Chapter 2
GARK
One more scavenger mission and he’d have the credits to sort out the mess that was his life. Finally.
He rested a hand on the doorframe, tapping it twice before entering the bridge of The Honorable Lady.
It wasn’t as big as the battleships he’d been stationed on in his time in the Taurean military, nor was it as small as the cruisers and stealth ships he’d piloted on his many reconnaissance missions.
He stopped behind the captain’s chair—his chair—gripping the headrest in both hands and squeezing the leather that was soft from years of use.
“Status?”
The pilot’s chair swung around silently on well-oiled bearings, revealing the cocky grin of Vox, his pilot.
Blond hair flopped over his forehead, shaved at the sides in the usual Taurean military style—though Vox had been out for close to ten years—and his flight suit was opened almost to the navel, showing a broad expanse of bronzed skin.
“She’s performing great, Captain.” He might be a cocky asshole, but it was for good reason. He was the best pilot Gark had ever worked with. “No issues from me.”
The seat next to the pilot turned slightly.
Jarden, stocky and muscular, was the opposite of Vox in many ways.
Quiet when Vox was talkative and loud. His dark brown skin and hair were unusual for an off-worlder, where the suns were weak.
Most of his kind were pale, but not Jarden.
His eyes were the same color as most of his kin, though, a pale blue so icy they reminded Gark of the first winter snows he’d seen after leaving his own desert planet.
But it was rare to see Jarden without the tinted shield he wore over his eyes to protect them from the light.
“Nav is good. Backup too.” Jarden’s reply was typical. Very few words and delivered softly.
What the pilot and navigator had in common was that neither should be underestimated. Both were deadly fighters, with years of combat under their belts. Which was why they were on Gark’s ground team for today’s job.
Gark slid into the captain’s chair and crossed his arms over his chest as he stared at the main viewscreen.
His own ship. One side of his mouth tilted up in a rare smile.
He’d worked hard to repay the loan he’d taken out to buy The Honorable Lady—to prove he was more than the circumstances of his birth—and he was proud of all he’d accomplished.
The money from this mission would cover the only other thing he wanted.
Redemption. Or as close to it as he could get.
His fingers drummed impatiently on the armrest of his chair.
Now that he was so close to reclaiming his honor, he couldn’t let his guard down.
One wrong move and the tightly scheduled sequence of events that would see him claim his bounty and make it to the hearing in time would fall apart.
One wrong move and he’d lose everything.
Gark wasn’t usually someone who flirted with such risky situations. He wasn’t opposed to risk, but only if the reward was worth it. And in his line of work, high risk meant high reward.
And a job to a planet being invaded by the Xakul, who had already wiped out half of the habitable planets in this sector? That was extremely high risk.
Gark pulled up the list of items he’d been sent to get.
Unfortunately, the only place they could be found was on this backwater planet halfway to being obliterated by the Xakul.
The insectoid aliens loved nothing more than finding somewhere rich in resources, destroying all resistance from its inhabitants, then laying eggs that, once hatched, stripped the planet bare.
It wasn't as if anyone or anything had a chance down there. So he didn’t feel bad stealing—appropriating—a few things that nobody was going to be alive to need or want.
He recited his mantra: get in, get out, get paid. Ask no questions and get paid more. Gark had gained a reputation as the captain to call on when you needed a job done discreetly and efficiently.
And this was exactly that kind of job.
He swiped a large, callused finger across the control panel, and the display on the view screen changed to the planet below.
Green and blue. White swirls of cloud—oceans of water. So much water, his desert-loving heart raced at the sight. What precious wealth.
Damaged battleships and abandoned fighters orbited the planet, the remnants of a battle to save it from the invading force.
It had been weeks since the battle ended, and the cleanup was slowly underway.
Scavenger haulers attached tow cables to Taurean vessels that could be salvaged; the line of broken ships linked together like ants following one another as they slowly towed them back to the Taurean system.
Some ships were barely damaged, and repair crews were working, swarming on the outsides with industrious fervor.
All were under the watchful eye of a Taurean fleet patrolling from an orbiting starship.
The Lady managed to slip through the chaos under the cover of a supply ship—which wasn’t a lie, Gark’s jobs were often supply runs—and this job had come with a series of codes to help them pass through unnoticed.
The battle for Earth had been won, but there were still some Xakul ships on the surface, and the Taurean and Earth forces were engaged in skirmishes to exterminate any remaining Xakul soldiers. Nobody was paying attention to a supply ship.
“Ready, Vox?”
The pilot turned in his seat and grinned. “You know I live for this shit.”
Gark’s lips twitched. Vox might have a reputation for being a bit reckless, but Gark knew better. The pilot had been one of the best in the Taurean fleet, and Gark knew he was lucky to have him on his crew. Even if sometimes he wondered why someone with Vox’s skills had hired on to The Lady.
But the “ask no questions” rule applied to the crew as well as the jobs he took. Vox did an excellent job, and Gark didn’t question why he hadn’t signed on with one of the wealthy Taurean houses as a private pilot. Sometimes you just didn’t want to know just as much as someone didn’t want to tell.
Gark could appreciate that.
“There. There’s the gap we’ve been looking for,” Jarden said. The navigator tightened the strap on the dark goggles he wore due to his light sensitivity.
The navigator was from one of the outer colonies, and Gark had offered him a job when nobody else would because Jarden was deemed lesser by the inner planet types.
Gark nodded. “Let’s go.” He thumbed the mic on the collar of his combat suit, selecting the channel to reach the entire crew. “Crew to stations. Let’s get this done quickly.”
A chorus of confirmations sounded in his ear as the small crew of The Honorable Lady took their places, ready for whatever faced them.
None of them had any desire to face the Xakul in a frenzy.
Not again. He yanked his thoughts away from that time of his life with a scowl.
It had taken an unbelievable bounty for him to take this job.
There was no way Gark would go anywhere near the Xakul without good reason.
The Lady, guided by Vox, sped toward the planet’s dark side, and the view changed.
They dodged between ships half-destroyed in the battle for Earth, broken halves with bodies floating away from their ravaged depths.
It was eerie, and Gark shivered at the sight.
As someone who had spent a considerable amount of his life in space, he held a particular fondness for the integrity of the hull of whatever vessel he was on.
Movement caught his eye, an escape pod rapidly flying away from a ravaged ship—Taurean by the looks of it.
“Want me to fire—”
“Leave them.” Gark cut off A’Kar, their security specialist, mid-sentence with a frustrated chop of his hand.
The fool was always getting trigger-happy, never mind that shooting down a Taurean military vessel would cause all kinds of trouble for the crew.
A’Kar had only been with them for a few weeks and was already starting to grate on Gark’s nerves.
There was something just not right about him.
Too keen to shoot first and ask questions later, for one thing.
The ship jerked as they dodged around a particularly jagged edge of what had been a destroyer, only to find a rotating piece of debris right in front of them.
“Brace!” Gark ordered, gripping the chest straps of the harness that held him in his seat. The ship jolted as Vox pulled up hard, then shot sideways. Gark closed his eyes and sent a prayer to the Lady.
Another jolt, and a squeal as the ship scraped alongside another had Gark cursing.
“Sorry! It was either that or go straight through it.”
Gark grunted, hands adjusting on the harness as he held himself rigid, trying not to think about the repair costs he’d be up for. He breathed a sigh of relief when they emerged from the debris field and shot toward the blue surface of the planet, slowly rotating beneath them.
Water. Too much water.
Gark breathed out slowly. Of course, their job sent them to a planet covered in Lady-damned oceans.
The desert would have been easier, but no, just a terrifying expanse of open water.
He swallowed. What was the point? From what he’d learned, you couldn’t even drink the stuff without a lot of effort to remove the salt and contaminants.
What a strange planet. He frowned, his nostrils flaring as he swiped over the tablet in front of him.
The viewscreen changed from the swathe of blue to their mission brief.
His shoulders relaxed.
“Listen up. We’ve been through this already—”
“Worse than being in the military with all his triple checks.”
Gark ignored the grumbled complaint from A’Kar, making a note to offload the irritating fool as soon as he could.
“—So you know what to do.”
He ran through the brief, seeking confirmation from each crew member about their role and what they were looking for.