Rise the Renegade (Rork Sollix Book 1) (13 page)

“H
E
’
S
COMING
around, again!”

The words intruded on Rork’s mind. His eyes, never closed, began transmitting signals to his brain again. He dragged his arms up to his face and struggled to hold them there. He burned precious fuel to stop his head over heels flipping.

Zero crashed into Rork, chest squarely to chest. The two men bounced away in different directions just before the brightly colored wall of the Barbary ship tore through. It turned and adjusted its course to make another pass.

“What a mess you have put us in.” Zero heaved and coughed.

“This is not the time to assign blame!” Rork judged the Barbary ship’s trajectory. It would come around at him again. He mustn’t move, or the ship would change its course and he would never reach the airlock. It was Zero that had to do it.

“When can we assign blame?”

“You need to come around to my side, about twenty meters ahead and ten—” Rork started. A sudden pinching ache erupted in his chest and spread like wildfire up to the crown of his head and down to his toes. His body tensed like a live wire.

“We must negotiate with them. They will see reason and give us a ride somewhere.” Zero hung in the blackness, not far away now.

A hulking mass of metal passed in between Rork and Zero. Something told him it was one of the EDF ships, but nothing other than the pain mattered now. He mustered the strength to speak.

“You need to come around the back of the Barbary ship and get into the airlock. I am the bait. I can’t do it. Jupiter, I can barely see at all!”

“ESS
John McCain
to fugitives Sollix and Malik, stay where you are. We will reacquire you.”

“Something’s beeping. Something about low fuel,” Zero said.

A pulsating blackness crept into the edges of Rork’s visions. His head had a gravity all its own. The squealing out of his helmet pushed him farther from Zero.
 
“Just do it, Zero!”

“ESS
John McCain
to commercial cargo sled
Fist of Dollars
, break off your assault on the fugitive Sollix and return to your previous course to the planet.”

The Barbary ship came around again. Rork found his wrist and rocketed just above it. He grabbed for a hold on its flat top. The top lit up. Three EDF soldiers hovered above him in an open-topped toboggan. The rear thrusters powered down in a loss of brilliance and the front rockets flashed.

The Barbary ship slipped away from him. There was no sign of Zero anywhere. The pain relented briefly.

“I can’t—” Zero started. “I just don’t even have the first—”

The EDF soldiers split into a triangle and, holding hands, they fell upon Rork.

One reached out a hand to grab Rork’s suit. “We’re going to save you.” His eyes met Rork’s.

The pain returned, stronger than ever, an electric charge that burned at the slightest movement. Rork triggered his boot rockets and flew straight up through the middle of the triangle. One of them grabbed him and Rork flew off course, past the toboggan to its side. The soldiers spun off but quickly recovered and dove back in.

Rork kicked away the attached EDF interloper. Two alarms beeped, one after the other, over and over. They sounded far away now. He punched up his acceleration and slammed into the toboggan. The alarms disappeared. He couldn’t hear himself breathe. His vision reduced to a tiny field in front of him, most of it covered by his helmet’s maze of cracks.

An EDF soldier fell in front of him, his mouth moving.

Rork felt the toboggan controls and found the accelerator. He punched it up and looped back, searching for the Barbary ship. He needed oxygen now. Anything else would mean losing consciousness and a quick death. The idea almost seemed like a blessing but he curved right and twisted his helmet, desperate to find an unbroken patch of glass.

There the damned thing was. It was escaping now. Rork made a U-turn and headed straight towards Earth. He came up on the back of the ship and matched its velocity. He grabbed the airlock door, opened it and threw himself in.

He bumped into another body, hit the green compression button and passed out.

Rork’s cheek stung. Every muscle ached but the tension was releasing. He sat up in the airlock, his helmet off. Zero crouched in front of him. “Finally did something useful. Good job.”

“Your negativity selects for undesirable quantum outcomes.”

Rork rolled his eyes.

Zero held his tan palms up, his heavily-browed cinnamon eyes sincere. “It’s true. And can we assign blame now?”

Rork sighed. He searched the compartment. “We have no weapons and we have to take the bridge before this thing starts re-entry. Let’s go.”

“Perhaps we can negotiate?”

Rork burst through the door and propelled himself up the corridor with the last fumes of fuel in his suit. Every bulkhead door was open for as far as he could see. He passed through one, then another, with ease. He cut acceleration and listened. No sound. Every berth, every cargo space, it was all completely empty.

“Is something not quite right?” Zero asked from far behind him.

Rork rocketed ahead again, straight up through the middle of the ship, and motioned for Zero to follow him. He sailed through one bulkhead door, his foot grazing the bottom edge of the circular door, almost catching.

“We have to search for her,” Zero yelled.

“No.” This was a trick. He just sensed it. He had to take the bridge and quickly. He could not permit it to enter the atmosphere, much less to land on a planet full of cops and EDF soldiers. He would search the compartments later but she wasn’t here.

The ship rumbled under their feet. Rork pushed the suit rockets to the max and they sputtered out, unevenly. Against his will, he turned and slammed into a corridor wall. He curled up, bounced off of it and glided into the bridge. He skidded across the floor in the artificial gravity.

Rork crawled to his knees and Zero zoomed in. The sage kneecapped him and sent him nose-first into the floor before crashing into the bridge controls himself.

“Ever resourceful, Rork. I admire that about you. Too bad your journey ends here.” Barbary’s visage smirked down at Rork on the front viewscreen.

“Is she even on board?”

Barbary shrugged, that devilish smirk of his firmly in place.

Rork got up and limped to the control panel. He looked up at Barbary. The old man towered over him. “Make your funeral arrangements, you soul-sucking bastard.” He cut the connection.
 

“What are we going to do?” Zero asked from the floor at Rork’s feet.

“You’re going to get the hell out of my way. That’s step one.” He massaged his chin. He tapped some buttons on the bridge controls and considered the ethereal blue mass that loomed in his way.

Zero crawled to the back of the bridge. “Step two?”

“Step two is you shut your audio port and let me do my thing.”

Zero rolled his eyes and slouched back, his hand over his face.

I have no idea what to do.
The thought dawned on Rork with the finality of a rung bell. He crashed into the co-pilot’s chair and let his eyes lazily dance across the stunning view of his new cage. Escaping a second time would be much harder. He frowned and crossed his arms.

A red bar flashed on the viewscreen. “Hull integrity compromised. Three minutes of oxygen remaining before complete decompression.”

Screw this.
Rork tore into the display. Engine control. Password required. Steering. Password required. Rork brought his fist down and cracked the display.

A bright streak caught his attention. A large ship exited the atmosphere and coasted out of Earth orbit. He squinted. It looked like the trainship and the trainship had a docking bay. The might just be able to...

“Zero! Let’s go!” He stood up. “We’re going to do something Barbary didn’t think of.”

“Something cosmically stupid?”

Rork nodded. “Naturally.”

“J
UST
PULL
wires!”

Rork and Zero ripped the bridge control panel tops off and grabbed at the wiring below.

A white flash blinded Rork and a sharp zap tickled his eardrums. Zero stumbled in retrograde and fell straight back like a triggered domino. Rork kept working.

Zero sat up, his face unnaturally pale.

“Cargo hold compromised. Sealing internal bulkhead,” the ship’s computer announced.

Flames licked the edges of the viewscreen. The door from the bridge to the cargo area slammed closed. The wheel turned until a hard metal on metal sound echoed.

“What was that?” Zero pulled himself up but wobbled and steadied himself against the wall.

Rork stopped ripping wires. It wasn’t helping. “We’re burning up in the atmosphere. Barbary is controlling the ship remotely and he’s killing us. Without suits, we’re locked in here now. This thing will burn up, explode or crash into the surface of the Earth.”

“Can we survive that?”

Rork laughed. He sat down in the captain’s chair, put his elbow on the edge of the control panel and parked his chin on his hand. He was wiped out.
Just a quick nap, then I’ll come up with a plan.
His eyes closed of their own accord.

“What if we asked someone for help?”

Rork grunted.
We don’t deserve help.
“A pair of fugitives. Who is going to help us?”

“Isn’t that a ship down there to the, uh, right? Do they have a docking bay?”

Rork opened his eyes and stood up. “We can’t turn. We can’t turn!” Rork pounded his fist against the metal frame of the control panel and it dented.

“If your neighbor will not come to you, you shall go to your neighbor.” Zero stood up and grinned.

“What’re you prapping on about now?” Rork slouched back into the chair.

“Is this the radio?” Zero touched his cracked control panel and scrolled through the menus. “Aha! Um, hello out there. We have a problem.” He looked up at the ceiling and waited.

Rork waved his hand in dismissal at the naive mystic.

“This is the FTS
Faithful Diplomat
. We receive you. State the nature of your problem.”

Rork stood up. Zero clapped.

“Tell him it’s a distr— Just let me—
Faithful Diplomat
,” Rork barked, “this is the Barbary sled
Fist of Dollars
, we have lost guidance control. Request plot intercept course. We will land in your docking bay. Repeat, guidance control lost.”

“Uh, negative,
Fist of Dollars
, could threaten structural integrity.”

“What if you just nudged us, because we’re losing hull integrity by the second.” Rork fidgeted. He didn’t like relying on others for his solutions, much less strangers, and never strangers who took orders from the Cartel or the government. They had no reason to help him. They had every reason to laugh at Rork as he went down in flames. If Rork was going to die, he would do it with his pride and dignity intact, not begging his enemies for help.

But there were others involved now.

“Negative,
Fist of Dollars
, could threaten the safety of passengers and crew. Recommend contact EDF for assistance. Over and out.”

Bastards
. Rork glared at Zero. “Cartel order-takers with a shipment of sheep for the settlements and colonies. They were never going to help us.”

“It was worth a try. How many people are on that thing?”

“At least ten-thousand.” Rork plopped down once more in the captain’s chair. “Hey, could Anju and Devi be on there?”

Zero raised his eyebrows.

A wall of dull metal interrupted their view of the planet. “ESS
John McCain
here. We will catch you,
Fist of Dollars
. Do not resist.”

The gargantuan deep purple docking bay of the
John McCain
rolled steadily into the viewscreen until it was all Rork could see.

“Strap in.” Rork looked over at Zero and groaned. He lurched up, pushed the emaciated man into the co-pilot’s seat and brought the straps over his shoulders. He tightened them up and snapped them together in a three-way connection with the wide, soft groin protection pad.

Zero looked up at Rork, an awkward expression on his face. “It doesn’t matter what they say. You are a good man. I sense greatness for you, in this life or the next. I can’t tell for sure.”

Rork snorted. “The next, huh?” He returned to the captain’s chair and clicked the straps together. He looked over at Zero.

The ship rumbled. “Hull integrity at ten percent. Ejecting cargo hold to salvage passenger cabin.”

“You’re a fraud,” Rork said. “I think you should know that before you die. You speak in aphorisms and platitudes and it all means nothing until you actually do something with it.”

Zero’s head jerked to the side and his face darkened.

“I haven’t heard you express one honest and true feeling yet. It’s all the Buddha this, this other llamabrax artist that. What about you? What does Zero Malik feel? What does he have to say?”

The roof of the
John McCain
’s dock came at them and Rork dug his fingernails into the bottom of his seat.
Brax. We’re too high.

The bridge roof peeled back like an expired sardine can and the EDF ship’s gravity kicked in. They bounced down, hit the deck and skidded across it, metal shrieking and sparks flying up and over them. The other side of the dock came up fast. The air got wavy and starless vacuum occupied their vision.

“Hahah!” Zero screamed. His eyes wide, his hands held high, he smiled at Rork. “We’re alive!”

Rork popped his restraints, stood up and dusted off the graying space suit. He inclined his head and raised an index finger in salute to Zero. “Good luck. You’ll do better back on Earth. Testify against me. Make a deal and maybe you’ll get a reduced sentence.”

Zero’s face fell.

Rork hauled himself up on the roof through the jagged opening. Blue-suited troops ran towards the remains of the Barbary sled. The cargo hold was AWOL and a long scrape ran the length of the dock from where they initially touched down.

Hand over hand, his legs hanging down into the broken bridge, Rork moved towards the dock wall. He got a leg up, slipped over the far edge of what would shortly become space junk, and fell over the other side. He crouched in the triangular space between the ship and the dock wall. He waited, his back against the ship’s warm hull, for a soldier to come around the corner. Somewhere, a red light cast its angry glow around him.