Rise the Renegade (Rork Sollix Book 1) (27 page)

Rork leaned in. “But the body is worth something, isn’t it?”
Even if every inch of it is bleeding and hurts like hell.

Zero met Rork’s eyes.

“What’s the body worth to you? We’re about to find out and I want you ready.”

“Rork!” It was Mankin.

Jupiter’s tan bands and burnt orange swirls passed smoothly out of view. Callisto’s starfield-like surface came and went. Europa’s scratched ice backgrounded a field of shimmering shards.

Rork looked at Eldridge and Eldridge shot a tense glance back at him.

“So much for those negotiations,” Rork said.

“Reverse course!” Eldridge yelled.

“We’re going too fast,” the old man said, and shrugged.

“What is all that?” Mary Ellen asked.

“Change course, Dad!” Rork yelled.

“To what?”

Flashes pulsed and Rork picked out the Cylinder from the field of EDF wreckage. The Cylinder hung in front of Europa, cross-wise in the viewscreen like half of an X. The EDF ships were debris now.

“Anywhere!”

The flashes passed out of view to starboard.

“Give me control!” Eldridge yelled.

The captain’s face radiated commitment. Rork nodded and stepped away. Red lights flashed and an alarm sounded.

“Battlestations. Red alert. This is Captain Eldridge.”

The dozen men and women at the back of the room ran to their posts and the room came alive with chatter. Rork’s dad was pushed from his station.

“Mr. Farnsworth, I want us above the plane on a curve that takes us within ten thousand meters of the target and accelerates us into Jupiter orbit.” Eldridge looked at Rork. He tapped a button on the arm of his chair. “Ready a fighter for immediate launch. Priority one.”

Another burst of laser fire emerged from the Cylinder, a dozen shots if not more.

“Evasive maneuvers!” Eldridge yelled.

The Cylinder moved until it was vertical at the far starboard side of the viewscreen. Pulses passed them above, below and on both sides. Two came practically at once and the ship shuddered.
 

Bastard.
“I’m taking back—” Rork started.

Eldridge stood up. “You need to get to the flight deck. There’s an E56 fighter ready for you there.”

“Coward.”

“I won’t turn my crew into space dust. Would you? Smarten up, man. A smaller ship has a better chance. Can you fly it?” Eldridge asked.

Rork nodded.

“We’ll be back with more forces. This won’t stand. But I can’t promise you any mercy, either.”

“Captain,” Farnsworth said, “your launch window is coming up in forty-five seconds.”

“Mankin, Jord, Zero, Mary Ellen, on me, now!” Rork yelled. He ran to the elevator, stepped in and looked for the flight deck button.

“Rork!” Jord yelled, still on the bridge. “You need to see this!”

“Come on!”

“Just look, brother, before we all risk our necks for nothing,” Jord said.

Rork stepped out of the elevator. Zero stood next to him, looking at the floor. Mary Ellen put her hand over her mouth.

The viewscreen zoomed in on the Cylinder. Its smooth hull was burnt black in sections. Ragged holes interrupted an otherwise perfect curvature. Debris swirled under the command of lost atmosphere.

Jord met his brother’s eyes. “I’m sorry but your girl — Lala? She’s dead.”

“W
HAT
IF
she’s dead? What if we’re risking our lives for nothing?”

“Shut up, Mary Ellen!” Rork wanted to punch something. He wanted to put his fist through a wall or hurt someone. But he sat in the cramped pilot’s seat of the E56 fighter, monitoring its course toward the Barbary Cylinder. The black vacuum of space hung less than a meter from his face.

Sitting next to his brother, Jord scanned for an opening in the superstructure. Control panels with buttons, switches and viewscreens encircled the brothers on three sides.

Behind them, Mary Ellen stood hunched over against the back wall between Mankin and the old man. Zero sat cross-legged in front of them.

“I am worried about little Sarita,” Zero said.

“Sarita?” Rork asked.

“The little girl! The one that has accompanied—”

“Right. Isn’t worrying the root of all evil or something?” He turned to Jord. “Landing bay?”

“Still searching. Might be obscured with a door.” Jord turned away from the control panels and put his mouth to Rork’s ear. “I have a son.”

“That’s great, brother. I—”

“When I die—”

“We’re not going to die.”

“—you have to take care of him. He’s with the Arai family on Earth in Akihabara, in Tokyo. Dad has their number.”

“It’s just the EDF might not give her back—” Zero started.

Rork looked at his brother. “We will make it through this.”

“Promise me you will take him as your own son.” Jord grabbed his brother’s arm and squeezed.

“Are we sure this is the right place?” Rork angled his head back at Mary Ellen.

“For the thirty-ninth time, yes! Wow!” She ran her hands through her hair and picked at her fingernails.

“You seem overly nervous,” Rork said.

Zero sighed and closed his eyes.

“Obvious reasons! What exactly do we hope to achieve here anyway? The EDF blew it to pieces, and a good thing, too.”

“You don’t think he has contingency plans for that? That he’s not evacuating? Didn’t you say his family is everything to him?”

“I’ve scanned the whole thing,” Jord said. “No landing bay. Or, it’s locked, the gate down. Brother, please. His name is Band. Band Sollix.”

Rork arched an eyebrow at his brother. “I promise.” He pushed the stick and brought them in closer. The carbon-scored holes were too small. The ship wouldn’t fit. He angled the E56 to get a closer look inside one and noticed a shimmery gloss, as if he were looking through a watery lens.

Rork’s eyes went wide and his heart rushed. “Of course! The atmosphere is intact inside. He’s got a magnetic barrier. She could still be alive!” He looked back at Mary Ellen and smiled but his face fell. She wore a sick expression, her eyes averted.

Something hard pressed into the back of Rork’s skull, just above his neck. He started to turn.

“Be still.”

Rork turned. Mankin held a silver EDF-issue pulse pistol just out of Rork’s reach.

“I saved you.”

Mankin chuckled. “Barbary thinks of everything. That’s why he’s Barbary. That’s why he just defeated an elite EDF battle group. Why fight ‘em when you can join ‘em? Pay’s better. So is the life expectancy.”

“But I got you off that rock, where Barbary put you. I would never—”

“Save it. One of my first rewards when I deliver your hide is some time with Lala.”

“Dad, no! Tell me you’re not a part of this,” Jord yelled from the co-pilot’s seat.

Are there so few hot girls in this system that everybody has to be after mine? Jupiter!
Rork stirred and Mankin pushed the gun harder against his head. Rork calculated his odds and the possible moves he could use to disarm Mankin but they all ended with a hole in his head, or maybe someone else’s.

“I didn’t know,” Jord whispered.

“Don’t let ‘em touch anything. I’ll pilot us in from the third chair.” The navigator’s chair squeaked as Band’s heft found a comfortable spot. The engines kicked in once more and the Cylinder passed under them.

“Dad, what the hell!” Jord screamed. “We agreed. We talked about this!”

“No one will say anything if you’re ready to smarten up,” the old man said to Jord.

“Forget it, Dad! I thought—”

“You thought wrong.”

“Try anything — anyone — and you’re dead,” Mankin said. “That includes you, Mary Ellen, and of course, your mystic.” He chuckled.

“We are on the right path now,” Zero said. “You are doing well, my friend.”

Rork turned to meet Zero’s eyes. “Flark you. Do something for once!”

“Shut up!” Mankin said.

Rork turned to Jord, his face questioning. “Still happy about your choice of names?”

Jord swallowed, his eyes red and puffy. He looked out the viewscreen. “When Barbary took us, he made us do things. To mom. And others. In order to survive.” He squinted, his forehead wrinkled.

“Like what?”

Jord shook his head. He swallowed hard, his throat jumping. “I think it broke Dad. He can’t live in the universe the way it was before that day, before Barbary took us. Everything is flipped for him now. It’s the only way—”

“Silence!” the old man boomed.

Jord lowered his voice. “It’s the only way he could make sense of it.”

Weak old man.
Rork wanted to get up and beat him until he un-broke. But the truth dawned on him in a pulse.
I have to kill my father. That or I forget Lala.
He tried to steel himself for the possibility but wasn’t sure if he’d found the resolve to do it or not. They’d just started to reconcile. He wanted more time with the Dad he remembered, the one who raised him, played ball with him and taught him to trade.

“I thought he was back, or on his way back,” Jord whispered.

“But Mary Ellen knew, didn’t you?” Rork glanced back in her direction and felt the pistol pressed against his scalp again.

She sobbed. “He said he’d kill me.”

Rork rolled his eyes. “I thought you preferred that.”

“SS
Matata
calling EDF fighter. Is that you, my handsome Rork?” Rork struggled to place the voice and he angled his head back at Mankin for permission.

“Ignore it,” the old man said.

Rork’s communications screen flashed white. The glowing image of Sophia Patel appeared on screen. She was thinner, her hair tied back in a bun now. Rork struggled to catch a glimpse of anything beneath her higher neckline.

Mankin reached over Rork’s shoulder to shut it off. Rork blocked him. Mankin dug the pistol into Rork’s neck next to his jugular.

“What’s the goddamned harm in it? You have me.”

Mankin relented.

“Citizens of Earth, I am Sophia Patel, your newly elected Speaker. As chief executive of Earth Government and Commander-in-Chief of Earth Defense Forces, I am in Jupiter orbit today, leading the largest battle group ever seen.”

Rork and Jord exchanged surprised glances. They grinned at each other.

“We are here to end the bloody private war between The Cartel—”

The deep-throated yells of thousands interrupted the Speaker. The camera flashed to an assembled mass of protestors, blue skies behind them.

“—and your beloved renegade, Rork Sollix, protector of children, fair trader to all and good, handsome man.”

An equally powerful cheer drowned out the Speaker as the camera flitted across the globe: brown people, white people, Africans and more.

A chill zipped up Rork’s spine. He sat taller in the pilot’s chair. Energy rose through his gut and peaked behind his eyes. His aches and pains eased.

“How did you do that?” Jord asked, admiration in his voice.

Rork shrugged. “I actually took her hostage. Zero and I.”

“They like you down there.”

“I guess so.”

“Fools.” Jord chuckled.

The Cylinder fell away beneath them. The fighter turned and Barbary’s home came into focus again. A tall, wide panel popped out from the Cylinder wall and retracted upwards. Glowing light erupted from inside it. Ships sat in straight rows in the gargantuan interior.

Jord whistled. “How many ships does he have?”

The
Matata
— an oblong cruiser flattened in the front — zoomed between the fighter and the Cylinder’s landing bay. “Calling the EDF fighter approaching the Cylinder. This is Speaker Patel. Is that you, Rork? Are you alright? Earth supports you and we are here to help you.”

“Stupid lady’s going to get herself killed!” The old man laughed.

Rork’s thoughts echoed the sentiment but he held his tongue. “Is Barbary ready for a war? Best be careful.”

“Shut up. We’re already at war.”

The
Matata
maneuvered closer to the fighter. “We will continue to block your path, Earth fighter, until all of us on Earth are convinced that Rork Sollix is safe and free. As your Commander-in-Chief, I order you to stop.”

“Readying weapons,” the old man said. “Accelerating.”

“Better check with your boss first!” Rork yelled. The added g-force pushed him deeper into his seat and he sensed Mankin losing his balance.

“Shut him up, Mankin!”

Mankin struck Rork across the back of the head. The pain pushed any other thoughts out of his mind. Dials clicked, buttons snapped and the fighter pitched. A pulse of plasma shot out towards the
Matata
.

Rork reached back, grabbed Mankin’s pulse pistol in both hands and twisted his body out of the path of its brutal beam. Mankin fired and a hole opened in the fighter’s hull.

Air screamed past Rork. He grabbed tight onto the edge of the pilot’s chair and his legs flew up towards the expanding hole.

Jord grabbed at Rork’s ankles, then disappeared with a liquid slush as everything turned red.

Mankin went next.

Rork breathed but little came. He looked back. The
Matata
filled the viewport now. The fighter crashed into it and both ships fell into the landing bay of the Barbary Cylinder.

“W
E
HAVE
to get out of here!” Zero yelled.

Laser shots sparked on the deck around them. The E56 fighter was salvage now. Only a thin sliver of millimeter-thick, carbon-scored hull protected them from the laser barrage.

“How many men does he have?” Rork asked.

“Zero,” Zero said. “They’re all machines — automated.”

Rork pushed himself out of cover and eyed the landing bay roof. A row of tiny, unmanned sentry guns ran down the center of the landing bay. They paused, adjusted and Rork pushed himself back under cover.

An explosion of concentrated fire hit the deck next to him. Reality slowed and muted but a dim urgency remained.

Zero crouched over him again and sound returned to Rork’s universe. “There’s a door about a hundred meters behind me, if you think we can make it.”

Rork eyed the door. Between it and his location, the
Matata
sat, smoking. He looked back at the sentries. They’d shoot over the fighter wreckage. He’d be dead before he got ten meters.