Chapter 4:
Talon sat in his chamber with Harlon, a Revant who had been with his father and who now crewed on Talon’s ship.
Harlon spoke. “You know I have done everything ever asked of me by the family you are part of. I have never backed down from any fight, whether it was for the right to close the wormhole or the right to live. I worked beside you in the mines, Talon, and I don’t know how either of us has managed to live through all the battles we have seen.”
Talon leaned forward, his eyes locking onto Harlon’s. “I agree with every word you just said, especially the last part, but I think you are wrong about the taking of this ship.”
Harlon snorted. “A Federation ship is not so hard to take. We have done that before when we found them alone. This is not that. You are talking about taking a ship that is part of an armada, and in that armada are at least a dozen warships.”
Talon licked his lips. He gave Harlon a wary glance. “Do the rest of the crew feel the same?”
“Most. It is foolish, Talon. I know you, and I know if anyone could do this, it would be you. But this…it feels like arrogance rather than need. The truth is we do not need this ship. We do not need the trouble that will come from this either.”
That was true. The Federation was not going to take this well. They would definitely be angry as hell, and the last thing he really needed was that. On the other hand, it was no longer such a huge problem for him to be marked as an outlaw. They had Revant Two now, and it was outside Fed territory. At least for now.
He tapped his fingers on the table he sat at. He said, “I know this seems odd. It sounds crazy. But I know we can do it, and the truth is we are running low on weapons and supplies. Wrecking one of those ships would give us weapons like they have, and that is important since they raided the last outliers and managed to take such a huge lot of the black-market guns away.
“I can always back off if it seems bad.”
Harlon snorted. “You could, but will you? We all know you do not let go once you get a hold of things.”
Talon grinned. “That is so true. I can’t even argue that.”
Harlon stood. “You tell me what you decide on this one. The crew and I will follow you. You know that we will. We always have, and even the ones who have not been here to know that I have owed you something. Even if that something is our lives, which it very well may be this time.”
“I know that, but it could be our lives every single time.”
The words held the harsh ring of truth because they were true.
Every ship could bring death, whether it was from fighting the Gorlites or fighting off a ship’s crew so they could wreck the ships they took. Any and all of those ships that they had gone after over the years could have meant their death.
Harlon nodded. Talon stood and walked to his small porthole window. They had slid behind a star system and were still waiting for the fleet, moving slowly to conserve fuel, to pass by.
The darkness of space rolled around them, broken by a colorful and beautiful stream of light from the star shine.
He stared at it. Once upon a time, when had been a child, he had loved standing on the warm soil and grass of his homeland and looking up at the skies, wondering if his father was flying past.
He had always wanted to fly.
For as long as he could remember, he had wanted to fly.
The skies had called him like the sea had called the sailors of old lore. He frowned, trying to recall what planet had been known for those stories of beings that made ships and then set them on the seas.
On Revant, fish hunters took boats out to trap the enormous Sturg-fish and landlers that would feed several families for a whole sun and moon phase. They spoke of the sea the same way he spoke of the skies, and he found himself thinking hard about how strange it was that all beings seemed destined to wander and seek out things that should not have been theirs.
He turned away from the windows and went to his bed. The day had been long and tiring, and the fleet would take hours to pass. After it did, they would have to go slowly to come up behind it and stay far enough behind it to pick out any stragglers that they might be able to take.
That had been a smart idea.
He dropped his clothes to the floor and crawled into his bed, folding his hands behind his head.
Jessica. She was an odd one, always ready to go up against anything and anyone. She was a warrior in every way, and she was the one woman he could not have, but the only one he wanted.
Just his luck.
“There.”
Talon squinted, and a grin filled his face. “It is slowing down.”
“A lot.” Jessica’s forehead wrinkled. “Maybe too much.”
Talon asked, “You think it is a trap?”
“No, but…but maybe.”
He gave her a long glance. She wore a pensive expression. She said, “I think I am jumping at shadows. The whole thing is stupid, you know. We should likely call it off.”
“True.”
She drew a breath. The breath lifted her chest in an enticing way, and he had to turn his eyes away to stop staring at that magnificent physique of hers.
She said, “Oh look, it was slowing down for…” Her mouth opened and closed. A frown came and went, but he had seen it too. He spoke softly. “It’s a cloaked ship!”
Her words held worry. “It is a Gorlite ship, and Talon, look!”
Talon had already seen it. So had Harlon and several other crewmembers. They crowded around the windows, all of them watching but not speaking.
Talon could not believe what he was seeing, but he was seeing it anyway.
The Federation ship had slowed down and the Gorlites, rather than trying to take the ship, were standing down.
Harlon spoke up. “Boss, they are refueling the Gorlite ship!”
“I see that.” Of course he did. How could he not?
Talon scowled at the ships. He dropped his ship back and raised the cloaking devices before ducking the ship behind a small ripple in the warp around the system they were riding through.
It would not be enough if they had already been spotted though. His eyes narrowed again as he jockeyed the ship into a better position so he could see the ships.
Refuel and resupply.
Why in the hell would a federation ship be supplying a Gorlite ship?
The Federation shunned the creatures and had outlawed them from planet surfaces, not that there were many planets that would suit the creature’s bug-like bodies and burrowing habits. The race was homeless; they lived on ships they took and then used until it was ruined and no longer able to sustain them, and then they took another.
They had destroyed many a planet before the Federation outlawed and hunted them to the ends of the universe and back. They had been harried into near-extinction, but they were far from dead, and now he was watching a Federation ship give supplies to a Gorlite ship.
It was always easy to spot a Gorlite ship. The creatures secreted a slime that encased everything and eventually caused a particular type of damage to the hulls of the ships that they took. It was part of the reason that they had to always take new ships; their own bodies ate their home.
Harlon said, “We cannot take that ship. Hell, if we did there would be precious little to take. It looks like the Gorlites are getting it all, and we all know once it hits a Gorlite deck it’s not anything anyone would want.”
Jessica’s teeth worried at her lip. Her lovely eyes met his, and he saw a question written largely in her eyes. He said, “I need to know what is happening here. I do.”
He did. There was no way that could be happening, but it was.
He watched as the Federation ship took up its fuel and supply lines and the Gorlite ship headed off. He said, “The rest of the fleet is far ahead now.”
Harlon asked, “You can’t be serious; you still want to take that ship?”
“Damn right, but now what I want off of it is information.”
Harlon shook his head. “You got all the info you need, boss. It was supplying a Gorlite ship, you saw it. We all saw it.”
Talon’s ire notched higher. “Yes, we did. Now I want to know why.”
Harlon whistled through his teeth. He rubbed a hand over his head. “I will admit to being curious.”
Talon grinned. The grudging words meant one thing: Harlon hated the Gorlites and the Federation as much as he did. As much as every single being on that ship did. He said, “We take the ship. Now. Before it can catch up and before any more Gorlites can show up to get supplies. We can’t fight two ships, especially if one is filled with Gorlites.”
Harlon called out the order. They zoomed high, and the speed increased as Talon guided the cloaked ship deeper into space. His every instinct was wound up and humming. Running into a cloaked ship would be disastrous. There was no way to know if there was one out there without a good set of eyes watching the skies and those kinds of ridiculous accidents did happen all the time in space, usually when pirates bent on hiding ran into a ship filled with pirates also bent on the same thing.
They drifted over the Fed ship. His hands guided the ship closer still, jockeying for a position directly above. He looked over at Harlon, who held his hand over the controls for the metal spinners, vast and powerful drillers that would puncture all but the strongest of ship metals.
Harlon nodded, and Talon said, “Go.”
The spinners shot down and out, punching through the cap of the Federation ship. Just that would be enough to cripple the ship. The holes made would be too large for the ship to fly even if they drew back now. It would crash and burn, and its crew would die if they took the spinners up and back, and for a moment he considered doing just that, but he needed info. That thing he had just witnessed refused to leave his mind. It had to have an answer.
The crew was already moving. They had their weapons, and their faces said that they were after whatever could be had.
They wrecked for profit, and Fed ships often carried high credit-bearing goods.
Talon and Jessica wound up side by side, running for the portals that would take them through the tubes that would take them to the ship. That was the worst part for him, every single time. He always had a crazy fear that he would somehow end up in space instead of another ship and, as always, he heaved a sigh of relief when his feet hit deck instead of nothingness.
The battle started right then. His weapon came up, and his arm shot out, his fire taking the chest of a Fed officer out. The officer fell, blood spilling.
Jessica was involved in a hand-to-hand combat with a creature who wore the red and blue uniform of the Federation, and for a moment he paused, just watching her.
She was magnificent.
And distracting. He heard the laser whine in time to get out of its way, but just barely. He turned his attention away from Jessica and took out the com-call center, making sure the crew could not contact the rest of the fleet, not that it would matter if they did since Talon and his crew would be long gone before then.