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  Thresh was standing there, wearing her sweatpants and tight tank top. She held two pairs of sparring gloves in one hand, dangling by their laces, battered and brown like the rest of the Odium Fist. A pair of mouthguards were in her other hand.

  “What are you doing down there?” Thresh said, looking down at Boyd on the floor.

  “Pushups,” Boyd said, climbing to his feet.

  “Care for something a bit more exhilarating?” She tossed a pair of gloves at Boyd, followed by a mouthguard.

  “I haven’t boxed since school,” Boyd said.

  “Then I’ll go easy and try not to whoop your poor hide. There’s space in the cargo hold. Move, Pilot.”

  Boyd looked at the gloves and then at Thresh. She had a twinkle in her eye and a wicked smile tugging the corner of her mouth.

  “If nothing else, it’ll help keep us warm,” Boyd said.

  “Not if you bleed out,” Thresh replied. She turned on her heel and walked away.

  Following Thresh, Boyd pulled on the gloves. They were almost as cold as the ship. In fact, the ship was starting to freeze, and he could start to see his breath in the air in front of him. He stepped into the cargo hold, and things started to heat up.

  Thresh turned to face Boyd. She had her fists up, one taking guard and the other ready to punch. She moved lightly on the balls of her feet, back and forth, light and agile as a panther.

  Boyd bashed his fists together and bit down on the mouthguard. He grinned at Thresh.

  She came at him, moving to his left, looking to get inside his guard. She jabbed with her right.

  Boyd dodged the exploratory jab easily. After all these years, the muscle memory was rusty, but the balance never left him.

  Thresh came in fast and jabbed with her right, catching Boyd on the chin, and then she swung a wild left.

  Boyd protected his head against the swinging left by bringing his guard fist closer to his head. He moved forward, sending Thresh on the retreat.

  “When did you join the crew?” Thresh asked, bobbing and weaving.

  “I’m still new,” Boyd said.

  “No one likes you,” Thresh said with a grin, then she stepped forward and jabbed with her right.

  Boyd dodged the blow and replied with a right jab of his own. He caught Thresh flat on the nose, knocking her back. She kept her balance and punched herself in the head with a right glove to clear the ringing in her ears.

  “I’m going easy,” Boyd said.

  “I haven’t even started,” Thresh replied. She moved in close and delivered a combo of blows, a double right jab and a left uppercut.

  Boyd dodged both jabs, but the upper cut caught him a glancing blow on his chin. The punch took him by surprise, and it was powerful. It sent him back on his heels.

  Thresh followed up with the right jab and a swinging left. The left hook caught Boyd on the jaw.

  Boyd repositioned the mouthguard, which was rattling loose in his mouth. He tasted the blood and moved in, delivering a firm jab directly at Thresh’s face.

  She moved back, just out of range.

  “What makes you think people don’t like me?” Boyd asked, dancing on the balls of his feet.

  “I can read people,” she said. She moved in and delivered an exploratory jab before maneuvering to Boyd’s left. She kept Boyd at arm’s length with a series of right jabs, keeping her left up as a guard. “And I can read you too, and I can tell you don’t belong.”

  Thresh jabbed with the left and caught Boyd on the chin. Boyd took the blow and stumbled back. His arms flailed as he tried to keep his balance.

  Thresh came in, gloves up.

  Boyd regained his balance and moved in to counter Thresh’s attack.

  Boyd threw a flurry of blows and landed one heavy punch into Thresh’s ribcage. He felt the punches coming in reply, landing heavily on his gut and head.

  The pair danced and punched and knocked snot and blood out of each other for a wild minute. Panting and spitting, Boyd locked his gaze onto Thresh’s eyes. The dark, sparkling eyes were wide and clear, and she gave away her intentions with a little flicker of a glance here or there before she attacked.

  Boyd read her easily and avoided her next spate of attacks. She came in hard, raining blows on Boyd’s gloves as he held them up, covering the sides of his head.

  A body blow from Thresh’s left winded Boyd. He doubled over and moved in close to avoid another blow. He grappled with Thresh, his arms wrapped around her upper arms.

  Boyd felt the cold, damp air in his lungs as he breathed heavily from the exertion. Sweat dripping off his face mixed with blood splattered onto the sweat sheen on Thresh’s shoulder.

  He felt her hair against his cheek and neck, her warm breath panting onto his shoulder.

  “What makes you think anyone likes you?” Boyd said.

  “What makes you think I care?”

  Boyd pushed Thresh away and retook his position. Light on his feet, gloves raised. Thresh wiped sweat and blood off her nose with her glove. She grinned at Boyd and danced lightly on her feet, inviting him to advance.

  Boyd grinned. He always enjoyed a good sparring match, and Thresh was an excellent opponent. She was fast, accurate, well-schooled, and powerful for someone her size.

  Boyd moved in a step. Thresh advanced, her right raised with her left taking guard.

  And then the ship’s alarm sounded. A long, low warbling tone before Captain Poledri spoke.

  “Stations, everyone. We have a ship heading this way.”

  Boyd held his guard for a moment and then relaxed. Thresh dropped her guard and began pulling off her gloves. She spat her mouthguard into the glove and then pulled off the second.

  “You better get cleaned up before you get to the flight deck. You look like crap.”

  Boyd wanted to tell her that she should get cleaned up too, but she looked amazing. There was nothing about her that he didn’t like. She was bold, she was brave, and she was confident. She was the only person he had met since leaving his old squad with the Blue Star Marines that he had felt any real connection with.

  “I don’t think the captain cares how we are dressed, or how much blood we’ve knocked out of each other, as long as we get there.”

  Poledri’s voice came over the ship’s communicator again.

  “Boyd. Thresh. Get your kravin’ lazy asses onto my flight deck now.”

  Boyd started running, grinning. Thresh was on his heels. A race to the flight deck, not to please Poledri but simply not to be outdone by the other.

  Boyd was fast, but Thresh was alongside him as they approached the entrance.

  11

  Boyd stepped onto the flight deck with a towel over his shoulder, still stained with sweat and blood from his sparring match. He looked at the holo-stage and the image of the approaching craft.

  Because the ship was on low power, the resolution was limited. Only the drive signature could be detected, but there was no reason to believe it wasn’t a Union ship.

  Boyd dropped into the pilot seat and checked the drive systems. Everything was cold. The reactor was standing by on minimal power, and it would take several minutes to bring the ship up to full power. He could take off from the asteroid before full power, but speed and maneuverability would be terrible and hardly any better than sitting on the asteroid.

  But it might be the only chance they would have to escape, and Boyd was ready to use anything he could no matter how small.

  Thresh stepped up to the weapons console. She looked as fresh as a daisy, although her tank top was stained with blood. No one could have guessed she had been sparring only a few short moments ago.

  “Boyd, you look like crap,” Poledri said. “Thresh, bring the power systems up to ten percent. That should still keep us hidden, but it might give a chance of escape.”

  The approaching ship resolved on the holo-stage as the power came up to ten percent, surveillance scanners gathering more data and input for the system.

  It was a Union
cruiser. Heading directly toward the Odium Fist on its asteroid.

  But then the alien craft, the Skarak ship that had been searching unsuccessfully for the Fist, swept back toward oncoming Union vessel.

  Boyd watched nervously as the two ships closed in on each other.

  The Skarak vessel was the first to give fire. It opened with its primary weapon, the flickering blue beam crackling across space and connecting with the Union ship. The energy rippled over the ship and appeared to concentrate on the drive section. The drive assembly flickered and spluttered, cutting out momentarily before flaring back to full power, flinging the cruiser toward the Skarak ship.

  The Skarak banked away just as the Union cruiser opened with its flanking spitz guns. The stream of heavy pulse rounds raced away from the cruiser and slammed into the Skarak. The rounds inflicted heavy damage, punching out huge sections of Skarak hull.

  The Skarak ship turned and fell back into the sphere, the long single tip on the rear of the ship generating a fine blue beam that lit up the asteroids. It sliced back and forth, slicing through asteroids with ease before finally connecting with the Union vessel.

  The cruiser took heavy damage, the port side losing a bulkhead as it was sliced away by the fine blue beam.

  Then the Skarak ship turned end over end and deployed its primary weapon.

  The rapiers at the front crackled with blue energy, and then a bolt leapt away from within its long tines and collided head on with the cruiser. The blue energy bolt tumbled over the cruiser’s deflector shielding, but fingers of white energy reached through the shielding as the blue bolt lazily tumbled aside, deflected by the shields. The fine fingers of white energy caused a dozen small explosions as hull composite was vaporized in small areas.

  The cruiser turned to pursue the Skarak ship and brought its high-energy laser to the fight. The laser lanced into space, the flickering beam coming alive for a fraction of a second and slamming into the Skarak ship, causing multiple detonations within the rapier structures at the front of the ship.

  The Skarak turned again and headed deeper into the mass of asteroids, passing directly over the Odium Fist.

  Poledri was leaning forward in his command chair, watching the battle anxiously.

  Boyd was watching the power rating on his pilot console. He looked over at Thresh and she was looking at him. She had a suspicious look in her wide, dark eyes.

  With the battling ships so close overhead, they revealed themselves perfectly clearly on the holo-stage. Only the flickering of the poorly-maintained unit spoiled the view.

  The Union cruiser delivered another succession of blasts from its laser emitters at the retreating Skarak ship. One beam connected with the rear end of the fleeing vessel and sliced right through, erupting from the forward section. Another sliced through on a slightly different angle, and then another.

  As the Skarak ship raced away, it began to disintegrate. It tumbled as it fell apart, its insides spewing out across the surrounding asteroids of the sphere.

  A proximity alarm sounded on the flight deck.

  Noland called out anxiously, “Debris. We’ve got debris from the Skarak ship falling in on our position. We need to activate the shields.”

  Thresh was moving to the engineering console behind the weapons console. She called over her shoulder to Poledri.

  “Shields are a few minutes away. If that debris is on a collision course, we will have to relocate. Drive systems are at minimal power. We have just enough to get off the asteroid and avoid the incoming debris.”

  “That Union cruiser will spot us the moment we move,” Boyd said as he prepared the ship for takeoff.

  “She’ll see us if a chunk of that Skarak ship crashes into us. But it won’t matter much because we will be floating in the vacuum of space choking on our own tongues. Get ready to take off and bring all weapons online.”

  The falling debris from the broken ship tumbled toward the asteroid. It was definitely going to impact the hull of the Fist in a matter of seconds. The Union cruiser was moving toward the destroyed Skarak ship and was collecting samples of debris, drawing them into its hold. A small surveillance vessel had been launched and was also scouring the debris.

  “They are looking for something,” Poledri said. “What are they looking for?”

  “They are trying to find out more about them. Know your enemy, isn’t that the old saying?” Boyd said.

  “Let’s hope they spend more time trying to get to know the new enemy than looking for us, and we can get clean away. How soon are we from takeoff?”

  “I want to leave it to the last moment, Captain,” Boyd said. “That fragment of Skarak ship will hit us in a few seconds. Just waiting for the power to come up. Launching now.”

  Boyd hit the thrusters to push the Odium Fist off the surface of the asteroid, throwing up billowing clouds of dust as maximum thrust blasted them away. Only a meter above the surface, Boyd kicked in the drive. Although it was only at fifty percent power, the Fist leapt away, skirting across a kilometer of the asteroid’s surface in moments.

  He turned the Fist away from the Union vessel and deeper into the sphere, hoping the asteroid density would hide them.

  “Do you think they saw us?” Poledri asked, leaning forward.

  Boyd was just about to say he thought they were clear when the Union cruiser turned on a dime and began pursuit of the Fist.

  “We have a message being sent directly to our communication circuits,” Poledri said. “It’s the Union cruiser.”

  A voice crackled out from the speaker systems around the flight deck.

  “Pirate vessel. This is Union cruiser Truth. Cut all power and come to a complete halt. Surrender now.”

  A high-energy laser beam lanced across the front of the Fist, a few meters ahead of her forward section. The proximity of the shot sent alarms wailing across the flight deck.

  “You are under arrest by the Union. There will be no further warnings.”

  “Can you outrun them?” Poledri said.

  “I can use the asteroid field to evade them. I’ll hold them off for as long as I can.” Boyd maneuvered the Fist around a nearby asteroid, skirting close to the icy surface.

  “Can we outgun them?” Poledri looked at Thresh.

  “The short answer is no,” she replied. She was working furiously, dashing between the engineering console and the weapons console. “But we can try.”

  “Prepare rear hail cannon,” Poledri said, growling like a beast.

  Spitz gun fire raked the Odium Fist from aft to stern. The lights cut out and flickered across the flight deck, and the image on the holo-stage disappeared for a moment and came back flickering and even less clear than it had been before.

  “Avoid that incoming fire,” Poledri said. “And get us out of here.”

  Boyd worked fast, moving the Fist in and out of the asteroids at the best available speed. With the reactor still only up to seventy-five percent, the Fist felt sluggish.

  “I can only avoid their fire for so long,” Boyd said. “Unless we get the reactor up to full power, we are not getting out of here.”

  “Not without a fight,” Thresh said.

  “How can we take on a Union cruiser?” Poledri asked, turning to Thresh.

  Boyd looked at the Union ship. He could see she was damaged heavily on one side from the fight with the Skarak. The drive was sputtering and appeared to be operating below peak efficiency. Boyd checked the scans and could see she was losing drive for a fraction of a second every few seconds. But she was still more than a match for the Fist in terms of speed and maneuverability, which was not operating at her very best either. It would take a great crew to make the most out of that ship in the current state.

  And if there was one thing Boyd knew about Union Fleet crews, they were used to working with the best equipment. The slightest hiccup and they would lose efficiency fast.

  “We can get on her port side,” Boyd said. “She is struggling to turn to port. We can get inside
the curve, maybe buy ourselves a bit more time and get away.”

  Thresh punched her console. “Yes,” Thresh said, turning to Poledri. “Get us on the port side, inside their turning curve, and I can put a blast of kinetic hail into that wrecked bulkhead right there, just behind the secondary reactor couple.”

  Boyd looked up at Thresh. “You know your Union ship geometry,” he said accusingly.

  “Know your enemy.” Thresh grinned at Boyd. “Now, put me on her port side.”

  Boyd checked the course and speed of the Union ship closing in on the Fist’s rear. Any second now, if the Fist refused to stop, the Union ship would engage her, and with its overwhelmingly superior firepower would most likely destroy the Fist in a single barrage.

  He needed to move fast.

  Throwing the Fist into an extreme right turn, Boyd watched as the Union cruiser matched her easily.

  “Incoming spitz guns fire,” Thresh called out, her voice calm and strong.

  “All shield power to rear deflector,” Poledri said, tapping away on his armrest control panel.

  Boyd waited a fraction longer before flinging the Fist into a left turn, turning to port. He watched the Union cruiser match the maneuver, but the huge Union warship was slow, and the Fist was turning quicker.

  The Union cruiser stopped turning and rotated on the spot, directing its spitz guns toward the rear of the Fist as she maneuvered away. But Boyd was not planning on escape. That would be impossible. The best he could do was achieve a superior firing position. The only way out of this situation was to fight.

  Turning even tighter, the consoles on the flight deck started shaking violently, threatening to tear themselves away from the deck plating. The holo-stage projection plate rattled in its housing, causing the image of the Truth to flicker even more violently than before.

  “Hold her steady,” Thresh called out. “Give me a chance to acquire my target.” She activated the targeting sensors and synchronized them with the hail cannons, all batteries turning toward the cruiser.

  “Increase hull stability,” Boyd said, his voice juddering as he bounced in his seat. His console, chair, and the deck plating beneath them vibrated violently with the high angle of turn. “The ship will fall apart if I push any more, and I need to push harder to get the inside curve on that ship.”