Rise the Renegade (Rork Sollix Book 1) (3 page)

“There are two other people, including an unrelated child,” Rork said. “Does Barbary kill children? Wouldn’t be good for business.” Behind him, he heard the sounds of Lala panicking.

“No one would ever find out. Any last words?”

She came up behind him. “This is not how it happens!”

Rork cut the transmission. He twisted his head to look back at her. “Tell me what to do!” he whispered through gritted teeth.

“I... I can’t see it.”

He cleared his throat and hit the transmit button. Barbary’s vessel, a commerce class Ferrari zipship, came into view ahead. The bluish-tinted craft was thin up front and wider in back, with a hull that started at a sharp point in the center and curved back towards dual, square fusion engines. A burst of flame appeared from the underside and headed directly at the center of the viewscreen.

Rork swallowed. “I’ve always wanted a Ferrari. I know where your sister is, by the way.”

“No, you don’t. Goodbye.” The connection severed with a hiss.

Rork heard a gentle whoosh behind him. He turned.

Lala stood against the far wall, behind the captain’s chair, a nervous half-smile on her face and Buff clinging to her neck. “I found something.”

Rork jumped out of his chair and bounded up the steps. Three one-piece space suits sat in the cabinet, neatly folded under their respective helmets. He glanced back. He saw the bare outlines of it now. The missile was black — the perfect camouflage for space. It would pierce the hull and explode in their faces. He saw another flame arch away from the hostile ship.

“Get dressed!” he yelled.

“Baby.”

Rork scrunched his nose at her.

She flashed him an angry frown.
 

“Get dressed, baby!” He rolled his eyes.

“But then what?” She searched his face, her eyes dark.

He pulled a suit out and pushed it at her. He pulled another one out and stepped into its legs, one by one. He started to zip it up diagonally across his chest.

Lala pulled Buff off her neck. The little imp stretched its arms towards her and she tossed it down the neck of Rork’s suit just as he finished zipping.

“Hey!” He jerked his torso forward. “It’s climbing up my back!” He pulled a fishbowl-style helmet out of the closet, popped it on his head and clicked it onto the suit neck.

The first missile flew past the viewscreen to the left. The station rumbled again and Rork’s ears ached.

He walked back down to the control console. “It’s not too late to fix this, Barbary!”

Lala pulled the suit over her shoulders. Rork ran back, zipped it up and jammed the helmet onto her.

“Oh, it definitely is,” Barbary, Jr. replied. “Goodbye, Rork Sollix.”

The second missile burned past the viewscreen and hit the next room over. The sound of the explosion didn’t reach Rork’s ears. The wall in front of him vaporized. He grabbed for Lala and missed.
 

Rork floated in space, the Barbary ship growing larger in front of him. Lala was nowhere to be found.

“C
AN
YOU
hear me?” Lala’s voice came to Rork through his suit radio. Buff dug his claws into Rork’s shoulder and geeped.

Rork tumbled away from the mining station sideways. He craned his neck to see the remains of the station. A cloud of gas and debris followed him but past it he glimpsed a white platter on an oddly shaped rock. The universe rolled away and Barbary’s blue zipship was upside down above his head. His stomach lurched and he closed his eyes.

“Rork, where are you!”

The panic in her voice broke him. He was the one with terminal anorxoma. Not her. She had to survive. She was too beautiful not to. He recalled her face to memory. The delicate curve of blue hair, her soft face and those sharp eyes that demanded respect. She hid the vulnerability behind them. But he saw it. She had to make it.

“What do you see?” He craned his neck in every direction. “Do you see me?”

“It’s just, uh, no! Everything is spinning!”

“Check your left wrist. How much air do you have?”

“I can’t...” She trailed off and the radio crackled. “...not there... Which—”

“Lala! Lala!” he yelled into the darkness.

“Well, it seems one little rat isn’t dead yet,” Barbary, Jr. said.

Who designs a suit that broadcasts unencrypted by default?
“I’ll find you. Just hold on.” Rork located the enemy ship in his field of vision. He brought his left wrist up and searched the rectangular control panel for booster controls. Air temperature, oxygen concentration, helmet dimmer, floodlight. Everything but boosters.

“Ooh, she sounds cute. Maybe I’ll find her. I could always use another consort, maybe even a seventh wife, since the last one got away. Just how hot is she?”

Rork wanted to lash out but he had to stop this damned spinning. He stretched out his arms and legs and twisted his torso. He slowed a little, but not enough. He spotted another flame exiting Barbary’s ship. It zipped past him at just a couple tens of meters. He was close.

“Damnit, don’t we have smaller arms on this thing? How fast is he going? Can we just ram him?” Barbary, Jr. growled over the radio.

The missile impacted the asteroid face below the station. A few chips floated off.

Rork knew what to do now. He patted his waist. There it was! All technical types carried toolboxes. He pulled the smallest screwdriver from the box on his hip and examined it. It was a tiny blade, shorter than his pinky finger with a tip narrower than Buff’s claws.

Rork jammed the tool into his leading shoulder. A burst of air puffed out and his lateral motion slowed. He felt a twinge and a few drops of crimson blood bounced around in front of him. He found a small clamp and jammed it over the hole.

Buff dug his claws deeper into the other shoulder.

“Sorry, guy. Hold on tight.”

Barbary’s ship loomed massive to his right now. Its pointed bow arced towards him. Rork was still moving, how fast he couldn’t tell, but now his head-over-feet roll was slower.

“It’s so cold,” Lala whispered.

“Hold on,” Rork tightened and struggled for breath. But he focused on the approaching ship. He readied the screwdriver. The ship filled his visual field now. It was a hundred meters away, its sharp prow aimed directly at Rork’s head.
 

He jammed the screwdriver into the side of his left thigh and air burst out into the vacuum. He partially obstructed the gas’ exit with his hand and his legs swung up. The surprisingly pointy prow passed to his left and he grabbed at the smooth hull as it sailed beneath him.

“Rork, where are you?” Her voice was weak and far away now.

Rork grabbed his thigh with his left hand to staunch the flow of oxygen. His right found a grip on Barbary’s hull but the velocity differential was too great and he lost his grip.

He was moving more quickly now relative to the ship. He found a long horizontal bar. He grabbed it with both hands. This time he stuck, despite the ache in his shoulders and ribs. His lower back stretched and cracked from the sudden acceleration. He frowned in approval.

“Don’t worry, Buff, we’re going to make it.” He leaned his neck to one side and rubbed against the little beast.

“Where’d you get to? We were just coming to pick you up.” Barbary, Jr.’s voice scraped at Rork’s eardrums.

Ahead of Rork, a long window ran the width of the ship. He couldn’t advance. They would see him. Without letting go of the ship, he looked back. There was a round hatch behind him. He let go and floated slowly back to the airlock. He caught the tips of his fingers on the shallow edge where the hatch door met the hull.

“Rooorrk? I have your girl. I love her already. Mmm, soft and silky. Love the blue! But I’m thinking a nice crimson would work better.
 
I can’t wait to sample the goods. I owe you, man.” Barbary, Jr. let out a satisfied sigh. “Well, you’re either dead or you’ll be out of oxygen soon. Nowhere to go, really, is there? So Lala and I are zolting out of here. I know you wish us the best.” He cackled.

“Touch her and I’ll kill you.”
Or is he bluffing? I really should keep my mouth shut.

Rork pulled on the manual airlock release. It wouldn’t budge. If he didn’t get inside now, his arms would rip out of their sockets when the ship accelerated.

He forced his lower body down, his abdominal muscles straining. He secured his left foot on a small ridge and pulled again, with both hands, on the lever. It scraped against the hatch. He tried to draw breath and it didn’t come.

“So you are still with us, after all. Well, not much longer.”
 

The ship rumbled. Rork sensed light and heat from behind him despite the growing blackness at the margin of his vision. It was now or never, whether it made noise or not. He jammed the lever down, the recessed door slid away and he pulled himself in head first.

The ship’s artificial gravity drew him down. He fell on his head in the narrow airlock. The hatch closed automatically and his face slammed into the back wall as the ship accelerated.

He picked himself up from the floor of the small compartment. He hit a green button and air poured into the space. The light above the button turned from red to green. He snapped off his helmet and took a deep breath.

Footsteps sounded outside. His lungs burned and his lower back screamed but he maneuvered himself into a crouch, one foot in front of the other. He pulled the screwdriver from his belt and held it above his head. A bead of sweat arced across his forehead and dropped down through his heavy, black eyebrows into his eye.

The door slid aside. A wiry man in a skintight, black suit looked up at Rork’s face, his eyes wide. In his hand, a pulse pistol pointed at Rork’s gut.

Rork brought the screwdriver down into the Barbary man’s jugular. With the other hand, he pushed the pistol high and twisted the man’s forearm away from his body. The thin man fell to his knees and Rork grabbed the pistol.

“Rork?” Lala’s voice sounded over the ship’s intercom. “He says he’s going to kill me unless you drop the pistol and surrender now.”

He peeked into the corridor. It was clear both ways. He searched the wall across from him for the camera and stepped out. He advanced towards the bridge, staying close to the corridor wall.

“Don’t you dare listen to this smug meerflarker,” she added. A dull concussion, followed by a groan, came over the speaker.

Rork smirked.
That’s my girl.
He popped an eye around the corner of the curving passageway. Empty.

He proceeded down the corridor and pressed his back against the wall next to the door. He heard a slap, then the sharp pop of a weapon discharge. His pulse jumped.

Rork hit the open button and rolled through the doorway, staying low. He found one target and burned a hole in his head. He pivoted.

“Kill him!” The surprisingly heavyset young Barbary grabbed at his side.

Lala ran and threw herself at her kidnapper, a savage scream escaping her lips.

The third man faced Rork, his pistol pointed at Rork’s head and fired. The beam glanced past Rork’s left cheek and he smelled the sick odor of burnt hair. Rork returned fire and burned a hole through the man’s eye socket.

Lala sat on Barbary’s chest, flailing her fists into the heir’s flabby face. She stopped and put her face an inch from his. “You don’t mess with us!”

It was a small bridge, a little wider than the mining station’s command center, but also with three seats and a smooth, black control console. Here everything was sharper and cleaner. And the deep vroom of the engine excited him.

Through the viewscreen, Rork noted the wrecked mining station.
She could have died there.
He rebuked himself.

He walked towards the closest chair. “Is there anybody else?”

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Baby?” She was sucking him in and there was nothing he could do about it. It was predestined. She’d loved him even when he couldn’t love himself. She was the only good thing left in his life.

“Just the four.” She looked over at him, her face tired. She blew a lock of cyan hair out of her eyes and smiled up at him.

“Don’t let him up yet, baby.”

The viewscreen shimmered. A double-chinned man with a full head of gray hair and a neon orange handlebar mustache looked down at Rork.

“I have video proof this time. I’m swearing out a Cartel warrant for piracy and murder,” Old Man Barbary said. “Kidnapping, too. They’ll vaporize you for this, Rork. Or—”

Rork ended the transmission. “Let’s get him up. He’s going to float.”

“W
HERE
ARE
we going?” Lala slumped down in the captain’s chair on the bridge of Barbary, Jr’s cruiser, the
Blockchain
and petted the sleeping Buff.

Rork finished typing some commands into the
Blockchain
’s computer and hit return to execute them.

The ship rumbled beneath them. The dark, jagged-walled mining station moved away to the left as the ship performed a graceful one-eighty.

“Does he have enough air?”

“If daddy rescues him in the next couple hours. I strapped on the reserve tank.” He scrolled through the list of known destinations in the Solar System and selected Earth, the Asian continent. The computer began its calculations.

“We’ll be there in just a few minutes,” Rork said.

She growled at him.

He suppressed a smile but said nothing. She was so cute but this was a moment for strength and discipline.

“Hey!”

He swiveled his chair around but looked away from her.

“How do I know you really love me if you won’t call me ‘baby?’”

He opened his mouth to say he didn’t know what but closed it again. The emotion was too much. His throat locked up. If he spoke now, his voice would crack. He loved her. He’d loved her since that first moment when he found her in the cage. But he couldn’t have her. Even if he overlooked the impropriety of marrying a former bound servant, he was dying. He had to get her to safety before that happened.

Before his enemies caught up with them, and made her pay for his actions.