THE PRIZE: BOOK TWO - RETRIBUTION, page 26
“Calculate a jump to here,” he asked, pointing to a star cluster some ten parsecs away.
“Y…yes Ma’am, if I can download data from the Nav Buoy.”
“Do it. That will be our first stop.
Ellis split her attention between the start chart and the station, wondering how long it would take before the commander figured out she was bluffing. She tried to calculate the delta vee and how long it would take a missile to reach them before they reached the jump point. Sensors showed multiple ships bugging out of the station as word got round about what was going on, which, from Ellis’ point of view, was a good thing. It would disrupt the pirate’s activities and maybe save a few poor souls from enslavement or death. Just then, the screen darkened as an eye-searing white light lit the darkness for a brief moment.
“Oh my lord! The warhead detonated.” The navigator breathed.
Ellis stood there in shock for a moment, then shrugged. That would put an even bigger crimp in the pirate’s operations, she mused philosophically with a shrug. She wasn’t about to shed a tear for a bunch of low life scum that inhabited the old station, or the IMPSEC personnel either. To her mind they were the same or worse.
“I guess we don’t have to worry about them firing a missile at us now.” The navigator looked at her and shivered. That was one cold-hearted bitch.
“No, Ma’am, guess not.”
Chapter Seventeen
Move and Counter Move
Penn cycled the hatch open and eyed the surly looking human on the other side. Unshaven, shaggy haired and bulging eyes, he looked like an angry warthog. Behind him stood a very large Gort for intimidation and muscle, not that Penn was impressed. He’d run into this species before, they’d dance and the Gort lost. Penn looked up at the big fellow, frowning slightly seeing the look of surprise on the Gort’s rubbery face. The look on the other humans face spoke volumes. He was pissed.
“Who the fuck are you,” He demanded, “and where the hell is Captain Drago?” The man stepped forward, fists clenched.
“Was that his name?” Penn murmured. “I never asked his name before I slit his throat.” The man stopped and took a step back.
“You did what?”
“Just told you, I offed the low life scum sucker, now who the fuck are you?”
“I’m Drago’s partner, Marlow, and this is my ship.”
“Not anymore.” In answer, Marlow mouth pulled into a nasty grin and he motioned with his hand. “Kill him.” He snarled.
Anticipating an acrimonious meeting, Penn had already tensed his stomach muscles in preparation, but he didn’t anticipate what happened next. The huge humanoid reached out, grabbed Marlow by the back of his neck, and lifted him off the ground.
“Not me you stupid idiot!” He screamed, face screwed up in pain.
“What you want me to do with him, Penn?” The Gort asked, grinning from ear to ear.
“Class! What the fuck are you doing here? I sent you home.” The Gort walked over, still holding the human in the air by one hand and gently squeezed Penn’s shoulder. Gorts looked so much alike it was almost impossible for a non-Gort to tell them apart.
“Came looking for you, friend Penn and Major Ellis.”
“Put me down!” Marlow panted in pain from the strain on his neck, obvious by the expression on his face.
“Put him down, but if he gives you any more shit, squeeze his head a little.”
“No, no… I won’t.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Marlow fell silent, looking between Penn and Class rubbing his neck as he edged backward.
“Get lost Marlow. If I see you again I’ll kill you.” Marlow scuttled backward towards the airlock.
“You haven’t heard the last of this, asshole,” he yelled as he rushed out the lock.
“Major Ellis here?” Class asked an expectant look on his rubbery face.
“Sorry, Class. No. She got kidnapped and I’m looking for her.” Class’ face fell and for a moment he dropped his head, looking sad.
“We look together.”
“Class. Why aren’t you home going through your… well whatever you call it.”
“Did that, but didn’t want to change.”
“I thought you didn’t have a choice.”
“Not so. Common misconception about my people. We change or not change until later in our life cycle. Trouble is, it’s much more difficult to find a mate later.” As they spoke, Penn closed and sealed the airlock and took Class up to the bridge.
“So why didn’t you change?” Class looked embarrassed, if Penn was reading his facial expression right.
“Couldn’t make up my mind if I wanted to be male or female, as you humans define it.” Michael had also pointed out that Class was having difficulty choosing. Oddly he was in love with both Penn and Ellis at the same time, wanting to be a mate to one or the other. Penn smiled at the thought of climbing in bed with someone the size of Class, but he supposed it was all a matter of perception.
“It still doesn’t explain why you are here of all places.”
“Got home. Didn’t like it and took the next ship out heading for Earth. Got as far as here thinking to take one of the slave ships the rest of the way and found no one knew where your planet was anymore.” Penn scratched himself behind the ear looking a little embarrassed with himself now.
“That was my fault. I got into the Imperial navigational database and erased the location, plus a couple of other things.”
“That explains it.” Class didn’t need a lot of explanation about things and took it on faith that Penn had done exactly what he said he’d done.
“So what do we do to find the Major?”
“She got ‘napped’ by a bunch of slavers, but I have no idea where they took her. Got myself captured by another bunch in the hope they’d take me to the same place, or at least to a place where I could start looking for her.” Class nodded, filling in the blanks himself. He smiled slightly thinking about anyone ‘capturing’ Penn. Impossible unless he wanted to be captured.
“She’s not on the station. I would have um…” He tapped his nose. “Detected her, here.”
“Her scent. Yeah, I know what you mean. One sniff on the station and I’d know as well. That means we’ll have to go to another station, or base.”
“We may have to go to all of them, and then on to wherever they shipped her.” Penn shook his head.
“I get the feeling she’s already escaped from the slavers and is heading somewhere.” Class looked at him. “Don’t ask me how I know, I just do.” Class nodded.
“Then we need to bust a few heads to find the location of another station or base.”
“Got you. What are we dealing with here?”
“Not much. About five hundred people. This is more of a way station where they sort the slaves out before shipping them off to some hellhole or another.” Penn couldn’t read the Gort’s facial expressions that well, and couldn’t tell if Class disapproved of what was going on or not. With their size, few Gorts were ever taken as slaves.
“You have any problems with taking this place down?”
“Who me! Har! I don’t care what other races do to each other, as long as they leave my people and humans alone.”
“Yeah. Slavery has been around a long time, even on my planet.”
“Friend Penn. No matter how hard you try, you are not going to put all the slavers out of business.”
“No, but I can put a dent in their ranks and scare the shit out of a lot more.”
“We will do what we can.” Class smiled, and that was a scary thing to see.
“So, if, as you say she isn’t here. How do we go about finding out where the other bases, or way stations are?” Class wiped his three-fingered hand over the top of his smooth, hairless head.
“The so-called station boss should know of a few others. We could squeeze him.” Class said expectantly, opening and closing his massive hands. For such a peaceful species, Class could be downright bloodthirsty at times. As they walked onto the bridge, everyone froze in shock. Penn doubted any of the humans aboard had ever seen anyone like Class before.
“Oh my lord!” Clive Danton breathed, backing away as Class ducked his head to get onto the bridge.
“Take it easy, Clive. He’s friendly… well mostly.” Penn smiled.
“If you say so.”
“Meet Trooper Class. An old friend of mind.”
“With friends like him, I bet you don’t have too many enemies… alive that is.”
“Class? He’s a pussycat as long as you don’t get into an argument with him. He never loses.”
“Not true. I lost to you.” Class let out a rumbling laugh.
“True, but I had an advantage.”
“We have an armed party heading this way, Penn,” Sanchez, another free slave called out.
“By the way. What’s your name?” He asked the young woman watching the monitor.
“It’s Mirellia Sanchez, Mr. Penn.”
“It’s just Penn. Thanks Mirellia.” Now washed and dressed she didn’t look half bad.
“So, what do you want to do, friend Penn?” Class asked. Penn sighed.
“Time for me to get bloody again.”
“You want us to go with you?” Clive asked, looking nervous.
“No, you stay here. I’ll be back shortly.”
“Who the hell is that guy?” someone whispered as Penn exited the bridge.
“That is a man you don’t want to piss off. That’s who he is.” Class rumbled.
“You know him from where?” Clive asked.
“He and Major Ellis, the female human he’s looking for are probably the deadliest killers this side of Tellurian Prime.”
“Shit! He thinks he can take on all those assholes by himself?”
“He can and will. He used to be an assassin for a bigger asshole called Markoff, and you can thank him sometime for saving your sorry asses.”
“Well, yeah, he did rescue us from these slavers.” Class shook his head.
“He did more than that. He saved your cities from getting bombed into rubble many times over, and he’s about to get dirty all over again just to save one woman, Major Ellis. Anyone that gets in the way of his doing that is going to die.”
Penn stood in the darkened loading bay and cleared his mind. He didn’t need any distraction from what he was about to do. He put the memory of Ellis in a nice safe place in his mind and closed the door and eased the twin blades on his thighs in and out their scabbards to make sure they were lose. As a precaution in case his description had reached this far out from Telluria Prime, he slipped on a pair of dark shades to hide his eyes. The bay door rumbled open and he saw ten people on the other side. They were a mixed bunch, some human, a couple of Tellurian Surls, two Estarians, and a couple of others he couldn’t identify. Not that it mattered. Either they’d leave or they’d be dead.
“I’m here for my ship, asshole!”
“Told you before. This isn’t your ship anymore.”
“Then you’ll be dead, dickhead.”
“Before you start shooting, I’d like to ask a question.”
“Ask away, not that it’s going to do you any good.”
“My question is for you guys. How much is this asshole paying you?”
“What’s it to you?” Someone shouted.
“Because it isn’t enough. Leave or die, your choice.” That brought a round of laughter.
“You and whose army, motherfucker?” One of the humans answered, lifting his weapon.
“That’s what I thought.” Penn flicked the thunder-flash onto the deck in front of them and went into full combat mode. The grenade exploded and time slowed down as he moved to the side out of the path of the incoming blaster and flechette rounds.
On the bridge, Class looked at the monitor, as did the rest. Smiling slightly seeing Penn blur as the group started firing in all directions. The rest just stood there in stunned disbelief as they watched men and aliens go down in a spray of blood and screams of pain. It was all over in less than a minute and Penn came to a standstill in front of asshole number one, as he put it. The man looked at him, shaking his head slightly before he fell, blood spurting from his severed jugular. The loading bay was a blood spattered mess with ten bodies laying about, dead or dying. Penn turned away and re-entered the ship. It was more than an hour before he arrived back on the bridge. It had taken him that long to scrub himself clean in the shower and find new clothes to wear. No one said a word when he came in, but he could see the look of fear in their eyes. It wasn’t something he hadn’t seen before, and he shrugged it off. Lowlife slavers and assorted scum didn’t deserve any mercy, nor was he going to shed a tear over any of them. They got what they deserved and that was the end of it.
“What now?” Class asked, equally unconcerned about the death of a few slavers as he eyed the monitor. Even now, the maintenance bots were removing the bodies and washing away the blood.
“Now we go and talk to the station boss.”
With Class carrying the heavy-duty flechette cannon in one hand that normally took a three-man crew to carry and operate, Penn didn’t need to carry anything except his knives. With Class walking behind him, he walked out onto the main concourse of the station looking as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Run down and worn out was his first impression of the inside of the station with shops and street markets cobbled out of anything handy. As expected, the shops ranged from drinking parlors to knocking shops, gambling dens, and places to eat. He wondered for a moment what they served in a place like this. Even a quick look showed a surprising variety of foodstuffs so they must be getting fresh products from somewhere. Pirated off cargo ships most likely, or some agro planet not too far away. Many of the open fronted stores sold a variety of items ranging from clothes to weapons and everything in-between. Everything was overpriced, including the air and water brought in from the asteroid belt. Penn was betting the docking fees were just as steep, as were resupplies of air, water, and H3 for the fusion reactors.
Word of the firefight was soon all over the station, along with the security cam video of the battle, and the motley crowd of people got out of his way in a hurry, few wanting to get into something that wasn’t their fight. It wasn’t long before he found out where the boss of this place had his office on the upper, more restricted area. Not that anyone stopped him as he walked up to each level, and it wasn’t long before he entered the station boss’ lavish quarters. Here he was met with an assortment of armed individuals, all careful not to point their weapons directly at him. Class on the other hand with no such restriction, moved into a corner, and pointed his weapon at the boss. The unspoken threat was that he would be the first to get shredded if anything went sideways. Penn took a seat in front of the boss’s deck and put his feet up as a direct insult. The ‘boss’ turned out to be an older Tellurian Var, whose florid face tightened as he looked down his long bony nose at his unwelcome visitor. Being a Var, he was unused to anyone not showing him disrespect, let alone a human. He amended that the moment he looked into those bright yellow eyes, feeling a shiver run down his spine when Penn removed his shades. How the human had done what he did in the docking bay was unknown, but it did give Var Clar Dirkoff pause. Before departing Telluria Prime in disgrace, he did hear of a yellow eyed human working for Director Markoff. Could this be one and the same? If so, what in the name of the Holy Mother was he doing here? Rumor had it that he was Markoff’s pet assassin and that brought a cold sweat to his armpits, and the thought of why he was here.
“There are two ways this can go, Tellurian.”
“And what way would that be, Human?” He snapped in return in an attempt to show his superiority.
“Like they say on Earth, the easy way, or the hard way.” The Var’s smooth brow pulled into a frown.
“I’m not sure I understand the reference.”
“The easy way is for you to tell me what I want to know.”
“And the hard way, as you say, is?”
“The hard way is that I kill everyone here except you. You, I slowly dismember until you tell me what I need to know.” Under any other circumstances Var Dirkoff would have laughed and had the being taken out and shot, or stuffed out an airlock without a suit. In this case, he had second thoughts, even if it was one unarmed human and an armed Gort. There was something, an aura emanating from the human that said he’d do exactly what he said. Add that to what he’d seen on the monitor made him think twice.
“And what is it that you want me to tell you?” There was no harm in asking, even if it was a distraction while he slowly placed his hand under the desk near his sidearm. Even as he did, the human smiled as if he knew exactly what he was doing.
“All you have to do is tell me the Nav coordinates of any and all slaver stations you know of.” Var Dirkoff blinked. He hadn’t expected that, and for a moment, he didn’t know what to say.
“Why in the name of the holy mother would you need to know that?” He blurted out before he could stop himself. He expected… well he didn’t know what he’d expected, some sort of demand, payment of some kind, secret information. Not that he knew any.
Many years ago, Director Markoff had given him this one chance to redeem himself and save his family from disgrace and he’d grabbed it. It was that or he’d have an ‘accident’. Taking over as the Director or boss of this station just meant he made sure the low life scum who used this place paid their dues on a regular basis, or died. He faithfully carried out those duties with vigor, enriching the Emperor and himself in the process for ten solar cycles. He’d also sent regular updates on ship movements and assorted intelligence data, along with the credits, thereby keeping IMPSEC and the Director up to date on the happenings in this part of the Empire. Now this and he wondered for a moment if the two weren’t connected. The human hadn’t identified himself as an IMPSEC agent, but then again, if he was working undercover, he wouldn’t.
“Get out!” He ordered as he removed his hand from the sidearm under his desk, and for a moment, his guards looked at him, then shrugged and filed out. “Director Markoff must have a lot of faith in you, human.” He said as the last guard exited and closed the door behind him. Even taken by surprise by the turn of events, Penn caught on immediately, and the tick at the corner of his mouth could have, with a slight stretch of the imagination, been called a smile. He thought he’d have to do it the hard way and spill more blood, but, if the Var wanted to believe he was Markoff’s agent, he wasn’t about to disillusion him.
