cursed under his breath and surveyed the room again, looking for any way out, but it was locked down like a vault. The only way in or out seemed to be through the door he’d used to access the office in the first place. “How long until the CIB and Enforcers squads get here?” Hallam asked, knowing that, whatever he did, he had to move quickly.

“I don’t know,” said Mack, throwing his arms out wide. “My guess is that they’re already coming down the corridor. What am I going to do?”

Hallam yanked the data device out of Mack’s terminal and shoved it in his pocket. “I’m going to remove the evidence so they can’t tie it to you,” he said, keen to ensure his nefarious activity didn’t also burn Mack. “You can just say that someone used your terminal. I mean, who’d be dumb enough to use their own terminal to steal data, right?”

Mack nodded eagerly again, shaking more sweat onto everything within a half-meter radius, “Right, yes,” he stammered. “You’re probably right.” Then he looked up at Hallam, eyes narrowed. “But what are you going to do with the drive?”

“I’m going to make a run for it,” said Hallam.

Mack looked horrified. “That’s nuts, Hal! You can’t get out – they’ll kill you if you try to run. This is the Consortium’s planet – it’s their rules, their laws!”

Hallam nodded, knowing that Mack was right, but it didn’t change anything. If he was caught with an authenticator in his pocket, then his career as a renegade would be over before it even started. And he wasn’t going to spend the next twenty years in a Consortium cell block; he’d rather go out fighting. It was a sudden moment of clarity that was as liberating as it was shocking. To hell with the Consortium, Hallam told himself. I’ll be damned if I’ll let them burn me again.

“I’m sorry for getting you involved, Mack,” said Hallam, turning toward the door and steeling himself for what came next.

“Hal, please don’t do anything stupid,” said Mack, apparently sensing that Hallam was ready to go through with his desperate plan.

Hallam didn’t answer; he was already slowly creeping toward the door, watching the enforcer, waiting for any opportunity to rush at him. Then he got his opening; the enforcer stepped back and peered outside along the corridor. Hallam guessed that he was checking if the CIB were on the way, or maybe he’d already heard them approaching. Either way, now was his chance. Accelerating to a sprint, Hallam aimed himself at the narrow opening between the pillars of the gate scanner before leveling his shoulder at the enforcer’s torso. The armed man turned back just in time to see the blur of Hallam slam into him like a wrecking ball. Hallam just caught a flash of the stupefied look in his eyes before the man was barged out into the corridor, tumbling end-over-end like a rag doll.

Hallam too had toppled to the floor from the impact, but unlike the hapless enforcer, he’d been prepared for the fall. He managed to scramble quickly to his feet, grasping his throbbing shoulder, before agitated shouts then filtered along the corridor. Hallam looked up to see four more armed CSF Enforcers approaching, accompanied by two figures in the distinctive tailored suits of the Consortium Investigation Branch. It didn’t take long for Hallam to identify the two CIB investigators, Fletcher and Chan.

Fletcher stopped suddenly, causing her partner and the enforcers to rapidly halt in her wake, thick-soled boots screeching on the polished floor. She looked Hallam dead in the eyes, squinting as if not quite believing what she’d witnessed, then yelled, “Stop him!”

Hallam turned and ran in the opposite direction, half expecting shots to follow, but he hoped that Fletcher at least would want a second chance to interrogate him. Air rushed past his face as Hallam dodged past the startled bodies of other workers on the corridor. Then he caught sight of another fire alarm panel on a central pillar and had an idea. In reality, it was the same dumb idea he’d had before, except this time, he was outside of the locked-down office, which meant it might just work. It has to work… Hallam told himself. He steered toward the pillar, but he couldn’t slow down in time and slammed into it, causing his already throbbing shoulder to burn even harder with agony. More frantic shouts filtered down the corridor and he saw the CIB party running toward him, enforcers yelling at people to “Get down!” and “Move aside!” Then he saw one of the heavies raise his weapon, and Hallam hammered the alarm panel before ducking behind the pillar as shots rang out. Fragments of concrete and dust erupted from the pillar, but Hallam was safe.

“No, I need him alive!” came the roar from Fletcher, completely out of character with her previously composed and dignified hostility.

Hallam’s head was on a swivel, eyes on stalks, looking for some way out. With the fire alarm activated, the fire doors should have opened – he just had to find one. Suddenly, scores of people filtered out of their respective office units as the fire alarm siren wailed out around him. He chanced a look back and saw the CIB investigators get swamped by agitated office workers, all desperately trying to make their way to their assembly points. He could hear Fletcher’s angry shouts, mixed with the barking of orders by the enforcers, but the throng was still too thick for them to get through.

Hallam pushed on through the crowds, following a group that seemed to be making its way toward one of the many stairwells. He barged his way ahead to the angry curses of the unfortunate workers on the receiving end of his shoves, until he made it to the lower floor and ran out into the grounds surrounding the HQ. Hundreds of other workers were now assembling; it was exactly what Hallam needed, he thought. He could blend in with the crowds and make his way to the rendezvous, at the far side of the campus’ private meadow. He just had to signal Dr. Rand that he was ready.

Hallam reached into his pocket and pulled out the communications disc before again slapping it to his temple. He was about to activate it when another announcement blared out over the external PA system.

“This is a code red announcement. The campus is now on full security lockdown. All workers are to immediately lie flat on the ground and remain there until security enforcers have cleared you to return. Anyone found moving around the campus without authorization will be subject to extreme discipline.”

Hallam felt like he’d just been handed a “Get Out of Jail Free” card and had it ripped from his grasp and replaced with a “Go to Jail” card. The droves of workers obeyed the order without question or hesitation, all lying down on the neatly-trimmed, perfectly green grass. It was like watching a human-sized domino rally in progress. The Consortium HQ was not a tyrannical regime – for the most part, it was one of the best places in the galaxy to work. However, every employee knew that security issues were not handled lightly. Vespa was the Consortium’s own world, and according to its laws, corporate spies could be shot on sight.

Hallam also dropped to the floor, trying to buy himself some time, but now there were dozens of CSF enforcers flooding out of the HQ building and arriving en masse in quad-rotor drop-ships. Hallam lay on his back, pumping his fists together, trying to think of a way out of the mess he’d created for himself. Then he saw a palm tree on the roof of the HQ building, gently swaying in the breeze. It had been imported from Earth in order to turn the roof of the HQ into a tropical resort – a perk for the top management and “employees of the month.” However, that wasn’t why it had caught Hallam’s attention. If he could get to the now-deserted roof, then maybe the renegade ship could pick him up from there.

Hallam tapped the communicator disc on his temple and waited for Dr. Rand to pick up. Come on… he urged, growing impatient, despite only having waited a few seconds, and despite the fact that his collect-call could be travelling for millions of miles to reach the other end of the line. Then Dr. Rand answered.

“Are you in position?” she said, again getting straight to the point.

“Change of plan,” said Hallam, trying to keep his voice level and at a controlled volume, despite feeling the need to shout and scream. “I need you to pick me up from the roof of the HQ building.”

“That isn’t the plan, Mr. Knight,” came the deadpan response from Dr. Rand.

“Well, the plan’s changed, Doc!” Hallam hit back, louder than he’d intended, drawing nervous scowls from others nearby. “It has to be the roof. Can you get me or not?”

There was a pause before Dr. Rand answered, “Do you have the authenticator?”

“Yes, I have it,” said Hallam, shaking his head – the device was clearly more important than he was.

“Ten minutes,” replied Dr. Rand, again without any vocal inflections that hinted at her emotions. “Be ready…”

The communicator clicked off, and Hallam again peered around his current location. Clusters of enforcers were going from group to group, scanning ID badges as they went. He could now see Fletcher and Chan moving amongst them, peering pensively at each new worker the enforcers cleared, making sure there were no mistakes. Hallam then peered back toward the emergency exit he’d come through. The door was still open and unguarded. He shut his eyes, trying to remember the layout of the HQ. If he could make it to level nine, he could use the emergency stairs on the south side to reach the roof. Ten minutes was cutting it fine, and now more than ever, he regretted drinking the beers on the beach.

Hallam sucked in deep lungfuls of air and flipped onto his stomach, shifting his position to face the open doorway. With another quick glance back at Fletcher, who was still pre-occupied, he shot up and ran as hard as he could. He made it to the threshold before he was met with an enforcer coming the opposite way. There was a second of hesitation from both men before the heavy raised his pistol. Instinctively, Hallam grabbed the enforcer’s hand, wrestling the weapon away as the man yelled for help. The weapon fell and Hallam drove his knee to the enforcer’s gut, tossing him out into the campus grounds. Workers on the ground screamed and yelled as the felled man tumbled into their midst. Then Fletcher saw Hallam, and all hell broke loose again.

Hallam ran with the sound of dozens of heavy boots thudding after him. He reached the base of the stairwell and swung around on the railings, trying to carry as much momentum as possible before charging up the first fight. By the time he’d reached the third floor, his legs were already burning, and at the top of the fifth, he had to pause for breath. Angry shouts filtered up from below, and he could see a swarm of black helmets following him up, like a line of soldier ants. Coughing and sucking in more air, he ran up to the sixth floor, but then the door was flung open and two CSF Enforcers rushed in. This time, Hallam did not hesitate, tackling the first and driving him into his partner. Both fell, and Hallam drew the first enforcer’s nightstick from his belt before feeling a boot slam into his stomach. He stumbled back and almost tipped over the railings, then caught himself and rebounded toward the heavy, clubbing him soundly across the side of the face. The second enforcer then rose and tried to aim his pistol, but Hallam slashed his hand away and followed with a hard left. It was one of the sweetest punches he’d ever thrown, knocking the man out cold.

The swarm of enforcers had closed to within two levels now, and Hallam still had four more flights of stairs to cover. It was then he also realized he was on the wrong side of the building. Thinking fast, he pushed through the door the enforcers had come through and slammed it shut, jamming the nightstick through the bar to lock it. Quickly taking stock of his location, he ran hard along the main central corridor toward the south side. His chest was burning and his legs were growing heavier by the second, then he heard the door he’d barred shut crash open behind him. Sliding to a stop, he peered around the space again, looking for the emergency stairwell before bundling through the door and climbing hard. Each new level felt like a marathon, but eventually, he reached the roof and practically fell through the door, collapsing to his knees, gasping for breath.

“On your feet!”

Hallam looked up to see two enforcers in front of him, aiming pistols at his head. He coughed harshly and let his head drop low.

“Just shoot me…” he gasped, not looking up at them. “Put me out of my misery.”

“On your feet!” the enforcer barked again, and this time, Hallam felt a hand grabbing his arm, yanking him upright. He pressed his back against the wall for support as the enforcer spoke into his earpiece. “I have the suspect in custody, roof level, awaiting instructions,” the man said without taking his eyes off Hallam.

“Remain at your location,” came the response, and Hallam recognized the flat, expressionless tones of Fletcher.

The enforcer acknowledged the command, but then the sky opened up, as if an almighty thunderstorm had just descended on them. Yet the atmosphere was completely clear. The two enforcers became agitated, peering upwards, and Hallam saw the reason why they had been rattled. Soaring toward the HQ building was a single fighter craft, moving at supersonic speeds. It was barely a dot a first, but within seconds, it had roared overhead. The enforcers shifted position and spoke hastily into their earpieces as shots seemed to ripple from all around.

Hallam spotted a row of scooter kayaks lined up nearby. A section of the roof level was a giant water park; one of Damien Doyle’s more extravagant extravagances. However, Hallam wasn’t interested in going for a paddle; he had a different activity in mind. Grabbing the nearest kayak, Hallam turned it parallel to the floor and ran at the two enforcers, flattening both before they’d even seen the multi-colored craft coming at them. Hallam threw the kayak down on top of the prone bodies and ran to the edge of the roof, frantically trying to spot the renegade ship. It roared back into view before pulling up alongside the roof and slowing to a hover in an aggressive maneuver that was at once utterly terrifying and unfeasibly impressive. The pressure wave from the ship’s sudden appearance, combined with the blast from its thrusters, threw Hallam clear of the edge by a good three meters. He landed in a pen of inflatable pink flamingoes and bounced around until finally landing on the floor again, feeling dazed and a little humiliated.

Urgent shouts then combined with the rumble of the ship’s engines, and Hallam turned to see twenty or more CSF heavies approaching. They opened fire and bullets pinged off the hull of the fighter, but Hallam knew it would take more than sidearms to take it down. Then the side hatch of the ship hissed open, and a figure stood in the threshold in black armor with a sleek, full-cover helmet, holding a powerful rifle. The renegade unloaded at the enforcers, causing them to scatter like startled pigeons. Some dove behind whatever flimsy cover was available, while others panicked and jumped into the heated water of one of the many pools.

“Get in!” the helmeted figured shouted, though the voice was heavily modulated through the mask.

Hallam pushed himself up and saw that there was a two-meter gap between the edge of the roof and the ship’s open hatch.

“Any time now!” came the modulated yell from the renegade pilot.

Hallam clenched his teeth together and ran, launching himself at the opening like a long-jumper. Time seemed to slow down as he sailed through the air, fifty meters above the neatly trimmed lawns and hedges of the campus grounds, before he collided with the renegade ship’s dimpled metal deck. Bullets rattled off the inside walls as the hatch closed behind him, then he felt hands grabbing him again, except this time, they belonged to the Darkspace Renegade.

“Get strapped in; we’re going to have to fly hard,” the voice said as Hallam was hauled into the cockpit and dumped in the second seat.

Heart still thumping and still gasping for breath, Hallam pulled the harness over his shoulders, a millisecond before the renegade ship blasted away from the HQ building with bullets zinging off its hull.

“Trust you not to follow a simple instruction,” said the voice from the pilot’s seat.

This time, it wasn’t modulated, and he recognized who it belonged to. Hallam shot a glance across to his right and saw that the pilot had removed their helmet.

“Hey, Hal,” said Dakota Wulfrun, smiling cockily. “Seems like you’ve been a naughty boy.”

18

Hallam peered back at Dakota with open-mouthed astonishment. Even if his overworked lungs could have furnished him with enough breath to speak, he would have still had no words. Yet there she was, smiling back at him as if everything that had occurred in the last week hadn’t happened at all, and they’d never been apart. Even Bob the bear was present, in its usual place on Dakota’s dashboard. This was surreal, but not unexpected, Hallam realized. Given Dakota’s superstitious nature, there was no chance she’d abandon the stricken armored tanker without her lucky mascot.

“Surprised to see me?” asked Dakota, clearly enjoying having Hallam on the back foot.

“Surprised?!” Hallam repeated, almost yelling the word back at her. “Dak, they told me you were dead!”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Dakota replied, keeping the renegade craft flying fast and low over the lush terrain of Vesta’s southern continent. “It was Dr. Rand’s decision, and I fought her on it. But she wanted to be sure you could be trusted, and that you were ready to pick a side.”

“You knew that I met Dr. Rand?” Hallam said, still struggling to believe what he was he hearing. “You knew about all of this, and just let me believe you were dead?”

Dakota smiled again and raised an eyebrow, “I heard you cried when they broke the news,” she said, coyly adding, “I think that’s kinda sweet.”

Hallam had always found Dakota’s combative playfulness endearing, but on this occasion, it was driving him insane.

“Cut it out, Dak. This isn’t a joke!” Hallam snapped. “Have you any idea what I’ve been through?”

A panel on Dakota’s console bleeped and she scowled down at it. “We’ll have to save the happy reunion till later,” she said as her impish mood was swiftly traded for one of more somber focus. “There’s a fighter squadron closing in on our tail.”

Hallam checked the instruments in front of him and confirmed Dakota’s reading. Three contacts were approaching fast.

“Can you punch us out of the atmosphere and beat them to the bridge?” asked Hallam, switching gears exactly as Dakota had done. Suddenly, it was as if they were back in the cockpit of their armored tanker, working as a team again to fight off Darkspace Renegades. Except this time, they were the Darkspace Renegades: outlaws fighting against the establishment in pursuit of a noble cause. It was a heel-turn of epic proportions.

“We’re not going for the bridge; I have something else in mind,” Dakota replied mysteriously. “But we have to break atmosphere at the last possible moment. In space, we lose our maneuverability, which will make our ship a sitting duck for their missiles.”

“I’m surprised the CSF managed to scramble their fighters so quickly,” said Hallam, watching the three contacts as they quickly closed the gap between them. He knew that a squadron was always kept on station at the HQ’s private spaceport, but it seemed unlikely they would have caught up with Dakota’s fighter in such a short space of time.

“I’m afraid they’re not CSF,” replied Dakota, activating the fighter’s weapons, and turning hard toward a coastal mountain range. “It’s the Blackfire Squadron; you met these jokers before, if you remember, back on the Centrum.”

Hallam scrunched up his brow, trying to think back to their last visit to the fortress-like refinery, but it seemed like years had passed since that time. Then he remembered the incident in the bar and cursed. “You’re kidding? Not the comedian with the sword and his two mistresses of evil?” he said, hoping he was wrong, but Dakota just nodded. “Damn it, Dak, no wonder you were so eager to start a fight with them!”

This time, Dakota shook her head. “Hey, I wouldn’t be much of an undercover operative if I went around picking fights with Consortium mercs, would I?” she hit back, scowling at Hallam. “I genuinely just lost it because that face-painted oaf, Draga Vex, knocked my damned pizza onto the floor.”

Hallam laughed, remembering the Hawaiian monstrosity that Dakota had ordered. “Honestly, I think she did you a favor.”

The console bleeped again, redirecting their attention back to the approaching squadron of mercenary cutthroats. Dakota quickly adjusted the flight settings and aimed the nose of the fighter into the valley ahead of them.

“How about you do something useful and stand ready to deploy the countermeasures,” Dakota said as a weapons-lock warning droned inside the cabin. “I’m going to snake through this mountain range until the calculations have been completed.”

Hallam snapped into action, motivated by the impending threat of a missile blowing them into a million tiny pieces. “Calculations for what?” he asked as he prepared the first volley of electronic countermeasures before bringing up the virtual HUD for the rear rotary cannon turret.

“Our entry into bridge space,” Dakota replied, for once without a cocky grin on her face.

Hallam stopped dead again. “You’re telling me that this little fighter can create its own bridges?” he asked, hoping the answer was no.

Building the bridges between star systems required months of meticulous calculations before a dedicated bridge-builder ship ten times the size of Dakota’s fighter finally engineered the passageway. The bridge-builder ships were fitted with the most powerful and sophisticated Shelby Drives ever designed, but even then, it still took months to safely construct a new bridge. Attempting to create a bridge on-the-fly – literally, given their current situation – was more likely to end up spewing their atoms across half the star system.

“Dr. Rand upgraded the drives on all these renegade fighters,” Dakota answered, though her responses were becoming stilted as piloting the ship occupied increasingly more of her concentration. Then she added, “Relax, Hal, it’ll all be fine” with an off-hand casualness that did nothing to reassure him.

Suddenly, the tone of the weapons lock warning shifted up an octave, and the pitch of Dakota’s voice switched up a notch to match it. “That is, unless the missile they’ve just fired destroys us first!”

Hallam set aside his still undiminished concerns about creating a bridge and focused on launching the countermeasures. The missile had locked on to the ship’s drive signature, but for some reason, the electronic jamming system hadn’t thrown off the weapon’s guidance system.

“They must be using some pretty high-grade tech,” said Hallam, switching to manual control on the rear rotary cannon. “The jammers are having no effect; I’m going to have to take this down the old-fashioned way.”

Hallam aimed the crosshair at the rapidly approaching missile and programmed the cannon for a pattern burst, where it would automatically pepper the area around the aiming point, a bit like a shotgun blast. He fired in short, controlled bursts, tracking the target as best he could. However, the controls were twitchier than the flak turret in the tanker, and his bursts flew wide.

“I thought you were supposed to be a crack gunner!” Dakota called out as the tone of the missile warning continued to rise. “Can you shoot it already?”

Hallam ignored Dakota as best he could and compensated to account for the faster tracking system of the fighter’s nimbler weapons. He fired three more bursts, leading the target by different amounts each time, and on the final burst, the missile exploded. Debris peppered the rear of the fighter, and the shockwave buffeted them like a car rolling too fast over a cattle guard. Yet after the rattles subsided, they were still flying, and to Hallam, that was all that mattered.

“How about we get out of here so I don’t have to do that again?” said Hallam, gasping out the breath he’d been holding in.

Dakota was now weaving the fighter through the valley, the muscles in her face taut with concentration.

“They’re too close for missiles,” she said through gritted teeth, banking hard and skirting the side of a mountain. “We should be fine so long as we can avoid their guns for another ninety seconds.”

Suddenly, another alarm blared out, startling both of them. Hallam focused on his console and saw that a second missile had locked on, but he couldn’t make sense of the enemy fighter’s position.

“Where the hell is that coming from?” cried Dakota, arcing her neck, trying to get a visual on the mercenary fighter. The alarm tone rose again, and Dakota cursed, “Missile launched, but I don’t see it!”

Hallam shook his head. “I don’t either…” But then he had an idea and looked directly up. Shadowing their maneuvers far above the mountain range was a Blackfire Squadron fighter. “It’s above us!” Hallam cried. “They’ve dropped the missile like a bomb. We have to get out of here!”

Dakota banked hard and immediately pulled up as the missile screeched past their wing, missing them by less than a meter before it detonated in the valley. Another shockwave buffeted the renegade fighter like a kite in high winds and, for a moment, Dakota lost control before battling to get the ship level again.

“The other two renegades are right on us!” Hallam called over, watching the fighters close in on the rear cannon’s virtual HUD. The weapons lock tone hummed again, and Dakota threw the fighter hard right, narrowly avoiding a concentrated burst of cannon fire.

“How long till we can enter bridge space?” cried Hallam, returning fire with the rear cannons, but the automatic targeting system was still jammed, so it was like shooting while riding a bucking bronco.

“Not soon enough,” answered Dakota, still throwing the ship around in a desperate attempt to avoid the gunfire. “And we can’t bridge while we’re still in the atmosphere, but those assholes will get us before we even bust through the stratosphere.”

Another alarm blared out, and Hallam saw that one of the mercenary ships had dropped back to open up enough distance for a missile lock.

“It’s another missile!” shouted Hallam. “Pull up now; we have to climb!”

“Wait, there’s another contact heading right at us!” said Dakota, pushing them higher.

“Another of the Blackfire Squadron?” asked Hallam, but he’d already counted three ships on their tail.

Dakota cursed and slammed her dash. “No, it’s one of mine…”

Hallam frowned, not understanding Dakota’s response, but then the radio clicked on, and a voice filled the cockpit.

“Wolf One, this is Wolf Three, climb now; I’ll hold them off!”

“Kien, get the hell out of here!” Dakota cried back, looking and sounding furious.

“Negative, Wolf One,” said the voice on the other end of the comm. “Get the prize back to base. Kien, out…”

“Kien? Kien!” Dakota yelled, but the channel had already gone dead. She growled and pulled the fighter into a sharp climb, just as the missile lock alarm switched to the launch tone.

“I’m on it!” shouted Hallam, focusing his attention back on the virtual HUD for the rear turret. “Just keep us going straight up like a rocket.”

Dakota pushed the throttle to maximum, and Hallam was suddenly pressed into his seat as the pressures on his body increased.

“Missile closing…” Dakota called out. “Five seconds to impact.” She glanced across to Hallam. “Hal, tell me you’ve got this!”

Hallam filtered out everything other than the crosshairs on his HUD. A red marker highlighted the missile’s position, coming at them straight and level, like an arrow. Hallam aimed the turret and squeezed the trigger, knowing he’d only get one burst, and a fraction of a second later, the missile erupted into flames.

“Got it, we’re clear!” shouted Hallam.

“We’re through the exosphere,” Dakota called back. “Calculations complete, bridging in thirty!”

Dakota made the final adjustments to the flight controls before configuring the fighter for bridge flight. Hallam could hear the pulse of the Shelby Drive system begin to build, but the cadence and timbre of the drive was different from any drive he’d heard before.

With the fighter rigged for bridge flight, Dakota restored the communications link to the second Darkspace Renegade fighter. “Wolf Three, we’re clear. Kien, get out, now!” There was no response, and Dakota repeated the order with frightened urgency, but still there was no answer. Then one of the four contacts on Hallam’s scanner disappeared.

“Kien!” Dakota yelled again, but Hallam knew that there wouldn’t be a response. The renegade fighter had been destroyed.

The pulse of the Shelby Drive rose to a crescendo, and the cockpit was bathed in a vivid crimson light. Hallam glanced across to Dakota as the fighter entered bridge space, but her eyes were closed, teeth gritted, and fists clenched. He’d seen the look before; she wasn’t just upset – she was raging.

19

Cad Rikkard rapped his knuckles on the massive oak double-doors of Damien Doyle’s office at his private retreat on Vesta. The office itself was as big as Cad’s entire house on Feronia, yet it occupied only a small portion of the east wing of Doyle’s palatial estate. Cad had only been there once before, when the job – at that time, the high-profile assassination of a competitor’s CEO – was too sensitive to discuss over regular communications channels. It followed that this summons meant that whatever Doyle wanted Cad to do, it was big.

“Come in, Mr. Rikkard,” came the sonorous voice of Damien Doyle.

Cad pushed open the door and stepped inside the opulent space. To call it an office didn’t do justice to the grandiose scale of the room. Doyle had modeled it on Trinity College Library, in Dublin, Ireland. While it didn’t quite have the capacity of that library’s seven million volumes, it still contained enough books to comfortably service a small city. To Cad, the most amusing aspect of the office was that it wasn’t even Doyle’s actual library. The multi-trillionaire business tycoon also had a dedicated library building on his estate that was ten times the size of his comparatively modest office.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Rikkard,” said Doyle, who was standing in front of his stately-looking oak desk, which was fit for a president.

“No problem, boss,” said Cad, as if he'd actually had a choice over whether to come or not.

Doyle was six-two, and for a man in his late sixties, he still looked lean and hungry. He never wore suits, and as on the other occasions Cad had met him, he was wearing black slacks with a black mandarin collar shirt that always had the top two buttons left undone. Both were exceptionally dull garments, despite being hand-crafted by Doyle’s favorite celebrity designer – a name Cad could never care to remember. However, if Doyle’s clothes were unremarkable, he made up for it in his choice of footwear. Besides his collection of swords, whose uses were not merely decorative, Cad didn’t care for material possessions. However, Doyle’s shoes, which were crafted from the waxed skin of a now-extinct alligator-like creature found only in the swamps of Tellus, were a work of art. They were the only object in Doyle’s entire gluttonous hoard of possessions that Cad actually coveted.

“Please, come closer,” said Doyle, apparently noticing Cad’s reluctance to step further into the office.

Cad had good reason to be cautious, though. As he stepped forward, he glanced up into the corners of the high ceiling and saw at least a dozen small, turret-mounted weapons. However, far more concerning was the personal protection bot that was stationed by the bookcase to Doyle’s right. It was a humanoid-sized, bipedal unit that was illegal on almost every other planet, due to the model’s propensity for violent errors. Doyle didn’t trust any actual human being enough to be his personal bodyguard, not even Cad. Yet, because of his enormous wealth and power, the tycoon still took no chances with his own security. There was enough high-grade weapons tech on his estate to level a city.

“Would you like a drink?” asked Doyle in an unusual display of generosity.

“Sure, thanks,” said Cad as he approached the desk, noting that all of the turrets tracked his movements with fluid precision and without making a sound. Then the silence was shattered by the metallic clank and mechanical whir of the bot as it surged toward him. Cad instinctively reached for his pistol, forgetting that everything even faintly resembling a weapon had been stripped from his person a mile before he’d even entered the estate.

“Stand down,” said Doyle, seemingly unalarmed by the bot’s aggressive advance, unlike Cad, whose heart was thumping like a hare’s foot. The bot stopped and took three steps back, but its featureless cranial unit still appeared to be staring directly at Cad. “My apologies, Mr. Rikkard; these automatons can be a little overzealous at times.”

“I don’t trust anything that doesn’t have a heartbeat,” said Cad, still watching the bot like a hawk.

“That is precisely why these mechanical soldiers are in my employ,” said Doyle, twisting Cad’s sentiment to his own purpose. “However, it does lack a certain level of finesse, which is why I also employ you, of course.” Doyle then finished pouring a measure of whisky from an ornate-looking gold-colored bottle (Cad supposed it probably was made of actual gold) and offered it to Cad. He hesitated, still unsure whether the bot would blow his head off, before his fingers even touched the glass. “It’s okay, Mr. Rikkard, don’t be shy,” said Doyle with a smug-looking grin.

Cad returned the smile and huffed a laugh; the whole thing had been a deliberately set piece, he realized. Doyle had orchestrated the event to demonstrate just how safe the tycoon was, despite being alone, while also making a point of proving Cad’s own vulnerable position. However, while he admired Doyle’s tactics, the whole thing had royally hacked him off too. If there was one thing that Cad despised above all else, it was being made to look a fool or weak.

Cad stepped forward and confidently took the thick crystal tumbler from Doyle’s hand, feeling the urge to smash it back into his face, but instead, he simply said, “Thanks.”

Doyle then picked up his glass and savored the aroma before sipping the contents. Cad did the same, except that he necked the contents in one hearty gulp. The liquid burned his throat and a smoky aftertaste lingered for far longer than Cad considered pleasant.

“Pretty good stuff,” said Cad, lying. In truth, he hated drinking spirits and rarely drank alcohol at all.

Doyle snorted a sort of derisive, mocking laugh before replying, “I should hope so, Mr. Rikkard. This bottle cost me a little over a million dollars.”

Cad despised the snobbery of the ultra-rich, always thinking they were better than he was. He’d clawed himself up from nothing, whereas Doyle had inherited his fortune on a diamond-studded platter, most likely as a result of murdering his own father. He suddenly felt the need to get away from the estate and the entire Consortium-owned planet before its grotesque extravagances somehow infected him like a virus.

Placing the empty glass down on Doyle’s enormous desk, Cad asked, “I’m assuming this isn’t just a social call. Do you have a job for me?”

Doyle’s expression hardened as he took another sip of the whisky before also placing the glass on the desk. “Yes, one that is particularly well-suited to your talents.”

“I’ll get it done, whatever it is,” said Cad. He genuinely didn’t care what Doyle wanted him to do – murder, torture, blowing up a building or two – it made no difference to him.

“Normally, I would believe you, Mr. Rikkard,” said Doyle, his tone turning darker, almost angry. “But you have already failed me once by allowing the renegade fighter that attacked my corporate headquarters to escape.”

Cad folded his arms; he didn’t take kindly to having his competence questioned, and if it wasn’t for the murderbot standing a few meters away, he’d have demonstrated his dislike with his fists. Folding his arms was the easiest way to stop himself from popping Doyle in the mouth and getting shredded by the bot in the process.

“The Wolf Squadron has been a pain in my ass for months,” said Cad defensively. “If my ships had the same ability to bridge from anywhere, they wouldn’t get away so easily. And don’t forget that I personally took out that ship’s wingman.”

“The wingman was nothing,” Doyle hit back. “The ship that escaped did so with sensitive and confidential Consortium technology.”

“Look, I was on the other side of the bridge network when the message from your spook reached me,” said Cad, feeling the need to defend himself further. “I got there as fast as I could. If I’d have heard sooner, then that renegade ship would never have reached the HQ building. Hell, I would have found your corporate spy before it even got to that stage. Don’t blame me for the incompetence of your own forces.”

Doyle’s cheeks flushed slightly pink, and Cad realized he’d gone too far. He knew Doyle well enough to be granted some leeway in his dealings with the tycoon, but even so, it wasn’t wise to provoke him. Doyle had a vindictive streak as long as his ridiculous private driveway.

“But don’t worry, I’ll find that renegade ship and your tech,” said Cad, fighting to reassert control over his emotions, despite his bruised ego. Then he added, despite the bitter taste of the words in his mouth, “And I’ll do it for no extra charge.”

Doyle continued to peer back into Cad’s eyes with his thin lips pressed tightly together, though his complexion was returning to its usual paler hue. “Money is of no concern to me, Mr. Rikkard,” said Doyle, still sounding aggravated. “But this goes far beyond the theft of some technology.”

“I’m listening,” said Cad, genuinely intrigued now that the point of their meeting appeared to be more than a simple dressing-down.

“These Darkspace Renegades have been a thorn in my side for a long time,” Doyle went on as he strolled over toward a massive bay window that overlooked the immaculate gardens outside. Cad followed, and the personal protection bot shadowed him, still watching with its featureless gaze. “They have never posed any real threat to my operations,” Doyle continued. “However, my surveillance network has brought new information to light, concerning how their newest operative was recruited, the one who infiltrated my HQ.”

“Let me guess; it was an inside job?” said Cad.

Doyle actually looked impressed. “Yes, although that in itself is not unusual. Considering the vast size of my numerous business ventures, it would be impossible to prevent some level of infiltration. In fact, we have been aware of renegade operatives within the tanker division for some time. Some we even allow to exist, so our information network can gather intelligence. I will, of course, make this intelligence available to you.”

Cad grunted. “Good, that will give us a good place to start,” he said, but he still wasn’t sure why this had merited a personal visit. “No offense, but tracking down spies and snitches hardly seems like a big enough deal to drag me all the way out here.”

“That is because it’s not why you are here, of course,” Doyle hit back. Clearly, he had taken offense, Cad realized. “The information I’m referring to relates to who is pulling the strings, as it were: the leader of the Darkspace Renegades.”

“You know who it is?” asked Cad, suddenly fully invested in the conversation. To Cad, information was often more valuable than dollars, and the identity of the Darkspace Renegade’s leader was something every merc in the galaxy wanted to know.

“According to my information, it is Shelby Rand,” said Doyle, giving up the name far more freely than Cad had expected. The tycoon then paused and glanced back at Cad to observe his reaction.

“Shelby Rand?” Cad repeated, and judging from the look on Doyle’s face, his reaction had been suitably incredulous. “The Shelby Rand?” he added, still struggling to believe him, but Doyle simply nodded. “Didn’t you declare her dead… what, like ten years ago?”

“It appears that the good doctor is still very much alive,” said Doyle, peering out of the window again.

“Why would Rand try to destroy everything she worked to create?” asked Cad. “That makes no damn sense.”

Doyle turned around and held his hands behind his back. “That is not your concern,” he said firmly. “Suffice it to say that it is imperative she is found and stopped. What I need from you is to track down these rumored Darkspace Renegade hideouts, destroy them, and flush Dr. Rand out into the open. I want her brought to me, dead or alive; I don’t care which.”

“If you want me to find Rand, then I’m going to need to know a hell of a lot more than that,” Cad hit back. It suddenly made sense why the renegade ships had the unique ability to create bridges, while even his top-of-the-line fighters were restricted to the established bridge routes. Shelby Rand was the only person who knew enough about the tech to build and upgrade the drives.

“You know all you need to know, Mr. Rikkard,” said Doyle with a finality that told Cad he was not going to get anything more from the man. “You will be compensated appropriately for your required discretion. That is why I cannot use my own enforcers. I cannot be connected to this in any way. And it should be done in a manner that does not alarm my shareholders. Is that clear?”

“I understand,” replied Cad, loathing how the tycoon talked down to him like peasant thug. “But I’ll need more than money. Those renegade ships are like phantoms, bridging in and out of systems without restriction. And word has it that their hideouts are deep in the Darkspace. I’m going to need some serious upgrades if I’m going to be able to track them down and reach them.” Then he added, just to reinforce the point that he’d been listening. “Discreetly, of course.”

Doyle walked back over to his desk, with the personal protection bot still attentively shadowing Cad as he followed, a careful distance behind. Doyle then turned a computer terminal screen to face him and tapped away at it for several seconds before again meeting Cad’s eyes. Cad’s watch chimed an alert, and he lifted his wrist, seeing that Doyle had just made a deposit to his account. He opened the notification and was unable to hide his surprise.

“That is just the first two million,” said Doyle coolly. “I will pay another ten when the job is done. I have also given you access to a special account, so that you can acquire your ‘serious upgrades,’ as you so expressively put it.”

Cad’s watch bleeped again, and he swiped across to see that he’d been given access to a Consortium corporate account. The sum was a billion dollars.

“If that is insufficient, then more will be made available,” said Doyle, pointing a finger at Cad and adding, “but trust me when I tell you that the use of this account will be closely monitored.”

“Don’t worry,” said Cad, lowering his arm to his side. “I’m not going to steal from you. My satisfaction comes from getting the job done, and doing it better than anyone else. And that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll find Rand’s hideout and bring her to you. I’ll stake my reputation on it.”

“You already have, Mr. Rikkard,” replied Doyle, clearly unimpressed by Cad’s bluster. “I trust you will not disappoint.”

“I won’t,” said Cad, still fighting the urge to retaliate against Doyle’s continued slights against him and his repute as a mercenary. He turned to leave, the protection bot still tracing him patiently, before he had a thought and turned back. “The advanced Shelby Drives still give the renegades an advantage. I can get my ships and crew re-fitted at any number of spaceports, but my guess is that you’re sitting on some advanced, perhaps even experimental tech yourself. Something that might even the odds a bit?”

Doyle didn’t answer, but the appearance of additional crow’s feet around his slightly narrowed eyes told Cad he was carefully considering what to reveal to the mercenary.

“Besides, if I buy the gear from your own businesses, the money all goes back into your pocket, right?” Cad added, appealing to Doyle’s capitalist instincts.

Doyle again turned to face his terminal and tapped on it for a few more seconds before Cad’s watch bleeped again. Cad checked it and saw that he’d been given the coordinates to what seemed to be a remote island in the eastern equatorial region of the planet’s southern hemisphere.

“I will let them know to expect you,” said Doyle before picking up his whisky glass from the desk and draining it.

20

Alexis Black strolled up beside Cad and leaned on his shoulder. She was munching on a bag of sweet and salty popcorn, which she offered to him. Cad smiled, dipped his hand inside, and threw a few sticky pieces into his mouth.

“This is better than watching a movie,” said Alexis as a small army of engineering robots finished up the final upgrades to the last of the three Blackfire Squadron fighters. It was the ship that had a raven’s skull motif painted onto the side: Alexis’ ship.

“I can’t believe Doyle has been holding out on us all this time,” said Cad, grabbing another fistful of popcorn and spilling some on the deck in the process. “He even had some of those advanced Shelby Drives, salvaged from renegade ships that we shot down.” Cad then shook his head; he hadn’t thought it possible to loathe Doyle more than he already did, but somehow the tycoon always found a way to inspire more revulsion. “If we had this gear months ago, it would have made our lives a whole lot easier.”

Alexis nodded before using her black varnished fingernail to pick at a piece of popcorn stuck between her teeth. “He’s like most rich assholes, though,” she said, flicking the unwanted fragment of popcorn onto the deck. “He hates spending money on anyone other than himself. Whatever Rand is up to, it must be serious for him to give us the keys to this place.”

“Well, I’m going to find out, one way or another,” replied Cad, again falling back on his mantra that information was the most valuable commodity he could possess. If he could learn the secret that Doyle was keeping from him, it would give him leverage in the future. It would also help him understand the real level of danger involved in their new mission. Then Cad looked around, suddenly realizing that Draga hadn’t arrived with Alexis.

“She’s still practicing in her new armor,” said Alexis, guessing what Cad was thinking, a skill she’d honed over many years.

Cad snorted. “She’s been wearing that stuff for hours. It must reek by now.”

“You know Draga; she likes to be intimidating, right down to having offensive body odor. You should see how quickly the Consortium techs run when they see her coming.”

“She doesn’t need the armor to be intimidating,” replied Cad as the engineering robots completed fitting the upgraded Shelby Drive to Alexis’ fighter.

“I don’t blame her; I’d be permanently angry too, if I’d had her upbringing on Vediovis.”

“You both fought your way out of rough situations; she’s no tougher than you are.” Cad winced, realizing he’d come over sounding like he was defending her, and a quick glance at Alexis’ grinning face told him that she was definitely going to exploit the opening.

“You’re still my hero,” she said, hooking her arm through Cad’s and jostling him. “Even if I had already killed all of my captors before you arrived to rescue me, sword in hand...”

“I was only doing it because your moron father paid me a stupid amount of money to get you back.” The corner of Cad's mouth turned up as he finished the sentence. “But I have to say, the reward you gave me back on my ship was much more satisfying.”

Alexis laughed and slapped Cad hard on the backside. The sharp clap in his ears hurt Cad almost as much as his stinging butt cheek.

“Naughty…” Alexis said. She pulled Cad closer and kissed him fiercely before biting his bottom lip and pulling away.

Cad dabbed the back of his hand to his mouth, leaving a bloody mark behind, then peered into Alexis’ eyes, which just flashed back at him. “Ouch,” he said in a monotone drawl, dipping his hand back into the bag of popcorn.

A cleaner bot scurried over to vacuum up the loose popcorn that Cad continued to spill onto the deck. Alexis waited for it to trundle in front of her boot before she launched a kick at it, sending it tumbling toward her fighter. One of the engineering robots then accidentally rolled over it, crushing it into a dozen mangled pieces.

“Nice shot,” said Cad with enthusiasm.

There was a polite cough from behind them, and Cad turned to see one of the Consortium techs. The man looked like he was about to wet his pants with fear.

“Yes, what do you want?” snarled Cad, getting a kick out of the man’s obvious discomfort. This was a pastime he shared with Draga, though she pursued it with far more gusto than he did.

“Your ships are all done, sir,” said the man meekly. Then he peered down at a palm computer and began to read off the list of completed upgrades. “Each vessel has been fitted with new Shelby Drives, upgraded main propulsion units, reinforced armor, new flight electronics and control systems, upgraded sensor capability, increased fuel capacity and efficiency, enhanced weapons systems…”

“I get the picture,” interrupted Cad. “Just make sure they’re tanked up and ready to go. We have places to be.”

“Yes, sir,” said the man, still sounding terrified. Draga had clearly done a number on the staff in the secret installation, Cad thought, smiling to himself. “There’s just the matter of payment, sir.”

Cad snatched the palm computer out of the man’s grasp and looked at the final figure on the invoice before laughing loudly. There were more digits than Cad could be bothered to count. He passed the palm computer back to the nervous man, then accessed Doyle’s corporate account from his watch.

“Here, just bill it to this,” said Cad, authorizing the transaction. “Send the invoice to Damien Doyle personally.”

The man just mumbled a sort of “urgh” sound, clearly not sure whether Cad was joking or not, but Cad had already turned his back on him.

“Have you set up the meeting with this hacker kid?” Cad asked Alexis. “What does she call herself again? Hawkface?”

“Falken,” replied Alexis, flapping her arms like a bird and spilling more popcorn onto the deck in the process. A second cleaner bot had trundled up during their conversation, but whatever machine intelligence the device possessed was smart enough to know to hang back, so that it didn’t share its counterpart’s fate. “But yes, we’re all set, as soon as the ships are ready.”

Cad grunted with satisfaction, then added, “And you’re sure her information will be good? I need to prove to that sanctimonious asshole, Doyle, that we’ve got things in hand.”

“It’ll be good,” answered Alexis confidently. “Outrageously expensive, but good. It’s why we’ve only rarely used her in the past.”

The solid clomp of bootsteps on the metal deck distracted Cad, and he turned to see Draga Vex approaching, still wearing her new power combat armor. Orange-suited Consortium workers scurried out of her path like frightened kittens as she walked.

Considering its protective power, the armor was tight-fitting and barely bulkier than their usual combat gear. However, it had a strange, almost iridescent hue that Cad had never seen before. Considering the vast treasure trove of artefacts stored on the island vault, Cad could only wonder at the true origins of the material.

“Are we ready to go?” said Draga before pulling out a modified handgun and loading it. The nervous Consortium tech, who had reported the status of the upgrades to Cad, rushed over, appearing even more agitated than usual.

“You can’t carry a loaded weapon in here…”

The man’s complaint was cut short by a heavy right cross from Draga. Thanks to the servo assistance from the new combat suit, the punch propelled the hapless worker several meters across the deck, as if he was an Olympic curling rock, sliding over polished ice.

Alexis pushed out her bottom lip and nodded with appreciation before tapping Cad on the shoulder and saying, “I think her shot was better.”

21

Cad pressed what he assumed to be the door buzzer to Falken’s bunker for a fourth time, his foot tapping impatiently as he did so. As first impressions went, the mysterious hacker had not made a good one. On top of being forced to wait, the missile battery on Falken’s mountainside fortress had also locked on to Cad’s ship as he’d approached. The half-assed, insincere apology that had followed over his new holo-comm system merely added insult to injury. To make matters worse, it was also freezing cold and snowing. Cad hated snow.

“What the hell is keeping this lady?” growled Cad as he rubbed his arms, trying to work some life back into them. “And what kind of nutjob builds their house on the side of a mountain? That’s some evil genius-level nonsense.”

Draga Vex walked up to the thick metal door, which looked like it had been built to withstand a nuclear blast. “On the plus side, this is probably the least awful place I’ve seen on Vediovis,” she said as she hammered her armored fists on the metal, yelling at the top of her voice for the occupier to open up. Cad could see that she had actually pressed dents into it. By the eighth strike, the door creaked open, and the petite frame of a young woman peeked through the narrow gap.

“Alright already, I heard you the first ten times,” she snapped, immediately hugging her thin shoulders as the bitter wind whipped inside. “Do you know how long it takes to get down here?”

Draga pushed the door open wider and barged through it, almost knocking Falken off her feet. She then grabbed her by the neckline of her tank-top and said, “Do you know how long it would take for you to hit the ground if I tossed you off this mountain?”

Falken looked into Draga’s dark eyes, curiously without fear. “Well, the landing platform is one thousand and fifty-four meters above sea level, and the gravity here is about point nine four g, so I reckon about fifteen seconds,” she said, throwing Draga off her stride completely. “Assuming I free fall the whole distance, that is.”

Cad was certain that his menacing accomplice was gearing up toward a “do you want to find out?” sort of punchline, but Falken’s factual answer and unruffled delivery had ruined her comeback.

Draga released the young woman, apparently not knowing what else to do, and Falken then ushered them inside with a waft of her hand, as if nothing unusual had occurred.

“Come on, and shut the door; the heating costs for this place are astronomical…”

Cad laughed and walked inside, while Alexis followed a short distance behind, shrugging at Draga as she passed.

“Close the door, will ya?” Alexis said to Draga, smirking.

Cad followed Falken through the sprawling interior of the mountainside structure, peering up at the industrial-looking beams and wide-open spaces. It then dawned on him that this wasn’t a purpose-built dwelling at all; Falken appeared to have adapted it from something that had already been there.

“What is this place anyway?” Cad asked as they walked up a long, winding metal staircase to an open-plan area that looked like a high-tech military intelligence command center.

“It used to be part of a precious metals mine," said Falken, leading them toward an elaborate array of computer consoles and physical and holographic displays. “It was abandoned decades ago, back when the ass fell out of the industry on Vediovis, and all the gangs took over. Most of it was scrapped, but I rescued this place; got it nice and cheap too. No one bothers me up here; not even the gangs. Not that they’d be able to get in, even if they did make the climb. And since there are no laws on this planet, I can hack into the BridgeNet and pretty much scam whomever I like, and no one can touch me.”

Falken sat down in an enormous red chair and spun it around to face her consoles. Cad noticed that much of the room was given over to a variety of home entertainment systems, holo projectors, and a full reality-immersion suite. There was an old-fashioned two-dimensional projection screen that was part-way through what looked like an old Hollywood action movie. It was showing a scene with a guy in a bloodied white vest, running around on the roof of a tall office tower, letting loose with a sub-machine gun. There was also an enormous fridge, filled with an assortment of brightly colored drinks, and a row of shelves with a wide assortment of sweet and savory snacks. The whole thing occupied nearly an entire wall.

“Help yourself,” said Falken, noticing that Cad had spotted the mini food market.

“I’m good, thanks,” replied Cad, thinking he’d probably rather drink more of Doyle’s revolting million-dollar whiskey than the crap in Falken’s fridge. “We’re sort of on the clock here, lady, so can we skip to the part where you help us find our renegade spy?”

“On it,” said Falken, who then began working on her many different terminals and screens. As she was doing so, Alexis strolled over to the enormous fridge, grabbed a bright purple-colored drink, plus a straw, followed by a party-size bag of chips from the adjacent shelf. She then strolled back over in front of the projection screen, and flopped down into a huge reclining leather sofa.

“What?” said Alexis as Cad stared at her with a “what the hell are you doing?” look. She pulled open the bag of chips and gestured to the projection screen. “This is a classic!”

Cad shook his head and turned back to Falken with Draga at his side. Her arms were folded like a nightclub doorman’s; returning to Vediovis always put her in a foul mood.

“The information you forwarded to me from the Consortium’s intelligence network was pretty useful,” said Falken, continuing to work as she talked. “But most of the people they were tracking are actually moles for some of the other mega-corporations, rather than these renegades you’re after.”

“How is that useful?” asked Cad, already getting bored.

Falken stopped typing and smiled up at Cad. “Because I’m still blackmailing all of them as a nice little side-gig.”

“Whatever pays the bills, huh?” said Cad, both impressed and a little worried at how shamelessly Falken seemed to enjoy screwing people over. Not that he was any different; Cad just preferred a straight fight to snooping around in the shadows. Even so, he still felt the urge to check his own personal account on his watch to make sure the hacker hadn’t already emptied it.

“There were a few pretty strong contenders for renegade double-agents, though,” Falken went on, clearly enjoying herself, “besides the one who exposed his identity on Vesta, during the HQ raid, that is.” She then brought up a personnel file for a woman called Scarlett Brock, and threw it up on the large holo screen to Cad’s left.

Cad read the file. The woman was an accountant at one of the major banks on Janus. She looked to be in her early forties and in every way possible was entirely unremarkable, at least to Cad’s eyes.

“You’re trying to tell me she’s a renegade spy?” he said doubtfully. He then shot a quick glance over to Draga, who looked similarly unconvinced. Alexis, meanwhile, was still engrossed in the movie, while working her way through the bag of potato chips.

“Not all spies are like super-cool secret agent types, you know?” Falken hit back. “From what I’ve discovered, this woman works on the accounts for some of the Consortium’s larger Randenite fuel retail partners. So she knows who is buying what, and in what quantities, and on what schedules.”

Cad nodded. “Right, I can see how that information might be useful to Rand’s little group of bandits.” He continued to read the file, noting that Scarlett Brock worked for Wareham & Doyle, which was based in the main financial district on Janus.

“The Consortium monitored some encrypted data streams originating from her office, but they couldn’t trace the destination,” Falken added. “It was like the signal just disappeared inside the BridgeNet. That shouldn’t be possible, so whoever is behind this has got some smarts.”

“She could just be sending secrets to some rival firm, like your other suspects,” Cad replied. “What makes you so certain that she’s working with the renegades?”

“It’s all there in her social profile,” said Falken, wafting a hand toward the holo screen. “She was a big supporter of stopping bridge travel, in favor of fixing Earth’s problems instead; attended marches and all that stuff.”

“Seems a bit obvious,” said Cad. “How come no one found her sooner?”

Falken switched the holo screen to another section of Scarlett Brock’s profile. “She would have been, but someone wiped her social accounts a couple of years ago – a real professional job too – and started again. Same goes with criminal records and anything tying her to activism. Now she reads like the galaxy’s biggest Consortium fangirl and proponent of interstellar expansion. This was also around about the same time she took the job on Janus.” Falken shrugged nonchalantly again. “A nice bit of profile reengineering so that she’d be above suspicion. But I’m certain this is your woman.”

Cad sighed, “It’s not going to be easy to get to her on Janus,” he said, stroking his chin with his thumb. The security on that planet is tight, and we can’t just stroll into a major city-center office block wearing power armor and weapons.”

“Speaking of weapons, cool sword, by the way,” said Falken, reclining back in her seat and pointing to Cad’s Black Prince.

“Thanks,” replied Cad insincerely. The overly chipper demeanor of the young hacker was getting on his nerves. Cad again checked his watch; this time because he was actually conscious of the time, rather than whether Falken had hacked him. “Look, this is all fascinating, but couldn’t you have transmitted this to me over a secure comm? Why drag my ass all the way out to this worthless rock?”

Falken reached across her desk and picked up a small device. “Because in order to find out where the data stream ends up, you’ll need this,” she said, holding the plain-looking plastic object out to Cad. He thought it looked like a baseball that had been squashed into an oblate shape. “If you can catch her transmitting the data from her terminal and link that device to it, then it will trace and decode the final end point.”

Cad shrugged. “Which means what?”

“It will give you the co-ordinates of the location in the Darkspace where the spy is sending data to,” Falken clarified. “Maybe one of these hideouts you’re looking for.”

Cad pocketed the device and called over to Alexis, “Hey, come on, we’re leaving.”

“Just a minute, this is almost finished,” Alexis replied, slurping on the brightly colored drink.

Falken then held out another device to Cad, and this was one he recognized.

“Now there’s just the small matter of payment,” said Falken chirpily.

“What makes you think I won’t just kill you and take the information for free?” said Cad, genuinely curious as to why the hacker had so unreservedly let them enter her fortified bunker.

“You’ll need me again,” said Falken with the fearlessness she had shown when Draga confronted her. “Plus, that device won’t activate until you’ve paid.” Then she smiled a toothy grin. “Plus, plus… I could hack your account and take the money after you’ve gone, so you may as well get it over with now.”

“You’d just better hope you stay useful,” Cad hit back before grabbing the palm computer. He looked at the figure on the screen and snorted. The sum wasn’t nearly as obnoxious as the bill for upgrading their ships, but it was still more than most regular people earned in twenty years. “Nice work if you can get it,” said Cad, authorizing the transaction from Doyle’s corporate account before passing the device back to Falken.

The woman took the pad back and shrugged. “Beats working for a living.”

Alexis then strolled up beside Cad, slurping loudly on the last dregs of her drink. Cad noticed that the credits were rolling on the movie she’d been watching. She belched loudly, then threw the plastic bottle at a nearby trash can, missing it by a considerable distance. “Oops,” she said, not bothering to rectify her mistake.

“We’ll see ourselves out,” Cad announced before turning to leave. Then something that Falken had said earlier popped back into his mind, and he stopped. “Wait, you said before that the identity of the guy who stole data from the Consortium HQ was blown. Do you know who it was?”

“Of course,” said Falken, quickly tapping away at her console. A cleaner bot scurried over to collect the discarded soda bottle, then rapidly shot away as Alexis glowered at it. “But I doubt you’ll see him again, now that his cover is blown,” she added. “Likely, he’ll stay holed up in one of these hideouts from now on.” She finished working and threw up the file onto the large holo screen.

Cad shook his head in disbelief, “You have got to be kidding me,” he said, glancing at Alexis and Draga, who both looked as astounded as he was.

“You know this guy?” said Falken.

“Yeah, we’ve met,” said Cad, glaring at the image of Hallam Knight on the holo. He rested his hand on the pommel of his sword and squeezed it tightly. “And you’re dead wrong about him laying low from now on,” Cad growled. “In fact, I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing a lot more of this asshole in the future.”

22

Hallam stepped off the metal stairwell that the ground crew had wheeled up to the side hatch of Dakota’s fighter and got his first good look at the hangar of the Darkspace Renegade hideout. The last time he’d been inside one these bases, Dr. Rand had insisted he was blindfolded before leaving in order to preserve the base’s secret location. Hallam had argued that this was pointless, considering the hideout was on some uncharted planet he’d never seen or even heard of before, but Dr. Rand preferred to take no chances. The reason for her caution had become obvious after learning about the hideout’s true, and remarkable, location. Even so, after his escapades at the Consortium HQ on Vesta, he still doubted if the genius scientist would be more trusting of him.

“Not quite as plush as the Centrum’s hangar area, is it?” said Dakota as she jumped off the steps behind Hallam.

“No, but in many other ways, it’s just as impressive,” Hallam replied, looking around the unique space. Dakota was right that the hangar was more than a little rough around the edges, but it was also a remarkable feat of ingenuity. “Is this the same hideout you brought me to originally?” Hallam then asked.

“Yes, this is the largest front-line base we have in the Darkspace,” said Dakota, peering around the hangar with the look of someone who’d just come home after a long day. “Though, wait till you see Dr. Rand’s personal hideout,” Dakota added with an air of mystery. “That’s even more remarkable, though for very different reasons.”

Hallam raised an eyebrow, curious to learn more about that unique base, but since he’d only just been let over the threshold of his first secret hideout, he didn’t want to push Dakota for more information just yet.

“It’s literally unbelievable that you managed to build this all the way out in the middle of nowhere,” Hallam said, focusing back in on his current miraculous location. “No wonder the Consortium has never been able to find these hideouts.”

The renegade base had been built on the surface of an earth-sized moon that orbited a Jupiter-mass rogue planet. Prior to setting eyes on the renegade base during his return with Dakota, Hallam had assumed that the planet Dr. Rand referred to during their first meeting was a regular one, orbiting a regular star. He’d never even heard of a rogue planet before, never mind visited one. Instead of orbiting a star, the rogue planet circled the galactic center, sailing through the Darkspace, utterly alone, apart from its companion moons.

The rogue planet itself was an incredible sight, but to then discover that Dr. Rand’s insurgent organization had constructed a base on the surface of the second moon was even more fantastic. It had been built by landing and then piecing together a fleet of large commercial starships and super-freighters. It was like building a three-dimensional jigsaw, except that to make the pieces fit, you needed heavy-duty power tools and construction machinery. However, once the ships had been bolted and welded together, and doorways cut through from one to another, each vessel’s own reactor and life-support systems were fired back up to supply heat, air, and power. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked, and had resulted in a functional base with a ready-made set of amenities, from living spaces to reclamation facilities.

During their journey from Vesta to the hideout, Dakota had explained that the vessels had been stolen from dozens of orbital and deep-space scrapyards over a number of years. After Dr. Rand’s cyber-attack had put the Randenite refineries out of action, with the exception of the Centrum, thousands of interstellar ships ended up being mothballed or sold for scrap. There simply wasn’t enough fuel to sustain them all. And even for the majority of haulage firms and interstellar transport companies that could get hold of Randenite, the radically spiraling fuel costs soon put them out of business. However, while the market for interstellar transportation and haulage contracted massively, the Centrum still produced enough Randenite to keep the network of bridge worlds supplied and fed.

Hallam followed Dakota toward the hangar exit as engineering crews rushed in to take care of her fighter. In amongst the throng of blue overall-wearing techs, there was someone else approaching, and she looked ready for a war.

“What the hell happened out there?” yelled the woman, marching directly up to Dakota and blocking her path.

“Kien disobeyed my order and got himself killed, that’s what happened,” snarled Dakota, meeting fire with fire.

“You should have let me come with you, like I said. Then he wouldn’t have felt like he had to go it alone,” the woman hit back, eyes still locked on to Dakota’s. “But it sounds like we were both right, because he saved your ass.” Hallam felt as though he was invisible.

Dakota stood her ground. However, although she was giving no quarter, she hadn’t gotten angry. It was a side to his usually hotheaded partner he hadn’t seen before; Dakota was usually the one to give in to emotion.

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Dakota replied. “But the fool got himself killed in the process, which was exactly why I told you both to sit this out, so that no one else was put in danger. He made his choice, Ruby; that’s on him, not me.”

The woman Dakota had addressed as Ruby blew a loud huff from her nostrils, like an angry bull, but then seemed to back down and concede Dakota’s point. Then, for the first time since she’d stormed onto the hangar deck, spoiling for a fight, her eyes flicked over to Hallam. Suddenly, a blue bubble of gum inflated out of her mouth, popped, and was sucked back through her pouty lips.

“I just hope he’s worth it,” Ruby said, still glaring at Hallam.

“I went to Vesta for the tech, not for him,” Dakota replied before realizing her slip, and adding, while glancing awkwardly at Hallam, “Though I wanted to rescue Hal too, of course.”

Hallam let out an affronted snort-laugh, shaking his head at both of them. “Way to make a guy feel welcome,” he said, altering his gaze between Dakota and Ruby. “Do you want to just blast me out of the airlock now, or are you not done insulting me yet?”

“Oh, boo hoo, tanker man,” Ruby hit back, pretending to rub her eye with her fist. “If it were up to me, you’d have been jettisoned into bridge space before you even got here.”

“Then I’m glad it’s not up to you,” Hallam snapped back. He’d always considered himself a gregarious and easy-going sort of guy, but the speed with which Ruby had jumped down his throat had really got his back up.

“Alright, knock it off,” Dakota cut in, for once being the mediator rather than the instigator. To Ruby, she added, “We’ll talk about Kien later; right now, we need to see Dr. Rand and figure out our next move. The Blackfire Squadron showing up on Vesta was no coincidence. If they’re involved, Doyle may be stepping up his offensive against us. We need to know why.”

Ruby chewed her gum aggressively for a couple of seconds before saying, “Fine…” in the sort of manner people say “fine” when they don’t mean it. She then again glared at Hallam before blowing out another large blue bubble. They all waited for it to pop before Ruby added, “So what are we doing about tanker man; is he coming too, or do we airlock him?”

Hallam watched as Ruby blew out another bubble, but instead of waiting for it to pop, this time, he stabbed it with the end of his finger. The blue gum exploded onto Ruby’s chin, and she quickly peeled it off, looking annoyed and embarrassed.

“I’m coming too,” Hallam said, choosing also to fight fire with fire. “And the name is Hallam, by the way. Hallam Knight.” He folded his arms and held Ruby’s now narrowed eyes. “You got a full name, or should I just call you Ruby Gumface?”

Hallam saw Dakota smirk in his peripheral vision, though Ruby’s expression was still as hard as iron. “Call me gumface if you want a kick in the balls,” she answered, though ironically, her tone was a touch friendlier than it had been at the start. “But the name is Ruby Rivas, or Wolf Three when I’m in the cockpit. However, you can call me…” she then paused and stared pensively at the ceiling, before clicking her fingers and meeting Hallam’s gaze again with wide eyes. “…you can call me nothing at all, because I don’t want your sorry ass to speak to me, ever again.”

“No problem, gumface,” replied Hallam, smirking. Ruby, however, didn’t see the funny side. She was ready to launch her promised kick to Hallam’s nether regions, when the appearance of Shelby Rand snapped her to attention, like a rookie on parade.

“Is there a problem here, Miss Rivas?” said Dr. Rand, raising an eyebrow toward the young pilot.

“No, ma’am, I’m just welcoming our new guest,” replied Ruby, now fully focused on Dr. Rand.

“Good, well, we can save the formal introductions till later,” said Dr. Rand, turning to Hallam, “Right now, we have more important matters to attend to.”

Hallam reached into his pocket and removed the authenticator he’d stolen from the Consortium HQ, handing it to Dr. Rand. “I hope this thing turns out to be worth all the trouble,” he said.

“My sentiments exactly…” added Ruby, shooting a quick glance toward Hallam but maintaining her more soldierly posture.

“The codes stored in this device will have already been changed, but if I can pick apart how it functions, then it could still prove extremely valuable,” said Dr. Rand, holding up the device to Hallam and adding, “Thank you, Mr. Knight. I know it must not have been easy to get hold of this.”

“No problem, Doc,” replied Hallam. “A little more warning next time would be nice, though.”

Ruby sprang up next to Dr. Rand, looking anxious. “What do you mean, ‘next time’? Surely he’s not staying with us?”

“Well, I can hardly go back to flying tankers, now can I?” Hallam hit back. It hadn’t taken long for Ruby’s temper to reassert itself.

“What Mr. Knight does or does not do next is none of your business, Miss Rivas,” Dr. Rand cut in, eager to diffuse the obvious tension between them. “But it may be some time before I can decipher how this device works.”

“Time is something we may soon be running short of,” said Dakota, stepping up and taking charge of the conversation. “It was the Blackfire Squadron that intercepted us on Vesta. Our intel put them on the other side of the bridge network at the time I departed here, so for them to be called in so quickly, it must have come from Doyle.”

Dr. Rand’s eyes narrowed. “You think he suspects something? About the bases, or even me?”

“I think we can’t take any chances,” Dakota answered confidently. “I think we need to step up our plans and move for the probe sooner, rather than later.”

Dr. Rand contemplated this for a moment before turning back to Hallam. “And what about you, Mr. Knight? Are you ready to pick a side yet?”

“I thought I already had,” said Hallam, feeling a little insulted that his recent actions hadn’t made that obvious.

“It gets much more serious from here on, Mr. Knight,” Dr. Rand answered darkly. “Are you ready to put your life on the line, like Kien did, and like Dakota and Ruby do every day?”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Doc,” Hallam replied a little evasively; the question had made him feel strangely uncomfortable. “I’m done with the Consortium.”

Dr. Rand nodded and smiled politely, although she seemed less than convinced. “I hope that’s true. Though I very much doubt the Consortium are done with you.”

Dr. Rand then turned to leave, but she only made it a couple of steps before stopping and meeting Dakota’s eyes, head bowed a little. “There will be a memorial service for Kien Anders in the morning. Please see to the arrangements.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Dakota before Dr. Rand moved away, head still tilted toward the cold metal deck of the hangar.

23

Scarlett Brock lay slumped over, face down on her office desk, blood leaking from her broken nose. Draga Vex watched with interest as the thick, red liquid flowed across the imperfections in the surface. It pooled in certain places, while in others it ran off and danced around the various frivolous office accessories that were also on the desk. Cad knew Draga hadn’t even gotten warmed up yet; in a few minutes, any number of Scarlett Brock’s office trinkets would be used in cruel and creative ways, all designed to elicit the maximum amount of pain. However, as much as he enjoyed watching Draga indulge in her favorite pastime, they needed to move fast. This would inevitably mean spoiling her fun, catching it in the neck from her as a result.

The easy part of their plan had been dragging a drugged Scarlett Brock out of her house in the middle of the night and into an unmarked transport. This had been a helpful addition, courtesy of one of Doyle’s many business assets on Janus. They had then managed to sneak into the Wareham Enterprises tower block through the basement garage, and haul the then-delirious Scarlett Brock up to the Wareham & Doyle office on the fifty-third floor. Secrecy and anonymity had been assured though a combination of Alexis’ technical prowess, and the fact that half of the building was owned by Doyle. This had allowed them to access and amend the guard duty rota, as well as download detailed plans for the building’s security systems, which Alexis had then duly hacked. However, they still had to be gone from the office by five a.m. local, before the next guard shift arrived.

“Look, Scarlett, we know who you are, and we know you feed information to the renegades,” said Cad as he patted the flat of his sword blade on the back of the woman’s neck. “So let’s just cut the crap and get down to it, before we really have to hurt you.”

Draga suddenly reached down and pressed Scarlett Brock’s face into the desk, creating a grotesquely bloody imprint that wouldn’t have been out of place in a modern art exhibition.

“Please don’t help us,” Draga said, whispering into Scarlett Brock’s ear like a demonic spirit before steadily increasing the pressure on her skull. “Please let me hurt you some more…”

Cad sighed and slid the blade off the woman’s neck before resting on it like a cane. “Just use the drugs already; we don’t have time for this.”

Draga released the woman, who was now gently sobbing, spilling hot tears into the rapidly cooling blood. Draga looked incensed, and Cad knew he was about to get an ear-bashing.

“Come on, don’t give me that look, Draga. We can’t hang around here all night,” Cad said, trying to head off her complaint. “Besides, once we have the location of the renegade hideout, there will be more than enough bodies to satisfy your hunger.”

Draga grumbled some words under her breath, most of which seemed to be either curses or insults, before yanking a syringe out of a pouch on her belt. Without hesitation, she plunged it into the woman’s neck, injected the contents as she squirmed underneath her vise-like grip, then discarded it onto the floor.

Cad threw his arms out wide, “Come on, Draga. Evidence…” he said before extending an open palm toward the syringe.

Draga sighed and rolled her eyes, “It’s hardly like we’re not leaving a trail already,” she complained, picking it up and placing it back in the pouch. “Doyle’s cleaners would have taken care of it anyway.”

Cad watched as Scarlett Brock lolled back in her chair, looking drunk. “The cleaner will take care of her and the room,” he said while frowning at the woman, who appeared to be having a far more severe reaction to the drugs than he’d expected. “But we don’t leave anything that could tie us to this place. Anyway, you know I hate mess.” Then he looked up at Draga again, scowling. “How much of that stuff did you give her? She looks dead already.”

“Enough…” replied Draga huffily.

“It’s crimson henbane, Draga, not paracetamol,” Cad hit back. “Too much will turn her brain to mush before we can get anything useful from her.”

Crimson henbane was derived from a genetically engineered species of deadly nightshade that now grew wild on the dry, loamy soils of Vediovis’ northeastern continent. It was ideal for making people suggestible, but had the unfortunate side-effect of killing them afterwards. This was especially true in very high doses, which was what Draga appeared to have injected Scarlett Brock with as a protest against Cad for ruining her fun.

“I hate to break up the party, but we have a couple of hours before the guard switchover, during which time the building’s security system reverts back to the regular camera feed,” Alexis suddenly chimed in. She was currently in the more playful of her dual personalities, since the current task did not require her particular expertise or combat proficiency. As such, she was sitting in one of the guest chairs with her feet up on the desk, playing a puzzle game on her palm computer. “And we still have to get the cleaner in, so can we hurry this up a little, maybe?”

Draga folded her arms and glared back at Cad. “She’ll be compliant for a few minutes,” she said, still looking moody before adding with the faintest suggestion of a smirk, “And then dead for quite a few more minutes after that.”

Cad sighed and perched himself on the edge of the desk, careful to avoid sitting in any blood. He drew the computer’s holo-display emitter closer to the woman’s face and pushed her keyboard in front of her hands. It slid across the blood-soaked surface like a vehicle aquaplaning on water. Cad then lifted his Black Prince sword and tapped the flat of the blade on top of Scarlett Brock’s head, as if he were knocking to enter a room.

“Hello, Scarlett, this is the Darkspace Renegades calling,” he said in a sort of soothing, storyteller voice. “Are you ready to send us some more data?”

Scarlett frowned and stared at the computer monitor. “You’re not s'posed to contact me directly…” she slurred.

Alexis laughed. “She sounds hammered!” But Cad and Draga both glared at her, and she realized her mistake, pressing a finger to her lips.

“Who’s there?” yelled Scarlett Brock, groggily looking around the room.

“It’s just us, the Darkspace Renegades,” said Cad, still in his soothing accent. “We need your help. It’s an emergency. Can you send us the information you have, right away?”

The woman still appeared to look confused. “But I’m not due to make a transmission till Tuesday,” she said, now peering at the holo screen. It was like Cad and the others were ghosts. “If I transmit from here too frequently, I risk being detected.”

“We’ve taken care of everything, Scarlett,” sang Cad. “You’re completely safe. But we’re all in danger, Scarlett. Without your help, we can’t go on. The Consortium will continue building more bridges to more and more planets. That would be terrible, wouldn’t it, Scarlett?”

“Yes, it would,” the woman replied, suddenly growing sad. “Okay, I’ll send you what I have,” she continued, reaching for the keyboard. The sleeves of her jacket dipped into the blood and began to soak it up.

Cad nodded to Alexis, who swiftly slid her feet off the desk before silently moving to Scarlett’s side. She then removed the device Falken had given them and placed it on the desk, next to the computer terminal unit, careful to avoid any blood. Still without making a sound, she then switched from the puzzle game on her palm computer to a BridgeNet route tracing app. A circle of light on the top of the device lit up and Alexis nodded back to Cad.

“Hurry, Scarlett. We might lose the connection soon,” said Cad, continuing in his whispery delivery.

“I’m trying…” said Scarlett as Cad watched her follow an elaborate procedure on the computer, entering what appeared to be a secure armored terminal environment and typing all of the content in code. Cad could only presume she must have memorized it, like learning a new language.

Damn, Rand really has gone to a lot of trouble to protect these hideouts… Cad mused as the woman worked. It was almost enough to impress him, but not quite. After all, he’d manage to follow Dr. Rand’s trail and was on the verge of striking at the heart of her organization. He’d gotten the better of her, and knowing this merely reinforced his already robust opinion of himself.

Scarlett then paused, reached a hand up to her chest and pulled out a small silver pendant necklace. She squeezed the top and bottom gently, and the metal glowed with a sequence of numbers and letters, similar to the code she was entering. Cad glanced at Alexis, who was the one that got a kick out of technology, and she shot a look back that told him she was highly impressed. She mouthed the word authenticator at him, and Cad understood the pendant’s significance. It was basically like a key, providing Scarlett Brock with access to Dr. Rand’s hidden network.

A couple more minutes went by, where everyone remained as still and as silent as the empty cubicles outside the office. The circle of light on Falken’s device continued to swirl hypnotically as she worked, until Scarlett was finally done.

“I’ve sent… what I… have,” the woman slurred before shutting down the armored terminal and restoring the computer display to its normal user interface. “Did… you get… it?”

Cad again looked over to Alexis, who was still peering down at her palm computer while tapping furiously on the screen. Alexis worked for a few more seconds before looking up at Cad.

“We got it, alright,” she said, smiling. “The co-ordinates are smack-bang in the middle of the Darkspace, but something must be there.”

Cad slid off the table and sheathed his sword as Scarlett Brock continued to stare into space. Her mind was already half-gone, he realized.

“Then let’s go and find out what’s there,” he replied before looking at Draga. “You can kill her now; I know that’s what you’ve been waiting for.” However, as soon as he’d spoken the words, he noticed that Scarlett Brock had slumped back in her chair, blood oozing from her eyes, ears, and nose. She was making a low gurgling noise, and Cad saw that she was choking on her own blood too.

“No need; the drugs have beaten me to it,” said Draga indifferently. “Besides, it’s no fun when they’re already half-dead.”

Scarlett Brock then flopped forward, smashing her head into the desk and splattering the cold, congealing blood that was already pooled on it over Cad’s combat pants.

“Damn it, Draga, these were clean on today!” Cad snapped, grabbing a tissue from a container on the desk and angrily trying to dab the larger spots away.

“Considering where we’re going, there isn’t really any point in you changing them now,” Draga answered, remaining unsympathetic.

Cad tutted and dropped the tissue in the trash can before heading to the door. “Call in the cleaner, and let’s get out of here,” he called back to Draga as he flung open the office door. “We have a Darkspace Renegade hideout to destroy.”

24

The weapons lock tone droned out inside the cabin of Cad Rikkard’s advanced fighter, and he pressed the trigger, launching two missiles out into the Darkspace. They raced ahead and obliterated the pair of renegade fighters that had launched from the hideout before they’d even had a chance to turn toward him. Draga was still engaged with a third fighter, which she’d drawn away from the fourth moon of the rogue planet, on which the renegade base had been constructed. This time, Cad was genuinely impressed by Dr. Rand’s inventive use of old freighters and other large vessels to create the base. He almost felt sad that he was going to blow it to pieces. Almost.

“Missiles armed and locked on,” said Alexis over the comm-link. She was formed up on Cad’s wing. “Say the word, and I’ll reduce that base to dust.”

“Draga won’t like it if I deny her more opportunities to torture people,” Cad replied, noting that his other wingman was still dogfighting with the remaining renegade. However, he was keen to report back to Doyle with their early success and prove to the arrogant ass that he had been wrong to question Cad’s capabilities. “But let’s just finish this and move on. I doubt this is the only hideout out here in the Darkspace.”

Alexis’ fighter pulled ahead before he heard her call back, “Roger that, firing… now.”

Two missiles snaked out in front of them and shot toward the base, but to Cad’s surprise, both exploded well short of their target.

“What the hell?” Cad said before a number of red triangles flashed up on his holographic HUD. He quickly scanned the scanner readout, discovering that each of the symbols represented one of a dozen gun emplacements on the base. “Damn it, they’ve got anti-missile defenses,” Cad growled, spinning the fighter on its axis and thrusting away from the base. “Keep out of its firing solution until we can figure out a new plan of attack.”

Alexis copied Cad’s move and was soon parked just off his starboard wing again. Both Blackfire Squadron fighters hung in space, angled toward the base like vultures on a tree branch, waiting for their chance at a carcass.

“I can’t jam their targeting systems without getting in range of their guns,” said Alexis as Cad watched the chevron that had indicated the remaining renegade fighter blink and disappear. “They designed these hideouts well; they’re more like mini castles, with a moat to keep intruders at bay.”

Cad laughed. “Nice analogy,” he said, knowing that Alexis liked to indulge his fascination with medieval fortifications and weaponry. However, Alexis was right; the hideout was a veritable fortress. It had been constructed inside a crater on the fourth moon so that it was enclosed on all sides by a thick protective wall of rock and ice. The only way in was directly from above, which meant flying head-on into a swarm of cannon fire. “I guess we need to figure out how to lower the drawbridge,” he added, continuing Alexis’ analogy.

Draga formed up on Cad’s other wing and pulsed her thrusters to kill the ship’s forward momentum. Cad glanced across to her through the cockpit glass, throwing up a quick salute with two fingers as he did so.

“That last renegade is dust,” said Draga over the comm-link before Cad saw her point toward the base. “Any reason why we’re just sitting out here like assholes? I doubt they’re going to invite us in.”

“The place is packing more defensive firepower than Doyle’s personal estate,” replied Cad as he too gestured toward the base from inside his cockpit. “But if you want to be shredded by a dozen gun emplacements, then be my guest.” Draga went quiet, though the comm-link remained open. She appeared to be focusing on her holographic HUD. “It’s not like you to be lost for words, Draga…” said Cad, looking to coax a reaction from her, but she didn’t rise to it. Cad’s console then updated with a new attack plan, transmitted from Draga’s ship.

“There’s a waste storage area cut into a hollow in the rock below the main base,” said Draga as Cad studied the new coordinates. “It’s likely where they stash spent fuel barrels and other more volatile waste. There are a couple of cannons protecting it, but if we’re fast, we can destroy them without taking too many hits.”

Cad studied the new plan. “I’d prefer it if we didn’t take any hits at all,” he answered, not relishing the prospect of taking direct fire from the base’s gun emplacements. However, he couldn’t deny that Draga had a point. It looked like she’d found a weakness in the base’s defenses, and it might be their only way in. “Can we just hit those spent barrels and use them to blow the base?”

It was Alexis that answered this time. “There won’t be enough Randenite left in them to create a big enough pop,” she said. “But there must be a way into the main base from down there.”

“There is,” said Draga confidently. “There’s a lift shaft from the storage area into the main base. If we make a long approach, we can skim the moon’s surface to avoid the main turrets, then take out the two guns protecting the platform.”

“We’ll still take a pounding from those cannons before we can take them out,” said Cad, more to himself than to the others. “But if we can get through and latch on to the rock next to the platform, then we can storm in through the back door, so to speak.”

The comm-link remained silent as Cad considered Draga’s proposal, stroking the bottom of his chin with his thumb as he did so. It wasn’t without risk, he accepted, but it was also the best option they had.

“Okay, it’s your plan, so you take point,” said Cad, knowing that Draga would want to go in first, no matter what he said. “Then once we’re inside, we clean house. But try to leave at least one person alive.” Even through her cockpit glass, Cad could see that Draga was about to complain, and so quickly added, “Just so we can interrogate them later, to see if they can help us out with the locations of any other bases.”

“I hope these upgrades were worth the money Doyle paid for them,” said Alexis, though as expected, she didn’t question the plan. Once Cad had made his decision, Alexis always had his back.

“Let’s find out,” replied Cad, waving at Draga to take the lead.

Draga’s fighter shot out ahead, but away from the base and toward a safe area of the rogue planet’s ice-encrusted rocky moon. No more renegade fighters had launched since they had dispatched the original squadron, but Cad still anticipated heavy resistance inside. He glanced across to his Black Prince sword, which was stowed in the cockpit beside him. He was wearing his scabbard over the top of his new power armor, in what was a jarring mixture of old and new.

Cad dropped low, skimming the surface of the moon and kicking up an icy spray as the squadron raced on toward the Darkspace Renegade hideout. Suddenly, two warning triangles lit up in his holographic HUD as the cannons came into range.

“Shields up, and go to virtual scanning,” ordered Cad, hitting a switch and causing an armored shell to expand out of the hull and enclose the ship, including the more fragile cockpit glass. The virtual HUD switched to project a simulated view of the outside, designed to match reality with almost indistinguishable fidelity. However, to Cad, there was always something a little artificial about the simulation, no matter how good it approximated the real world. Cad felt the same about any kind of virtualized environment, regardless of whether it was for training purposes or pleasure. Reality just felt more real to him.

Combat was the same. Fighting a simulated enemy didn’t produce the same gut-wrenching fear of death, or the intoxicating and life-affirming exhilaration of victory. It was why he loved doing what he did. It made him feel alive.

Cad felt the thud of cannon rounds batter the reinforced hull of his fighter, but, as anticipated, the heavy upgrades to the ship’s armor were enough to ward off any serious damage. Cad then saw the flash of Draga’s forward cannons, and a second later, he opened fire too, pulverizing the twin gun emplacements with a barrage of explosive-tipped shells.

“We’re clear,” said Draga over the comm-link. “I’m making my approach… Activating the docking grapples… now.”

Cad slowed to a stop and waited for Draga’s fighter to maneuver itself down on the ice-covered surface of the moon adjacent to the hideout’s storage platform. Six grapples extended from the hull, like giant spider legs, before burrowing into the ice and acting as anchors.

“Ship secured,” said Draga.

Cad nodded to Alexis through his virtualized cockpit display, and she followed suit before Cad finally pulled in alongside and attached his fighter to the ice. He then grabbed his sword from the stow next to his seat and made his way aft. Every part of his body was tingling, as if exposed to an electric current. This was the quiet before the storm, he recognized. The feeling he was experiencing was always the same, regardless of whether he was about to do battle on a lush, green planet or a makeshift base on an icy, Darkspace moon. It was the feeling of a storm in the air. A sense that an explosion of power and violence was just around the corner. It was like a drug, and Cad couldn’t get enough of it.

Cad Rikkard grabbed the shimmering iridescent helmet from its stow by the side of the main hatch and pulled it on. Air hissed as the seals locked into place, and the internal HUD powered up. Slipping his Black Prince sword into its scabbard, he then loaded his sidearm and hit the hatch release. The door whirred open, and already he could see Draga Vex and Alexis Black waiting for him on the platform. Alexis, as usual, carried her twin Five-Seven-Seven pistols, while Draga favored a hefty semi-automatic shotgun or her fists. Cad jumped down onto the platform and drew his pistol before moving up to the elevator door. He preferred to leave attacking with his sword until later – he thought of it like saving the best till last.

“Alexis, you’re up,” he said through the suit’s internal comm-link, and his partner strode up to the door and set to work. Within a minute, the lift was riding down the shaft toward the platform, ready to carry them into battle.

The elevator thumped into the deck of the storage platform and depressurized before the doors slid open silently. Draga went in first so that she’d again be on the front line when the fighting began, with Cad and Alexis side-by-side behind her. Cad could feel the buzz of energy in his body building with each passing second. It was a force that couldn’t be contained for long. He knew, just as the others did, that the next time the doors opened, the Blackfire Squadron would bring the storm down on everyone who was inside.

25

The elevator door opened to forceful shouts of “Stay where you are!” and “Throw down your weapons!” But Draga Vex answered only with the thunderous bang of her semi-automatic shotgun. Bodies fell like skittles as Draga stormed out into the Darkspace Renegade hideout with the self-assurance of an immortal warrior. Cad Rikkard and Alexis Black followed close behind, demonstrating far more watchfulness, but no less confidence.

Cad fired his pistol, driving the renegades on the upper level into cover, then moved into an archway, out of the line of fire. He quickly surveyed the space, observing that they were inside what appeared to be the main foyer of the base. Based on his scans of the hideout, the hangar area was to Cad’s right, constructed out of the cargo section of a salvaged super freighter, while the main operations center was dead ahead. He counted ten renegades, split between the two levels of the foyer, not including the three that Draga had already dropped.

Suddenly, Cad felt the punch of bullets landing on his armor, and he looked up to see that a renegade had circled around on the upper level to target him. He ran out and ducked down behind a thick metal pillar. It was one of several in the foyer that had been erected to reinforce the roof structure. Temporarily safe from incoming fire, Cad checked the status of his armor, but other than a few dents and scratches, it was undamaged.

“I don’t know what the hell this stuff is made of, but it’s tough,” said Cad over the internal comm-link. “We’d all be dead already if it wasn’t for these suits.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Draga coolly as she and Alexis also advanced and took shelter from the incoming fire.

“Alexis, see if you can take out those three on the upper level,” Cad ordered through the comm-link, knowing that the punch of Draga’s shotgun would be diminished at that range. “Draga and I will push the others back so we can advance into the main operations center.”

The order was acknowledged instantly before Alexis sprang from cover, firing her twin pistols at the renegades on the balcony above them. One took a bullet to the neck and dropped out of sight, while the other two dived for cover.

Without hesitation, Cad dashed out from behind the pillar and opened fire at the renegades guarding the entrance to the operations center. The newfound trust in his advanced power armor made him feel almost invulnerable. He imagined this was how Draga normally felt, even without the high-tech shell to protect her.

Two renegades dropped, but not before Cad again felt the punch of bullets hammering into his armor. The difference was that this time he actually felt pain. He shrugged it off and pressed on, as the deafening bang of Draga’s shotgun forced the remaining renegades back though the wide bay door, but not before three more lay dead. The door then began to whir shut before finally closing with a weighty thud that shuddered through the deck plating.

“The three on the upper level are taken care of,” said Alexis over the internal comm-link. She sounded businesslike and professional; the more mischievous side of Alexis Black had taken a back seat.

“Good, but stay vigilant,” replied Cad. “We don’t know how many more might be skulking around.” Cad tried to advance toward the door, but pain again bit into his body. He stopped and examined the status readout of his armor, which was overlaid inside his visor’s HUD. Three sections of his body were now highlighted in amber; two areas on his chest and one on his right knee. He flexed the joint and the movement of the armor felt stiff, as if there was metal grinding against metal.

“Check your suits and give me a status report.” Cad forced the suit to obey his commands and made his way to the bay door while reloading his pistol.

“My right shoulder took a hit,” Alexis answered, her breathing rapid and shallow, “and I have a couple of red zones around my abdomen and left thigh. There’s a stabbing pain in my gut, so I think a round might have snuck through.”

Cad nodded and made mental notes for ways to further improve their power armor. However, considering that they were testing them in anger for the first time, the suits had already proved to be invaluable.

“I’m seeing more yellow than blue,” Draga then chipped in. “I’m bleeding a little too; nothing I can’t handle, though.” Cad waited for Draga to supply some additional details concerning her injuries, until the silence that followed made him realize that had been the full extent of her report.

“Alexis, can you get this door open?” said Cad while watching the upper level in case they’d missed anyone.

Alexis ran up to the control panel and ripped it off the wall, utilizing the augmented strength that the suit gave her. She then released a small drone that was no larger than a domestic house spider from a compartment in her right forearm. The miniature machine scurried through the opening and vanished into the internals of the door mechanism.

“Stand by, I’m running a bypass,” said Alexis.

Draga finished reloading her shotgun and moved into the dead center of the bay door.

“Don’t get cocky, Draga,” warned Cad. “That fancy power armor isn’t impervious to bullets, and neither are you.”

Draga got into position and aimed the shotgun at the seam where the two halves of the bay door met. “Don’t worry, I have no intention of dying on this base,” she replied. “Just get ready to mop up whoever is left.”

“Five seconds…” Alexis announced, raising both pistols and pressing the flat of her back against the wall.

Cad counted the seconds down in his head, sucking in deep breaths of the suit’s processed air and blowing them out steadily. The doors then slid open and Draga unloaded though the opening before the metal slabs had even retracted into their housings.

Alexis ran in next, darting from cover to cover, while firing her twin Five-Seven-Sevens. Cad tried to keep up, but his damaged knee joint continued to impair his progress.

“You two go ahead. I can barely move with this damn busted-up knee,” Cad called out as the crack of Alexis’ pistols and boom of Draga’s shotgun resounded along the corridor.

The passage was soon littered with the bodies of dead renegades, and Cad struggled over them to push through into the main operations center. As he stepped inside, Cad let out a low whistle, once again impressed by the inventive use of mothballed starships to create an operational base. The main command center appeared to be a combination of two heavy freighter bridge sections, bolted and welded together. It was as if they’d been fused in a head-on collision that had accidentally merged the two ships into one.

He saw Alexis and Draga push ahead, pursuing the remaining renegades into sections adjoining the operations center. Cad remained in the central command area, unable to match his companions’ rapid progress. However, for once, Cad didn’t mind missing out on a bit of combat. He was curious to see how the DIY-built base functioned, and what he could potentially learn from its computer systems.

Placing his pistol down on one of the terminals, Cad tried to access the base’s core operating system, but the interface was securely locked down. He considered calling for Alexis to come back and work her magic, but he figured it could wait until the renegades had all been dealt with. He was about to head off after the others, when a distant, percussive thud distracted him. He grabbed his pistol and listened again, hearing the rhythmic thud, thud, thud grow louder and closer. Moving around the computer terminal, he headed to the rear of the operations center, toward the source of the sound. Cad pressed his back to the wall next to a closed door and held his pistol ready, intending to shoot whatever came through at point-blank range. Then the noise suddenly stopped.

Damn it, Cad, just wait for the others… he told himself, knowing that caution was the sensible course of action. However, his own ego urged him to open the door and face whatever was behind it alone. He didn’t want Draga to think him weak for calling in backup or to provide Alexis with anything she could use to tease him about later.

Taking a deep breath, Cad readied himself, then slammed the door release before bursting through the opening. The next thing he knew, Cad was sailing through the air, back into the operations center. It was like a mule had just kicked him in the chest. Cad collided with the computer terminal he’d examined seconds earlier and crumbled to the deck, struggling for breath. His visor flickered wildly, but it functioned well enough for Cad to see that the entire chest section of his armor was now bathed in red. He gritted his teeth and prepared to stand, but before he’d moved a muscle, he saw a combat bot emerge from the open door and march purposefully toward him.

Cad pushed himself to his feet, adrenaline surging through his veins, and fired at the approaching bot. Bullets pinged off its armored body, but Cad’s weapon lacked the power to stop the formidable combat machine in its tracks. He threw down the pistol and met it face on, landing a solid right cross into the bot’s faceless cranial unit. The machine staggered back, and Cad followed, hammering another two blows into its metal torso before gearing up to launch a kick. However, as he tried to swing his leg toward the bot, his damaged right knee froze again, leaving him open and vulnerable. The machine seized its chance to attack, swinging its heavy metal arm at Cad like a club. Cad was hit hard and propelled several meters through the air again, before landing hard against another console. He groaned as pain flooded his body and alarms rang out inside his helmet. The HUD in his visor was malfunctioning severely now, but he saw enough to know that his right arm and shoulder were shot.

The combat bot turned and pursued as Cad scrambled to his feet before rolling back over the top of the console, a second before the machine’s arm smashed through the metal apparatus as if it were made of cardboard. The bot’s arm then became stuck in the mangled and twisted mass of circuits, conduits, and panels, giving Cad vital seconds to compose himself. It was all that he needed.

Cad stood tall and pulled off his helmet, discarding it to his side like a piece of trash. He was hurting and flustered, but he was unafraid, and – more importantly – enraged. Reaching over to his damaged right shoulder with his still-functioning left arm, Cad ripped the armor away, as if he were tearing away necrotic flesh. He then hammered and clawed at his damaged knee to loosen the joint and give himself the freedom to move again. In the time it took to do that, the combat bot had managed to pull its arm free of the smashed console, which crackled and sparked with residual energy, and resumed its relentless advance toward Cad. In many ways, he admired the automated fighting machine. It felt no fear or remorse, and it could not be distracted or deterred from its mission. It was a killer, pure and simple. Yet it also lacked a vital element. It was an element that Cad possessed in abundance; an unquenchable thirst to survive and to win.

Cad drew his Black Prince sword with his now unencumbered right hand and yelled at the bot, urging it on. He knew that taunting the machine was pointless; it could not be goaded or offended. Getting angry at it was like getting angry at a hammer if you hit your own thumb. Cad didn’t care – the bot had gotten the better of him once, and now it would pay the price, the same as all those that dared to cross swords with him.

The combat bot advanced, but Cad dodged back and swung his sword, slicing the machine’s arm off at the elbow joint. The Black Prince sword may have been a medieval design, but it had been forged from a metal that would have seemed magical to anyone from Edward of Woodstock’s time. If Excalibur had been more than a mere myth, Cad’s sword would easily have been its equal.

Hydraulic fluid spurted from the bot’s wound like blood, but Cad gave the machine no quarter. Stepping in, he removed the automaton’s other arm before spinning around and slicing its faceless cranial unit from its body with the skill of a master headsman.

The combat bot fell to the deck, dismembered and defeated. Cad aimed the tip of the blade at its torso and stared down imperiously at his fallen foe.

“Are you quite finished slaughtering robots?”

Cad turned around to see Alexis and Draga at the top end of the operations center; both had their face masks retracted. There was a late middle-aged man by Draga’s feet; she was holding him firmly by a thick tuft of his hair.

“Is there anyone else left to kill?” Cad asked, walking toward them as best he could, given the dilapidated state of his armor.

“Just this guy,” Alexis continued, pointing to the white-haired man, who looked to be only partly conscious. “He’s the base commander.”

Cad smiled and nodded approvingly before turning his attention to Draga. Her iridescent armor was wet with blood, though considering the severe level of damage that she’d also sustained, Cad couldn’t be sure how much of it was her own. “I’m impressed that you managed to restrain yourself enough to leave someone alive.”

Draga shrugged. “This was fun. I want to find another base so we can do it again.”

Cad sighed, but then winced as pain again shot through his body. “I’m glad you were entertained, Draga, but we won’t last long taking on every renegade base on foot like this. We’re going to need some much heavier firepower.” Then he looked at the disheveled state of his own armor and added, “And quite a few spare parts too.”

“I’ll get the prisoner stowed away on my ship,” said Draga, and Cad nodded before she moved off, dragging the semi-conscious renegade commander by the hair. It looked like the stereotypical cartoon image of a caveman dragging a woman behind him, except in this case, the roles were reversed.

Alexis holstered her pistols, then hurried over to Cad to check his wounds. With Draga gone, she had allowed herself to show her concern.

“I’m fine, don’t fuss,” said Cad, trying to brush her off, but Alexis raised her eyebrows at him, squeezing a fist to his ribs. Cad recoiled and yelped in pain.

“Fine, my ass,” said Alexis. “Let’s get you back to the ship so I can deal with these wounds.”

Cad saw the blood leaking from Alexis’ armor and knelt down to check it out. “You first,” he said, feeling a swell of panic rise up inside him. “Then I’ll let you sort me out.”

“Promises, promises…” replied Alexis with a wink. With all the threats in the base dealt with, Alexis’ more playful side was already reasserting itself. She then moved toward the exit, but Cad didn’t follow.

“I’ll be there in a minute; there’s something I need to do first,” said Cad, resting on a nearby console to take some of the weight off his aching legs.

“And what’s that?” Alexis replied. “Besides bleeding out all over the deck, that is?”

Cad met her eyes then sheathed his Black Prince sword. “I need to leave a message for our other renegade friends who escaped from us at the Consortium HQ.”

Alexis frowned. “You think they’ll come here?”

“They’ll come,” said Cad confidently. “And when they do, I’ll invite them to meet us again, face to face.”

“Why the hell do you want to meet them again?” said Alexis.

“Because I want to know my enemy,” replied Cad with a sudden, fierce grit. “I also want them to know me. I want them to know the face of the man who’s better than them, and who is going to kill them.”

26

The outer doors to the hangar bay of the renegade hideout opened and Dakota Wulfrun eased her fighter craft inside. Hallam remained ever vigilant in the second seat, scouring the space around them with his eyes and the ship’s scanners, looking for any sign of an ambush. However, the Darkspace surrounding the renegade hideout had been as deathly silent as the base itself. They’d received no answer to their many hails, and besides the movement of the bay doors and the observant tracking of the sentry turrets, the base was utterly still.

The inner airlock pressurized and the doors opened into the main hangar area. “At least the hideout still has power,” said Dakota as she maneuvered the fighter to a landing pad.

Dakota remained hopeful, but Hallam hadn’t yet seen any reason for optimism. “I’m not sure that’s a good thing,” he answered, peering around the strangely empty hangar. “Why would Cad Rikkard leave the base intact, even if he’s killed everyone inside? It’s too valuable an asset to just abandon.”

The fighter thudded onto the deck and the whine of its main engines began to diminish as Dakota powered them down.

“We don’t know that everyone is dead,” said Dakota. She was trying to sound positive, but Hallam was naturally more cynical. Something about the situation seemed off.

“Well, let’s find out.” Hallam unclipped his harness, pushed himself out of his seat, and drew his weapon. “But let’s assume the worst and hope for the best, okay?”

Hallam could see that Dakota was uncomfortable with such a “glass-half-empty” philosophy, but she didn’t argue. Deep down, Hallam knew that Dakota shared his fears that everyone on the base had been slaughtered by the Blackfire Squadron. She just couldn't admit it until she was forced to confront the cold, hard truth with her own eyes.

“Let me head out first,” said Dakota, sliding ahead of Hallam. “The base’s biometric scanners will recognize me and allow us through the locked-down doors.”

Hallam nodded and followed Dakota out of the fighter’s lowered rear ramp to the deck of the hangar bay. He was wearing the same black armored flight suit that Dakota had sported when she rescued him from the rooftop of the Consortium HQ. It was lightweight, but also offered limited protection, focusing on the torso, shoulders, forearms, thighs, and knees, in addition to the sleek helmet. However, should they meet any resistance, he accepted that some armor was better than nothing.

Dakota ran across the deserted hangar, which Hallam noted was bereft of any vessels other than their own, and began working on the door leading into the main complex. She then stepped back, drew her pistol, and nodded to Hallam. Both took positions on opposite sides of the frame, and Dakota hit the door release, causing a thick slab of metal to slide upwards with a throaty whir. Dakota nodded again and Hallam moved through first with Dakota close behind, moving to the opposite side. They continued on in this way, clearing the various briefing rooms and engineering spaces adjacent to the hangar, finding no one, alive or dead, until they reached the main foyer. Then Hallam saw the bodies, and he understood why the base was so still.

Dakota lowered her weapon and was about to run out to the nearest corpse, but Hallam stepped in and blocked her path. “Hold up, Dak, we need to clear the room first. We don’t know what they could have left behind.”

However, Dakota just brushed past him, her face a twisted mix of grief and rage. “We know exactly what they’ve left behind, Hal,” she replied, her words coming out with an acid bite. “They’ve left death behind.”

Hallam felt his stomach flutter as Dakota raced ahead into the center of the foyer, taking no precautions against potential threats, human or remote. He rushed after her, quickly checking the corners and the upper levels as best he could, but the expected ambush didn’t come. He backed up next to Dakota, who was kneeling at the side of a middle-aged man with a brutal shotgun wound to his upper chest.

“Draga Vex…” said Dakota, letting the words seep from her lips like poisonous gas. “This is her calling card; the psycho always uses a shotgun.”

Hallam counted five more bodies in the foyer before spotting a trail of blood leading through a large double door.

“I think they went through there.” He nodded toward the opening.

“Yes, that’s the operations center,” said Dakota, letting out a heavy sigh. “I expect we’ll just find more of the same in there.”

Hallam again looked at the body of the man before meeting Dakota’s eyes. “Did you know him?”

“No,” Dakota answered straight away, though she didn’t look at the body again. “Besides a few key commanders, we all remain anonymous. We even limit face-to-face contact with others on our own bases to those within our immediate circle. It helps to protect as many of us as possible, if anyone is captured.”

Hallam hadn’t even considered until that point that Cad and his crew may have taken prisoners. “Hopefully, that strategy will help safeguard the other bases,” he said, “assuming that madman restrained himself enough to leave anyone alive to capture.”

Dakota set off toward the operations center and Hallam walked by her side. Neither had fully lowered their guard, but he could sense that Dakota had now accepted the likely fate of the hideout. Her shoulders had dropped and the brightness in her eyes was gone. It was difficult to see her like this, Hallam realized in that moment. Dakota had always been so vibrant, and was usually the one person who could lift the fog from any troubled mind. This time, however, the gloom was too dark even for Dakota’s light to shine through.

They both stepped over the bodies of other fallen renegades as reverently as possible, and entered the main operations command center. Dakota went over to the primary command console, while Hallam walked the perimeter, checking each body in turn, in the vain hope that someone might still be alive. Hallam’s heart leapt in his chest as he saw what looked like a severed head, but the panic soon subsided when he realized that it was mechanical in nature, rather than organic.

“What the hell kind of weapon can slice off a combat bot’s cranial unit?” he wondered, holding up the robotic head. There was damage to its frontal section, as if the machine had been whacked with a heavy metal bar or slammed face first into a wall.

“Cad Rikkard,” answered Dakota, as she worked on the now-activated console. She then met Hallam’s confused eyes and added, “The asshole carries a sword, remember?”

Hallam shuddered and dropped the cranial unit, which landed with a metallic clank before rolling away under a desk. He then found the combat bot’s body, minus two severed arms.

“I hope to hell this machine is the only thing he used that sword on,” he added, unsure of whether he could stomach the sort of blood bath that might await them in the rest of the base.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” replied Dakota darkly. “Those erratic combat bots are a last resort; if that thing got released, then it was because the base commander assumed the battle was lost.”

Hallam nodded again. He’d learned about the various models of combat bots and warbots at the CSF academy. Humanity had accomplished many things, but creating an intelligent artificial brain was not one of them. Bots had once been used on the front-lines to fight Earth’s still frequent conflicts, in addition to combating criminal gangs on the bridge worlds. However, the machines were unable to make reasoned ethical choices, and often unable to discern friend from foe. In short, they were often more of a threat than the enemy you were fighting. They were now illegal on all worlds, besides Damien Doyle’s own planet of Vesta. Dakota was right; for a combat bot to have been let loose on the renegade base, the situation must have been frantic and desperate. However, perhaps even more unsettling was the ease with which Cad Rikkard had seemingly dealt with the volatile but deadly machine.

“Unbelievable…” said Dakota, hammering her palms on the console.

Hallam halted his circuit of the operations center and moved to Dakota’s side. “More unbelievable than what we’ve already seen?”

Dakota huffed a dismayed laugh, then extended her hand toward the console’s screen. “See for yourself. Cad Rikkard has left us a little message.”

Hallam frowned and leaned in to look at the screen, aping Dakota’s earlier, incredulous huff almost exactly. He read the message, shaking his head in disbelief the whole time, but then noticed there was a holo recording too.

“I need to hear this from the horse’s mouth,” said Hallam, tapping the screen.

“Don’t be surprised if I put a bullet through his holographic face…” snarled Dakota as the image of Cad Rikkard appeared in front of them.

“Hello, Mr. Knight,” spoke the image of Cad Rikkard in an oddly congenial tone. Even in holographic form, Hallam wanted to slap the arrogant smirk off his face. “First of all, I want to congratulate you for not dying after we sabotaged your armored tanker, and also for making it off Vesta alive. That makes it twice you’ve crossed swords with me and lived. For the record, that’s two times more than most people. There will not be a third.”

Dakota snorted again. “Can you believe this guy? What a jerk.”

Hallam couldn’t disagree, but he remained focused on the recording. The subtle changes in the mercenary’s expressions and mannerisms told Hallam as much about the man as his words did. In written form, the message had come across as pompous and even a little trite. Yet Cad managed to deliver the speech without sounding absurd or even boastful; quite the opposite, he sincerely meant everything he was saying.

“I wonder if your little renegade partner is the same impudent woman who slighted me on the Centrum? If so, remind her that I have not forgotten her either.” Dakota threw a sharp right into Cad’s holographic face as he spoke these words. The image quivered before stabilizing again.

“By the way, we know all about Shelby Rand and your quaint renegade bases,” the holo of Cad Rikkard went on with an assured nonchalance. “And we’re going to find and destroy all of these inventive little hideouts of yours. You could be smart and prevent the needless deaths of your comrades by meeting me on Paradise Station, Feronia. I doubt you’re that smart. Either way, I will see you soon.”

The holo image evaporated into the air, and Hallam and Dakota were left in a stunned silence.

“He must really think we’re idiots if he believes we’ll meet him at Paradise Station,” said Dakota, continuing to shake her head angrily.

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” replied Hallam. Dakota looked at him like he was literally insane.

“Why would we do that?” she hit back. “He’ll try to kill us the moment we set foot on the station!”

This time, it was Hallam who shook his head. “The Paradise is one of the few places in the galaxy that the Consortium hasn’t sunk its fingers into,” he said, knowing at once why Cad had chosen it as the location for their rendezvous. “It’s an orbital casino hotel, and a hive of vulgar nighttime pleasures. But absolutely no weapons are allowed on-board, and security is tighter than my own clenched butt cheeks right now.”

Dakota scowled and looked down at Hallam’s rear. “Interesting analogy…”

“The point is that the Paradise is neutral ground. I, for one, want to hear what this asshole has to say.”

Dakota sighed and rubbed the back of her neck inside the armored flight suit. “This is all about his ego. He just wants to scare us and to see what we’re made of.”

Hallam shrugged. “Then let’s show him,” he said, surprising himself with his own audacity. “Let’s go to the Paradise, look the murderous bastard in the eyes, and show him we’re not afraid. Let’s show him he’s got a fight on his hands.”

Dakota smiled. “You’re starting to sound like a Darkspace Renegade. Are you finally choosing to sign up?”

Hallam laughed. “Maybe. Or maybe I just don’t like bullies.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive…”

Their conversation was interrupted by a quiet beeping sound. Hallam was sure he hadn’t noticed it before, and started to hunt around for the source.

“Do you hear that too?” said Hallam as he looked around the console, though the main screen had already turned itself off.

“I hear it,” said Dakota as she began to scout around underneath the terminal. Then she cursed, and Hallam felt his butt cheeks clench up again. “We have to go, now!” Dakota added, grabbing Hallam’s arm and dragging him toward the door.

“Why?” cried Hallam as he accelerated to a run in order to keep pace with Dakota.

“He’s rigged the base to blow,” Dakota shouted back, “We may only have a few minutes to get clear.”

Hallam rarely cursed, but on this occasion, he felt it was warranted. Without another word between them, they raced back through the base, vaulting the bodies of fallen renegades with none of their earlier displays of deference, and into the hangar. Legs and lungs burning from the exertion, Hallam climbed back into the fighter as he heard the engines start to spin up. He hit the button to close the ramp and ran in to the cockpit, dropping into the seat beside Dakota.

“How long?” he wheezed as he struggled to attach his harness. An explosion rocked the platform, answering the question for him.

“There’s no time to go through the normal launch sequence,” said Dakota, bypassing all the usual protocols and lifting the fighter off the deck. “And we’re going to have to make our own door…”

Hallam braced himself and gritted his teeth as Dakota violently spun the fighter around to face the inner bay doors. She then armed the missiles, and with barely a breath between actions, squeezed the trigger. Hallam didn’t see the missiles race ahead, but he felt the detonations and the powerful kick as the explosive decompression of the bay blew them out into space. Debris bounced off the hull of the fighter as Dakota wrestled with the controls, trying desperately to prevent them from smashing into hunks of the fractured hangar bay doors. Finally, they were clear, and Dakota had control, but then a blinding flash lit up their cockpit as the Darkspace Renegade hideout exploded. Hallam recognized the flash, and the force of the blast, as characteristic of a Randenite detonation. Cad Rikkard must have used the base’s own Randenite supply to fuel his final act of destruction.

Dakota cut the engine thrust and spun the fighter around to face what little remained of the Darkspace Renegade hideout. She then turned to Hallam and asked, “Are you sure you still want to go and meet this guy?”

Hallam continued to stare out at the smoldering remains of the base, now just a scar burned into the surface of the rogue moon. His mind struggled with a dozen different emotions, but the one he felt most strongly of all was a craving to see things through. He turned to Dakota and said, “I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”

27

A green light surrounded the perimeter of the body scanner and the burly-looking security guard waved Hallam through. Dakota had already completed the security checks and was waiting for him in the luxurious interior of the Paradise’s main foyer. The entire space station had been modelled on the old Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, and as such, it retained that famous casino’s opulent variety of Roman statues, grand columns, and iconography. It was a stylistic interpretation of the Roman Empire as depicted in Hollywood’s golden age. He and Dakota couldn’t have looked more out of place. His own clothing – the base layer flight-suit that he’d worn underneath his armor – made him stand out like a flashing beacon. He’d never felt more under-dressed in his life.

“Welcome to Paradise, sir,” said the tuxedo-wearing security guard in the polite but formulaic tone of someone who’d likely spoken those same four words a hundred times already that day. “You have an invitation from a Mr. Cad Rikkard. He is waiting for you in the restaurant in the Temple of Augustus.”

Hallam nodded and went to join Dakota, but his path was blocked by the enormous forearm of the security guard.

“I’m afraid there is a strict dress code for the Temple, Mr. Knight,” the guard said in a more forceful version of his earlier polite tone. “If you would like, suits can be hired from the wedding services department, just to your right.”

The guard slowly swung his huge right arm to one side and pointed to an extravagant shop-front, featuring dozens of wedding dresses, tuxedos, and Roman-themed costumes. Hallam nodded wearily and trudged to Dakota’s side.

“We apparently need to get suited up,” said Hallam, jabbing his thumb in the direction of the wedding services department. “Fancy-suits, I mean, rather than our normal gear.”

Dakota raised an eyebrow and folded her arms across her chest, “Wedding services? Don’t you need to get down on one knee and pop the question first?”

Hallam groaned, but then got down on one knee and grabbed Dakota’s hand. She immediately went bright red and began to awkwardly stare around the foyer, hoping no one had noticed.

“Dakota Wulfrun, will you do me the honor of not being a gigantic pain in my ass for one day, so we can get off this station as quickly as possible?”

Dakota snatched her hand away and yanked Hallam to his feet as curious eyes started to fall on them. One couple even started clapping, but quickly stopped again as Dakota shot them a glare that could have melted lead.

“Okay, I deserved that,” said Dakota, holding up a hand to concede defeat on that occasion. “But do that again and the next time we spar, I’ll put you down on your ass, never mind one knee, got it?”

Hallam laughed. “Got it, Dak.” Then he extended his arm toward the wedding services department, mimicking the security guards’ earlier gesture, and said, “After you, Mrs. Knight.”

Dakota walloped him on the chest with the back of her hand and moved ahead, but Hallam could see she was trying hard to suppress a smile.

The experience of getting fitted for a tuxedo – it was either that or a Roman toga – was deeply uncomfortable for Hallam. He was a man of far simpler tastes than the Paradise catered to, and he also hated being made a fuss over. Finally, the ordeal was over, and he managed to shoo away the shop attendants for long enough to get an unfettered look in the mirror.

“I look like a damn penguin,” he muttered to himself, trying to adjust the shirt and bow tie so that neither felt like they were strangling him.

“I think you scrub up pretty well.”

Hallam turned around to see Dakota standing behind him, wearing a silk halter-neck jumpsuit. The army of staff that had attended her had also put up her hair, so that at first, Hallam had barely recognized her. Dakota then performed a theatrical, if slightly self-conscious twirl, revealing her bare back and causing the wide trouser legs to flow out elegantly.

“Well, say something,” said Dakota as Hallam simply stood there, slightly open-mouthed.

“Who are you and what have you done with Dakota Wulfrun?” Hallam finally said, chickening out of complimenting her and falling back on dumb humor instead. However, the truth was, he was finding it hard to take his eyes off her.

“You really are hilarious today,” said Dakota, walking past him toward the exit. Then she stopped, did a sort of catwalk-style glance behind, and added, “And since this was your idea, you’re paying.”

Hallam groaned again and walked up to the register, ready to pay for their new outfits as Dakota moved outside, turning heads in the foyer in the same manner that she’d turned his.

“Will that be everything, sir?” said the man at the register.

Hallam looked at the number on the transaction pad and almost choked on his own saliva. “Yes, that most certainly is absolutely everything,” he said, hoping that the other products and services on the Paradise weren’t as extortionately priced as their hired suits.

Hallam grudgingly paid the bill, then walked out to meet Dakota, managing to play it a little cooler than he had earlier by offering her his arm. Dakota smiled and hooked her arm through his.

“So, shall we do this?” she said as they set off toward the Temple of Augustus, the most exclusive section of the entire space station.

Suddenly, Hallam remembered why they were on the Paradise in the first place, and the mild euphoria he was experiencing at walking arm-in-arm with Dakota vanished faster than the dollars in his account had just done.

“I just hope it doesn’t end in a fight,” said Hallam as the biometric scanner confirmed their invitation and allowed them to proceed into the Temple’s exclusive entrance hall. “I’d hate to think how much we'd have to spend to replace these fancy getups if we get blood all over them.”

They reached the exclusive restaurant that had a name Hallam couldn’t even pronounce and were escorted by the host to a large private table. The place was busy, but the tables were widely spread out and the guest-list was a veritable who’s-who of celebrities and the super-rich. Sitting at the private table, laughing, joking, and drinking champagne were Cad Rikkard and his two squadron members. Seemingly never to be outdone, the mercenary leader had also dressed in a tuxedo, though his clearly had a designer flair to it. Alexis Black was wearing a vibrant red evening gown, but had kept the raven skull necklace around her neck and was toying with it playfully. Even Draga Vex had made an effort, wearing dark pants and a shirt with a tailored waistcoat over the top. She had not removed her lightning-strike eyeliner. Hallam doubted her attire actually adhered to the strict dress code for the Temple of Augustus, but he also doubted that anyone – not even the burly security guards – would dare challenge her on it.

“At last. I was starting to think you weren’t coming,” said Cad, suddenly noticing them both standing by the table. “Nice to see that you’ve made a bit of an effort too,” he added, looking at their new clothes with a sort of sympathetic “at least you tried” air. Then he stood up and extended a hand toward the chairs opposite. “Sit down. Have some champagne. We’re celebrating, you see.”

Despite his practiced politeness, the reference to the recent slaughter on the renegade hideout was obvious, as was his attempt to goad them. Hallam didn’t intend to take the bait, but Dakota had already bitten down on the hook.

“You’ve got a damn cheek, lording it up in here after what you’ve done!” she yelled at him, causing anxious eyes all over the restaurant to flick across to their private table. “The best thing you can do right now is shut your mouth before I ram this champagne bottle down your throat.”

Cad smiled, seemingly deriving the satisfaction he’d craved from Dakota’s response. “I’m not surprised to find you both together again,” he continued, holding Dakota’s furious gaze. “And to think we nearly killed the two of you, before even learning that you were renegades. I guess I just have a sixth sense for scum.”

Dakota almost went for him right then and there, but Hallam just managed to intervene. “You asked for this meeting, so what do you want?” Hallam snapped. Draga seemed to be oblivious to the whole conversation, but Hallam noticed that Alexis Black was now looking at him, as if he were the main course of her dinner.

“I want you to give up Rand,” said Cad without any hint of irony. “Doyle only wants her; he couldn’t care less about the rest of your pitiful rabble.”

“You know that’s not going to happen,” replied Dakota, managing to control her anger a little better. “I’ll tell you the real reason you asked us here, asshole. You just wanted an audience so you could gloat and show us what a big man you are.”

Cad shrugged and sat down again, before picking up his champagne glass. “I admit, seeing the looks on your faces is a nice bonus,” he took a sip of his champagne, “but it’s a genuine offer. Give me Rand, or we work our way through the other hideouts, killing all of your renegade comrades, until we find her.” Cad pointed to Dakota and Hallam in turn. “And their blood will be on your hands.” He then shrugged again, as if he was not bothered either way, and added, “Your choice. Draga, here, has plenty more shotgun cartridges, and my sword arm could use a little more exercise.”

Hallam snorted, “You’re a sick man, Rikkard. But if you want a fight, you’ve got one.”

Dakota grabbed a knife from the table, and Alexis and Draga immediately sprang up, as if they’d been combat bots in sleep mode, suddenly becoming alert to a new threat. Hallam and Dakota backed away as the two women of Blackfire Squadron moved around the table and squared-off against them. Alexis also had a knife in her grasp, but Draga’s hands were simply balled into fists.

Three suited security guards rushed inside as a hush fell over the restaurant, each with a hand pressed inside their suit jackets. Hallam’s eyes flicked from the guards to Draga and Alexis and back again. The situation was explosive, and the slightest move by any of them could set it off. Surprisingly, however, it was Cad Rikkard who stepped in to break the stalemate.

“Don’t worry, it’s just a little spirited conversation that got out of hand,” said Cad, holding up his hands to the guards as if surrendering.

“We’re going to have to insist that you leave, sir,” said one of the guards politely but firmly. Cad seemed unfazed by their demands.

“It’s okay; we have places to be and renegades to kill anyway,” he said, not even bothering to lower his voice so that the other restaurant-goers couldn’t overhear. He then turned to the closest suited security heavy and added, “But since this little misunderstanding was my fault, let my friends here stay,” he said, clearly loving every moment of their confrontation. “Especially since they’ve dressed so nicely for the occasion.”

Cad activated the terminal built into the private table and credited his account with two thousand dollars, on top of paying his own bill. He then turned back to Hallam and Dakota with a conceited smile and said, “Dinner is on me. Your last meal, so to speak.” Then he smiled again and added, “Until next time...”

He fastened the buttons on his designer jacket and walked down the elegant flight of steps leading into the main part of the restaurant, without another word or glance back.

Alexis looked Hallam up and down, again as if he were a snack she was about to devour, and said, “I really hope we meet again.” She then flicked her eyes over to Dakota and blew her a kiss before gliding away after Cad.

Only Draga remained, alongside the tense-looking security guards who, Hallam assumed, probably knew the mercenary by her reputation, if not by experience.

“Don’t give up Rand,” Draga said with none of Cad’s passive-aggressive swagger or Alexis’ playful taunts. She wasn’t making a threat; she was making a genuine request. “Tell Rand and the other renegades that we’re coming for them. Tell them that I’m going to kill them all, just like I killed your friends.”

The dark sincerity with which Draga spoke the words was chilling; even Dakota was too stunned to respond. Draga then turned to leave, the security guards parting wordlessly to let her pass.

“You won’t find her,” said Dakota, with matching resolve, “and now that we know you’re coming, you won’t find the other hideouts either. Our people on the bridge worlds are being moved to safety as we speak.”

Draga stopped and turned her head back to look at Dakota. To Hallam’s surprise, she was smiling. It was an unexpected and deeply unsettling look.

“I don’t need anyone else,” Draga said with an icy confidence. “I already have the base commander from the hideout we destroyed. He was very co-operative, eventually. Right up until he died.”

Draga turned away and descended the stairs to join the other two members of the Blackfire Squadron, before they walked out of the restaurant, with Cad Rikkard in the lead.

One of the security guards said something, then all three left, but Hallam didn’t hear his words or pay attention to their departure. His head was swimming, trying to make sense of what had just happened, and what they needed to do next.

“We have to get back to Dr. Rand,” said Dakota, rushing the words out and betraying her unease. “If the base commander was compromised, they could strike at any other hideout, at any time.”

“Even Dr. Rand’s personal hideout?” said Hallam, suddenly comprehending the extreme danger the renegade organization was in.

“No, only a few people know its location,” Dakota answered, and Hallam felt the tiniest swell of relief. “But we need to make sure everyone is prepared for the worst. And we need to step up Dr. Rand’s plan to recover the tech from the alien probe.”

Hallam rested on the railing overlooking the restaurant, noting that the other diners were still occasionally casting nervous glances in their direction.

“What does she even want with that thing?” Hallam asked. It was a detail that Dr. Rand had left out during their earlier meetings, but given what would have to come next, and the fundamental role Hallam knew he’d have to play, he wanted to know.

Dakota joined Hallam, standing so close that her bare shoulder pressed up against his. “To be honest, Hal, I have no idea,” she admitted. “All I know is that it has something to do with taking down the Centrum. The probe is the key to all of this. If we destroy the Centrum, then the supply of Randenite will quickly dry up, and bridge travel will end.”

Hallam thought for a moment, looking down at the rich and the socialites in the restaurant, all of whom had the money and power to afford interstellar travel. However, this was just the elite tip of an enormous iceberg. While the wealthiest in society floated above the surface, just as the Paradise orbited high above Feronia, billions more below the waterline depended on bridge travel. All the bridge worlds relied on the others to survive – none were entirely self-sufficient, not even Earth. Humanity’s home planet was an over-populated and polluted melting pot, unable to function without the supplies and services the bridge worlds provided. Destroying the Centrum would mean cutting every world off from the others. It would inevitably lead to conflicts, maybe even wars, and suffering on an interplanetary scale.

“Are you sure this is the right thing to do?” asked Hallam, turning to Dakota. He knew what would be needed of him, but lingering doubts suddenly overwhelmed him. He needed to hear that Dakota was absolutely certain. He needed her strength to lean on. “What if Dr. Rand is wrong about these bridges? What if they don’t collapse and screw up the star systems they connect to? If we take out the Centrum, we cut off a lifeline for literally billions of people. And not all of them are going to make it, Dak.”

Dakota sighed and met Hallam’s eyes. “You know as much as I do, Hal, and you’ve seen what I’ve seen. If Dr. Rand is right, and we do nothing, then everyone dies. I hate to make it a numbers game, but there it is.”

Hallam blew out a heavy sigh, then turned, resting his back against the railings. Despite telling Dr. Rand, Dakota, and himself that he was invested in the cause, the truth was he’d never fully committed to it. Dr. Rand had seen it, and it had been why she’d continued to question his conviction. Up until this point, Hallam had been like a twig in a river, just following the current downstream with no real idea where it was taking him. He’d wanted to prove to himself that he had the potential Dr. Rand saw in him, and that deep down he hoped he saw in himself too. His gut told him that helping Dr. Rand was the right thing to do; but now he had to make a choice. He had to choose whether to embrace the path he was on or let himself wash up on the bank for a second time. When he thought about it like that, Hallam knew there was really no choice at all.

“Do you still have an opening for another member of Wolf Squadron?” he asked, cocking his head toward Dakota.

Dakota also turned and rested on the railing next to him. “Why, do you have someone in mind?”

Hallam shrugged. “I might… He comes with a little baggage but is a trained combat pilot. And word has it that he scrubs up pretty well too.”

Dakota smiled, and for a moment, Hallam forgot all about Cad Rikkard and the Blackfire Squadron. He forgot all about the bodies in the Darkspace Renegade hideout, and he forgot all about the dangers that he was willingly putting himself forward to face. All he saw was Dakota Wulfrun, the only person he’d ever truly trusted in his entire life.

“Are you sure?” Dakota asked, turning suddenly more serious. “You can still walk away from this if you want. It’s not too late.”

Hallam shook his head and pushed himself away from the railings. “I’ve walked away before without a fight,” he said. “I’m never doing it again.”

Dakota nodded and stood beside him. “We’d better get back,” she said, glancing at the private table, which still had two thousand dollars credited to it. “Unless you want to grab dinner first, seeing as that slimeball Cad Rikkard is paying?”

Hallam knew that Dakota wasn’t serious, but even if they’d had the time, he still wouldn’t have done it. “Rikkard called it our last meal,” said Hallam, feeling anger surge through his veins at the memory of the mercenary’s brazenness and arrogance. “He’s going to find out that we’re a long way from being done with him yet.”

Dakota offered Hallam her arm, and he smiled before hooking his arm through hers. “Then let’s get to work.”

Hallam Knight and Dakota Wulfrun walked out of The Temple of Augustus and back along the ritzy central foyer of the Paradise toward the hangar bay, where their fighter was waiting. Their destination was the Darkspace, back to the hideout where Shelby Rand was waiting for their report.

Hallam climbed the ramp of Dakota’s fighter and pulled himself inside. Neither of them had bothered to change out of their glamorous hired outfits. In a strange way, Hallam felt his tuxedo was more appropriate here, because unlike in the restaurant, he actually did have cause for celebration now. He would step off the fighter and meet Shelby Rand again as Hallam Knight, disgraced former CSF combat ace and tanker gunner, who had settled for the cards life had dealt him. The next time he set foot on a fighter, it would be as a member of Wolf Squadron. Hallam Knight was about to become a Darkspace Renegade.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Thank you for reading Darkspace Renegade, book one in Darkspace Renegade.

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ALSO IN THE SERIES

Darkspace Renegade

Wolf Squadron

Rogue World

Rikkard’s Revenge

Renegade Resurgence

Centrum Incursion

Also by GJ Ogden

If you enjoyed this book, please consider reading The Star Scavenger Series or The Contingency War Series Both are free to read for Kindle Unlimited subscribers and available as Audible boxed sets.

THE STAR SCAVENGER SERIES

THE CONTINGENCY WAR SERIES

"Highly recommended - sci-fi fans will not be disappointed with this novel." Readers' Favorite, 5-stars.

Readers' Favorite, 5-stars

The Contingency War Series

About the Author

At school, I was asked to write down the jobs I wanted to do as a "grown up". Number one was astronaut and number two was a PC games journalist. I only managed to achieve one of those goals (I’ll let you guess which), but these two very different career options still neatly sum up my lifelong interests in science, space, and the unknown.

School also steered me in the direction of a science-focused education over literature and writing, which influenced my decision to study physics at Manchester University. What this degree taught me is that I didn’t like studying physics and instead enjoyed writing, which is why you’re reading this book! The lesson? School can’t tell you who you are.

When not writing, I enjoy spending time with my family, walking in the British countryside, and indulging in as much Sci-Fi as possible.

You can connect with me here:

https://twitter.com/GJ_Ogden

www.ogdenmedia.net

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