Dhakhar Read online

  And that is real love, isn’t it? Still loving someone, even when they make you mad.

  “Come home with me,” I say, batting my eyes at him.

  He shakes his head. “I’ve got to clean up the mess you made today, baby. Need to make sure everything is square with everyone. Come back to the pub? I’ll buy you and Nat a drink.”

  Tempting, but I shake my head. Can’t ruin a good exit by coming crawling back five minutes later.

  “Think I’ll just head home,” I say.

  “Okay. Go home and watch one of your documentaries,” he says, rolling his eyes just a little, “but don’t fall asleep, okay, baby. Wait up for me.”

  He winks at me, then heads back towards the pub. I watch him go. In a few hours, he’ll leave the pub, probably having had one too many. He’ll come to my house, crawl into my bed and give me a sloppy kiss. If he doesn’t fall asleep instantly, I’ll let him sleep with me, and in the morning, things will go on as usual. It will be like the blip of me getting arrested never happened.

  And that’s what I want.

  I think.

  Okay, sometimes, just sometimes, the fantasies I play out in my head go a little differently. Sometimes, I dare to dream what it would be like to leave the estate, to explore the big wide world and do… something. It’s always the ‘something’ I get stuck on.

  I know what Nat would say - be grateful for what you’ve got. I always thought she was stupid for settling for Mark and vowed I would never be like her. That I’d never settle for anyone less than I deserve.

  But Jason isn’t less than I deserve. He’s not like my father and he’s definitely not like Mark. Being with him isn’t settling. I’m lucky to have him. Dreaming of something more is just... greedy. Lives like that - they happen to other people. Not to girls like me.

  I start walking. I’m cutting through a dark side alley, almost home, when I hear a strange, mechanical whirring sound overhead. I look up, and it’s like a bright, circle of light is opening up above me.

  Then the whole world goes white.

  Chapter 2

  Dhakhar

  “So, what do we think, sir?” Mylan, my second, says.

  I look round at my team. They all look back at me with the same light in their eyes - the same light I know is in my eyes. Weeks of nothing but breaking up drunken fights and arbitrating bovi-shit arguments among the residents of Xentra Station has pushed all of us to our limits.

  I think we need this. Need the thrill of the chase, the adrenaline surge of combat.

  I think we need real work, something worthwhile. And smugglers will do nicely.

  “I think we’re about to recover a whole load of illegal weapons,” I say, grinning as the crew whoops in excitement. “Begin the pursuit, Fradon. Keep the scanners running, Loran, I don’t want any surprises. Mylan, Grem, Waarmack, prepare for boarding, non-deadly weapons as primary, but have deadlies for back up.”

  “Yes, sir,” several voices respond.

  The ship we’re tailing has all the hallmarks of an illegal smuggler. For starters, it’s out here in the dead ends of the Universe keeping company with nothing but Xentra Station and a few miner colonies. Ships don’t just pass through here. They’re either doing delivery runs between the miner colonies, or coming to Xentra. This ship has done neither, and it’s not the first time it’s been spotted in this little stretch of space. Which means they’re using the back routes between the gates, trying to stay under the radar - an assessment strengthened by the fact that they’ve got laser burned hull plating, but state of the art stealth panels. The Captain made a choice about his ship upgrades and repairs, and he wasn’t thinking about fitting in among the busy star lanes of the core systems.

  Fradon finishes warming up the engines and punches the acceleration. Everyone on the bridge rocks a little on their feet at the sudden g-force, but the Firesong is a good boat, and she stabilises quickly. She doesn’t look up to much on the outside, but the state of the art pulsar engines give her quite the burst of speed. We’ll catch the smugglers, no question.

  “Engage tractor beam,” I say as we gain on the smuggler ship. “Go easy on them first. Give them a chance to come quietly.”

  “Tractor beam at fifteen percent,” Ellastra says.

  Most of me hopes they’ll come quietly, let the tractor beam take them, then present themselves at boarding, hands raised in submission. But a little piece of me, the piece that misses the rush of battle and the tight camaraderie between soldiers, wills them to try their luck.

  “They’re accelerating, sir, raising tractor beam to twenty-five percent,” Ellastra says.

  I watch as the smuggler ship increases their outputs, their engines glowing blue. Fradon manoeuvres the Firesong so she angles downwards, her rear end raised out of range of the smuggler ship’s exhausts. The artificial gravity lurches, then reasserts itself, making the new angle feel horizontal, the ship outside appearing to fly upwards, not us down.

  “Still accelerating,” Ellastra says. “They’ll burn out if they keep this up. Raising to forty percent.”

  “I think we can expect some resistance,” I say, speaking over the ship wide comms so the boarding team hears me down in the armoury. “Barrand, get your secondary boarding team ready. Dantari, prep the med bay. Let’s not take any chances.”

  “Still want us on stunners, sir?” Mylan’s voice comes over the speakers.

  “I trust you’re skilled enough to subdue a few smugglers without resorting to deadlies, Mylan.” I shut off the comm. “They still trying to get away, Ellastra?”

  “Still accelerating. We’re at fifty percent.” She rolls her eyes. “Exhaust’s burning white. Any minute now…”

  The bridge falls silent, the remaining crew holding their breath as they watch, but there’s still not a sound as the exhaust port crumples, then pops. It can’t reach us through the vacuum of space. Broken shards of metal splinter from the back of the smuggler ship, debris ejecting in a rush of air, sucked out through the new rupture in the hull. It looks like a jet of glitter, light from their ship glinting off the debris, lasting just a few milliseconds before the internal bulkheads slam down, sealing off the breach.

  “Vecking idiots,” Ellastra says, her voice full of contempt.

  Vecking idiots, indeed.

  I hit the comm. “Boarding crews, they’ve ruptured their exhausts. Life support systems may be down, so suit up. We’re commencing docking procedures now.”

  Boarding is now a much riskier prospect - and not because of the breach. Crews desperate enough to burn out their exhausts have to have something on board worth all kinds of trouble, and they won’t want to give it up, whatever it is.

  Laser weapons? Something bigger? Something chemical or biological?

  “We’re in position for boarding, sir,” Mylan says over the comm.

  “Hold her steady, Fradon,” I say, rising out of my chair. “Loran, I want updates. Get an uplink connected. Look for any information about crew, layout, cargo.”

  “Yes, sir,” Loran answers.

  “You heading over with the boarding crews, Captain?” Ellastra asks.

  “You going to tell me that’s not my job any more?”

  She grins, revealing rows of pointed teeth. “Actually, I was going to ask if I could come, too.”

  Both boarding crews are fully suited and waiting by the airlock when we arrive.

  “You’re joining us, Captain?” Grem says, grinning.

  He’s already in his suit, bar the specially designed helmet that bulges at the forehead to accommodate his horns. Even inside the suit, it’s obvious that he’s seven foot of pure muscle, and I’m glad he’s on my team, not the enemy’s. Kavali warriors didn’t earn their reputation as the most fearsome fighters in the Prenetash War lightly.

  “Don’t you trust us?” Waarmack says. He’s smaller than Grem, but has a wiry toughness and the speed and manoeuvrability Grem lacks in tight spaces. The two of them together are formidable. I’d trust them to ge
t any ‘contain and neutralise’ kind of job done.

  “To the very edges of the Universe,” I say, clipping my own helmet into place. “I just don’t want to let you have all the fun.

  The airlock hisses as the pressure adjusts to match that of the smuggler ship. I watch the red light flashing in the upper right corner of the room, two, three, four times before it turns green and the door ahead of us slides open.

  “Oxygen levels and air pressure are on the low side,” Barrand says, holding a scanner out ahead of him. “It’s breathable, but I’d keep your suits on.”

  “Low oxygen ought to make the crew sleepy,” Waarmack says.

  “Don’t count on it.” I scan the corridor ahead of us, seeing no doorways, alcoves or any other spaces someone could be hiding in. I make the ‘forwards’ gesture with my hand.

  We search the corridors and rooms one at a time, systematically working our way through the ship as Loran passes us updates the Firesong has pulled from the smuggler ship’s mainframe.

  “Crew is seven strong,” he says. “They’ve all got previous for violence, but none of them are trained. Captain’s a mercenary, wanted markers from four different sectors. He’s the worst, but the rest aren’t far behind him.”

  “Send a package back to Xentra,” I tell him. “Let them know who they’ve got coming in. Quiet on comms for now unless something critical comes up. Let us concentrate.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  And then it’s silent, bar my own breath inside my helmet, and the clink of my crew’s footsteps as they make their way down the corridor. I can feel my mind sharpening, my body tense with readiness. The scales on my chest start to harden, my Dravosic fighting instincts rising from dormancy. One year since the war ended, and weeks since we’ve so much as pulled up a ship out here, but the body remembers. I slip into that battle ready state like the last time I pulled out my blaster was only yesterday.

  We come up on a closed door. Grem stands at one side of it, Barrand at the other. Barrand makes quick work of the casing around the door control, rerouting the wires with nimble fingers. He turns, gives me the thumbs up. I raise my gun, eyes focused on the door, and nod.

  Barrand twists the wires together.

  Shots fly as soon as the door starts to hiss open, most of them hitting the door as it retreats into the walls. A bolt sizzles past my shoulder, my suit registering the passing energy as a gentle swell of warmth against my skin. A couple of the others take glancing blows, but for the most part, the bolts hit the floor and walls around us. It’s a panicked attack, not a coordinated, controlled one. We wait it out, and when the bolts stop flying, my team go into action.

  Grem goes first, unleashing a battle roar that makes the speakers in my helmet buzz, Waarmack right behind him, the rest of us filing through. We’re on the smuggler ship bridge. It’s a large, open space, with plenty of places to hide. Funnelled like we were in a tight corridor, we should have been easy pickings for them. But our equipment is superior, and when one of the smuggler crew raises his weapon at me with sluggish arms, I can tell he’s feeling the effects of the low oxygen. I fire a stunning bolt at him before he can get a shot off.

  The whole thing is over in seconds.

  “Headcount,” I call over the comms. “I want all seven crew accounted for.”

  “Two here, sir,” Mylan responds.

  “We’ve got three.” Grem’s voice is back to normal volumes, but still edged with plenty of growl.

  “I’ve got one,” Ellastra says.

  “And mine makes seven. Line them up.”

  Three are unconscious and the other four may as well be. They look doped, the low oxygen taking its toll.

  “You’ve been boarded by Captain Dhakhar of the Universal Protectorate Law Enforcement Xentra Division. We have reason to suspect you’re transporting illegal goods. You will be taken into custody and transported to Xentra for further questioning and investigation. Ellastra, Grem, escort these fine gentlemen to our brig. Barrand, assess the state of the ship. See if it can limp home, or if we’re going to have to drag it.”

  Barrand nods and heads off in the direction of the engine room. He’s the only member of my crew who isn’t ex-military. A Junker born and bred, what he lacks in formal training, he more than makes up for with his knowledge of ships and ship mechanics.

  “The rest of you, systematic search of the ship. Go over all the rooms we’ve already covered, this time looking for illegal cargo.”

  There’s a chorus of ‘yes, sir’s and they spring into action. Grem hauls the unconscious crew members over his shoulder, carrying them back towards the Firesong like they weigh nothing. The remaining four Ellastra handcuffs then escorts out. They don’t give her any trouble. Wise of them - people who do don’t normally live to tell the tale.

  “Sir, think we’ve got something,” Mylan says over the comms.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Looks like the intel was good, sir, but…” A pause. “Perhaps you should come see for yourself.”

  He gives me directions over the comms and I follow them down to a storage room on the lower levels of the ship. It’s not a large room, and it’s been filled with sealed boxes, stacked one on top of the other from floor to ceiling. Twenty four of them, all told - four deep and six wide. It’s not possible to tell how far they go back, but they’re about two foot wide and just over a foot tall.

  “Looks like you pull them open from the end,” Mylan says, indicating the handle on the front of one of the boxes. “Loran says a lot of energy is being routed down here. I’m betting cryostasis chambers.”

  “Probably,” I say, mind wheeling through what weapons need to be stored in cryostasis.

  Something biological, or something unstable.

  “What do you think?” I ask Mylan.

  “I think Taph is three for three on good intel leads. We’re going to have to start actually trusting him,” Mylan says with a grin.

  I grimace. “I wouldn’t trust Taph to settle a bar tab. Weapons in cryostasis?”

  “I’m betting activated Nimeshu Crystals. The kind they use to make cores for laser cannons powerful enough to punch through battlecruisers. Once the cores are set in a cannon, they’re fine - perfectly stable. Without the setting, they’re nasty. Got to keep them at freezing temperatures to stop them breaking down and reacting with everything.”

  “If they’ve got that kind of gear, they’ll get a life sentence on Renza Seven.”

  “There are other possibilities,” Mylan says. “Bioweapons, maybe. I boarded a ship like this during the war. They had a stasis unit in their med bay full of vials of Deshatu Fever virus. Some vecking idiot grunt opened it up and started rummaging. I haven’t shit myself since pre-school, but it was a close thing that day.”

  I laugh, because that’s what you do when you talk war stories. Laugh or cry, and laugh is generally accepted as the better option. Mylan crewed on decommissioning ships for the majority of his service, picking through the wrecks of battle cruisers, making safe their weapons. And if you think keeping off the front lines would mean you don’t have as many horror stories to tell, buy Mylan a beer some time and find out how wrong you are about that.

  “Xentra’s equipped for decommissioning weapons,” I say, though it’s not strictly true.

  Xentra was built for decommissioning - it was its entire purpose in the war. But it has been repurposed for more profitable and less dangerous ventures in the years since the war ended.

  Mylan grimaces. “Protocol says we’d have to evacuate the whole of Low Town. Which is potentially a lot more trouble than we really need to go to. If these contain laser cores, yes, we’ll have to take them to Xentra. If they’re bioweapons we can just eject the chambers into space and blow them. No profit to be had decommissioning bioweapons. Not like you can recycle them. The ship will need decontaminating, but that’s easy enough to do, then the Junkers can have her. No need to upset the boss with a massive evacuation.”

  ‘Upset’ is unders
tating things. Tesson H’Varak, commander of Xentra Station, will be apoplectic if I call him and start talking about an evacuation. H’Varak might be happy to profit off the people living in Low Town, but he doesn’t want to have to look at them.

  “Don’t suppose we could just blow them up if they’re laser cores?”

  Because screw the extra profit. It will only line H’Varak’s already well lined pockets anyway.

  “Not unless you want to incinerate yourself. Blow this many of those,” Mylan says, gesturing to the stacks of cryostasis chambers, “and you’ll need to be a very, very long way away.”

  “Okay.” I switch to comms. “Team, I want everyone else off the ship and the ship sealed up, air tight. Mylan is going to take a look at the cargo. Could be bioweapons.”

  Various voices reply affirmatives.

  “We need to do anything special here?” I ask Mylan.

  He shakes his head. “Just pull one out, we take a quick look, then push it back in. They’re designed for that. How else do you show your goods to your buyer?”

  I nod, selecting one of the central boxes. There are buttons on the end of it, but I ignore them, reaching for the handle. Over comms, Loran confirms that everyone else is back on board the Firesong and the ship is sealed. My nerves sing as I grip the handle, tension in the back of my neck, sweat beading on my brow. Mylan looks relaxed, but then he’s probably desensitised to this kind of thing. Despite his assurances about the design of cryo-chambers, I really don’t want to be disturbing unstable laser cores.

  Nothing for it, though. With a single tug, I pull the box all the way open.

  It slides out smoothly on its runners, revealing a clear plastic case inside. The plastic is fogged up, obscuring the view of the contents, so I unclip the armour plating on my hand and use the soft material of the bodysuit to swipe the condensation away.

  “Veck,” Mylan says, grabbing at his belt for a recording device.

  Because it isn’t weapons inside the chamber.

  It’s a woman.

  Long brown hair frames her face. Pale skin, soft, full lips. She’s smaller than galactic averages, her features and body dainty, delicate. I’ve never seen her like before. My heart - already beating hard from adrenaline - kicks a little harder. She’s beautiful, and my war-born instincts take a moment of mastering, because despite the fact that she’s frozen and helpless, my head and my heart are screaming in tandem that she’s dangerous. An enemy.