Avalon

CHAPTER 03

SURPRISE CROSSED RENFORD’S FACE, AND HE LOWERED the Mirage a fraction. It was all the window Jeth needed. He drew his stunner and fired.

Two simultaneous blasts—one from Jeth and one from Celeste—struck Renford, throwing him backward. Before Renford hit the ground, a bullet exploded from the Mirage. Jeth felt it soar past him.

“Lizzie!” Celeste screamed.

Jeth’s heart launched into his throat. As he turned, a vision of Lizzie lying dead on the ground, blood spurting from a crater-size hole in her body, flashed in his imagination.

“I’m all right,” Lizzie said. She was still standing, the bullet imbedded in a container behind her. She held up her arm. “It just grazed me.”

“Let me see.” Jeth grabbed her hand and yanked her arm straight. Terror at what might have happened made his fingers tremble.

“Ouch. Take it easy, will you?”

Jeth could barely hear her over the sound of the alarm, still blaring. “Turn that off!” he shouted at Celeste who was already at the nav station, working on it. The noise stopped a moment later, leaving behind a terrible ringing in Jeth’s ears.

Ignoring it, he grabbed the tear in Lizzie’s shirtsleeve and ripped it off, exposing the wound. He wiped away the blood, nausea twisting his stomach. But the wound was superficial. He wanted to hug her, but didn’t. She would never stand for it, and Celeste would never let him live down such an emotional display.

“You’ll be fine,” he said, letting go of her. He’d managed to sound calm, reassuring even, but inside his fear still throbbed like an infection. A centimeter closer and the bullet might’ve blown off her arm. Might’ve killed her.

Jeth forced the thought away, unable to face such a possibility. Not now, with disaster crashing down on them.

They needed to get out of here, but they had to get Renford off the ship first. They couldn’t risk the distrust it might provoke if Hammer found out that he had been there. What Hammer didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

Keeping your options open, aren’t you?

Jeth let the rogue thought come and go without consideration as he turned toward where Renford had fallen. He blinked once, twice, his mouth dropping open.

Renford wasn’t there.

“That’s impossible,” said Celeste, panic in her voice. “Where the hell is he? We hit him with two stunners.”

An Echo. A shiver went through Jeth like a current. He shook his head, focusing, then faced Lizzie. “Get us unmoored. Celeste and I will search for him. There’s no telling what he might do now.”

“Hurry up,” said Lizzie, returning to the nav station. “Before they figure out which ship we’re on.”

Jeth and Celeste left the bridge, racing down the stairs. Jeth turned left toward the living quarters and the only exit through the cargo bay, while Celeste made a right toward the engineering deck. He thought he heard footsteps in the distance, but he couldn’t tell over the ferocious pounding of blood in his ears.

The cargo bay was empty as far as he could tell, and he raced to the rear access door to check if Renford had made it outside. He pulled it open and peered out.

“You there!”

Jeth glanced sideways and saw a sentry taking aim with a stunner. The shot zoomed out a second later, whizzing by his head close enough to warm his face.

He lurched backward. Enough with the close calls already. Had he really thought this job was boring? Jeth shut the door, and pressed the communicator patch behind his ear as he ran back across the walkway. “Get us loose, Lizzie. They’ve found us. Celeste, get to the bridge.”

“Already on my way,” Celeste answered a second later.

Jeth almost crashed into her as he reached the living quarters, but she raced ahead of him. When they hit the bridge, she dove into the pilot’s chair, taking hold of the control column. A second later, the ship pitched forward with a loud scrape of metal on metal. The Montrose wasn’t quite loose from the docking bay locks, but the ship was powerful enough to break free.

Jeth sat down in the copilot’s chair, adrenaline bringing his thoughts into sharp focus. He scanned the control panel, quickly locating the comm switch. He adjusted the frequency, then said into the mike, “You reading me, Joyrider?”

A couple seconds passed before Will Shady’s loud, gruff voice said back, “Got you, Boss. You heading out?”

“Oh yeah, with a firestorm on our ass. Get ready.”

“Yee-haw,” said Shady.

Ahead of them, the Kordan Spaceport’s patrol ships were already starting to swarm. Their narrow, upright shape reminded Jeth of piranhas he’d seen in First-Earth textbooks, except instead of teeth filling their front ends, they had guns. Lots of them.

The Montrose had no offensive weapons, but it came equipped with the most powerful field shielding available. Jeth located the shield button and activated it in time to deflect the first stream of gunfire. The patrols were aiming for the rear of the Montrose, trying to knock out the main engines. Jeth pulled up the shield system status screen, keeping his eyes fixed on the integrity readouts and wishing he could shoot at something instead.

Please don’t fail, please don’t fail, he thought. The shield needed to last long enough for them to make a metaspace jump. He pulled up the nav system and saw Lizzie had already entered the coordinates into the metadrive. As soon as they reached the minimum safe distance from all surrounding objects, the red light would turn green and they would be off.

Celeste flew them onward, going for maximum speed. Two patrols dove toward them, and she banked hard to the left. Jeth gripped the arms of his chair, panic expanding in his chest. She’d pushed it too far. Any moment now they would start spinning out of control. But somehow Celeste held onto it, her muscles clenched so tightly the veins in her hands and forearms popped out.

With an effort, Jeth pried his fingers off the chair.

“They’re telling us to stop,” Lizzie announced.

Jeth looked over his shoulder to see she’d slipped on a communicator headset.

“Just thought you should know,” she said, winking. “Can I tell them to piss off?”

“Oh sure,” Jeth said, not nearly as amused by the situation as she was. “Just be polite about it.”

Lizzie grinned and said into the comm, “This is the Montrose. The captain says piss off. Politely.”

Celeste giggled even as she managed to dodge another spray of gunfire.

“Glad you two are having so much fun,” Jeth said, turning his attention to the radar screen. They wouldn’t be, if they had been the ones who would have to explain all this to Hammer afterward. Assuming there is an afterward. As leader, Jeth was the one to deal with Hammer directly. But with the way their luck was going, he wouldn’t be surprised if the patrols blew them out of the sky instead of bothering to capture and arrest them.

Jeth counted five Kordan patrols, a higher number than he’d expected. As he watched, two more yellow dots appeared on the screen as if from nowhere—Shady and Flynn, the other two members of the Malleus Shades. Each piloted an X-86 Scout equipped with an illegal prototype stealth drive. The small, four-man ships belonged to Hammer, but Jeth and his crew used them most every job. Once out of stealth drive, the ships were visible to the Kordan Patrol, who quickly turned their attention to the new threat.

Barrage after barrage of gunfire flashed beyond the Montrose’s window. Unlike the Montrose, the Scouts came armed, and while neither Shady nor Flynn were as skilled at the helm as Celeste, they were both excellent shots. Especially Shady, who enjoyed nothing so much as shooting at moving targets.

“Take it easy, Joyrider,” Jeth said over the comm. “Don’t blow up anything. Just ground them.” And don’t get blown up yourself, he thought as he watched Shady swerve out of the path of an incoming patrol.

“Aw, come on, Boss,” Shady came back a second later. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Before Jeth could respond, Shady had doubled back on the patrol ship and taken out its starboard engine. Jeth exhaled in relief. Shady might be trigger-happy, but he wasn’t stupid. Not usually, anyway.

Meanwhile, Celeste had piloted them far from the spaceport. Jeth checked the integrity of the Montrose’s shield. It was weak but still holding. The ready light on the nav system remained red.

“Come on,” Jeth said. “Give up, already.” He couldn’t remember any job where they’d been pursued this long. There wasn’t much point, really. Most ships were insured against theft. Especially ones owned by corporations like Wellforth.

Finally, Jeth saw the dots on the radar screen begin to fall back.

“Looks like they’re bugging out,” Flynn’s voice said over the comm a moment later.

“Right,” said Jeth. “Let’s get out of here. Jump as soon as you’re clear.”

Both Flynn and Shady echoed a confirmation of his order.

Jeth pulled a pair of dark goggles from a nook on the dash in front of him and slipped them on while Celeste did the same behind him.

“Here we go.” Jeth engaged the metadrive. A moment later, a brilliant light like a raw, living energy enveloped the Montrose. It burned so brightly Jeth had to shut his eyes too, despite the tinted goggles. Even still, he could see the light through the skin of his eyelids as if his eyes remained open. Weightlessness came over his body. Not like being in zero gravity, but as if he had no body at all, his existence blinking out. He didn’t move, didn’t breathe. His heart no longer beat and his mind no longer thought.

A fraction of a second later, they came through the other side, traveling thousands of light-years in an instant.

Jeth shook the odd, I-died-for-a-second feeling from his body and pulled off the goggles. A moment later a bright light flashed in front of him, and the two Scouts appeared. They’d made it.

Lizzie let out a whoop behind him, and a huge grin lit up Celeste’s face. Jeth put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair, savoring the thrill of victory.

It didn’t last nearly long enough. Warning messages and system errors began flashing across the various screens on the console in front of him. The ship was still space-worthy, but there had been damage. Some of the gunfire must’ve penetrated the shields. Hammer would be furious.

Knowing there was nothing he could do about it now, Jeth tried to push the worry away. But his mind refused to be still. At once, his thoughts turned to Marcus Renford. What was on this lost ship that made it so important? And could Renford actually know the truth about Jeth’s parents?

Jeth shook his head. That train of thought would lead him nowhere. There were too many questions, too many complications. It didn’t matter why his parents had died. They would still be dead even with the knowing. He liked his life simple, straightforward. Do the job, get the money, move on to the next. Looking back wasn’t an option.

What about Avalon? Renford could give her to you, his mind persisted. Do you really think Hammer will let you go? he heard Renford say again.

“Celeste, run an internal scan,” he said. “We need to figure out if Renford is still on board.”

“I doubt it, but I’ll check,” she said.

Nodding, Jeth walked over to Lizzie and examined her arm once more. It really wasn’t bad at all. The bleeding had already stopped. “Let’s get this cleaned up. I’m sure the sick bay is stocked.”

Lizzie looked on the verge of protesting, but changed her mind. She turned and strode off the bridge.

Jeth followed after her but paused when he caught sight of something small and black lying on the floor. He stooped and picked it up. Renford’s calling card.

Then, for no reason he was willing to contemplate, he stowed the card in the pocket of his flight jacket and followed his sister off the bridge.