The Elarri Heist (Plundering the Stars Book 1) Read online

  Ketellin grimaced. His rebreather began to crack, which was not a good sign, but he kept at it. He growled and yelled, his voice gargling with his rebreather as he got higher and higher. Outside, a mob fighter careened through the hangar opening and exploded against the wall. The floor cracked and splintered.

  “K!”

  He roared. There was a satisfying ding, the glorious sound that could only mean that the jump was ready. Ketellin slapped an amphibious hand to the jump lever and pulled it back with all his might.

  And we jumped.

  In a blip, the stars distorted, and we shot forward, a blast that always made my gut drop to my toes if only for a second. It was something we’d all long ago grown used to, and today, I was happy to feel it.

  We were safe. We were alive. And an enemy was dead.

  8

  After jumping a couple of systems in complete silence, our hearts still racing, Ketellin put us down on a small backwater planet called Ager-4476, which was mostly arid rock but had a fertile equator that was all grassland and savannahs and a few isolated settlements. We found a little spaceport that couldn’t be more than a handful of buildings. In fact, there was only one other ship docked—a fat, brown junker.

  I paid for the space, then we all went out and found a small inn with an outdoor dining area. We sat around a table and just chewed on our thoughts, though we didn’t order anything. I was sure we were a little paranoid considering our last stop at a tavern ended in a shootout. This time, though, it was just us and a couple of other patrons.

  Jinx’s arms kept brushing against mine, sending pebbles along my skin. Rowan had his arms over his eyes and his head back. Amara tapped her fingers against the table. Pivek and K both just sat stalk-straight.

  “So,” I said, breaking the silence. “I’ll be the first to admit that I may have been a tad naïve thinking that we weren’t being tracked.”

  “I told you,” Amara said.

  ‘So, will you admit that one of us may have sold us out?’

  I slammed my hands onto the table, which made everyone flinch, even K, who was as stoic as anyone. “No, I will not concede that! It seems obvious to me that either they’ve come up with a new way of tracking interstellar travel that we are as of yet unaware of, or it’s something so old that your scanners wouldn’t pick up.”

  “Both of those seem pretty plausible,” said Rowan. “Didn’t you say that Xarren has ancient Amok tech in his vault? He could easily have some ancient tracking device that modern tech can’t make out.”

  Pivek’s mandibles wiggled as he considered that. ‘You… You do have a very valid point, as much as I hate to admit it.’

  That elicited a wide smile from Rowan.

  “Well, how do we move forward with the heist if we can be tracked so easily?” Jinx asked.

  “Should we even go through with it?” Amara replied. “The risks are mounting, Yan. If Xarren suspects what we’re doing, we don’t have a chance.”

  “No! That’s out of the question. We’re doing this.”

  “How then?”

  I leaned back and pointed toward the hangar. “We’re thieves. We steal.”

  “So?”

  “So, we’re gonna steal that junker and work out of that for the time being.”

  Amara laughed. “That thing is quite literally a piece of junk. And you’re just going to leave your precious Sanara here?”

  “We’ve all worked with worse, it’s part of our occupation. And I’d rather the Sanara gather rust on this rock than get blown to bits. Besides, I want Jinx and K to fly her out and find a nice little hiding spot out in the savannah and then we’ll come pick you up.”

  They didn’t respond to that. They just thought about it. They would agree with me. They were as desperate for this job as I was. We all had our reasons. We all had our wants and dreams that this money would solve.

  “Who would pilot the ship to pick them up?” Rowan asked.

  “Don’t say you,” Amara breathed as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “I am the captain, after all.” She groaned, and I laughed. “I can pilot any ship well enough, I just couldn’t possibly do what Ketellin can do.”

  “I think it’s a good plan,” Jinx added with a smile as she covered my hand with her own. Her support was always appreciated.

  “What happens if there are crew on board the junker?” Amara asked, arms crossed and still looking skeptical.

  “I’m pretty sure they’re inside the inn behind us. But if there are crew aboard, well, that’s what we have you for, love.”

  “Thanks for volunteering me.”

  “Welcome. I know you like cracking skulls.”

  She pursed her lips. “That is true…”

  I clapped my hands together. “Are we all in agreement?” They all nodded. “Good. I know we can pull this off. We can do this, and then we’ll be set.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  “We will. Now come on, let’s get to work.”

  So, with our hearts still roaring from two life-or-death fights the last few days, we went to the hangar. Amara went aboard the junker and found that no one was there. Jinx distracted the solitary air traffic control officer while the rest of us moved everything we needed for the heist from the Sanara to the…well, the ship didn’t have a name as far as I could see. Just a designation: Diego IB337N.

  Once everything was switched on, thankfully without incident, Jinx and K took our ship and left. Pivek disconnected the corporate tracker from the junker’s software so we couldn’t be tracked in our stolen vehicle.

  And then I was behind the sticks for the first time in forever. It took me a few minutes to get acclimated and refreshed on what all the buttons and switches did, but I eventually figured it out. I pulled back on the stick and we ascended. As we did, I could see through the slightly-clouded cockpit window that the junker’s crew was running toward us, yelling and waving their arms.

  I gave them a smile and a wave, and then we shot forward.

  Rowan at my side and Amara behind me, we cheered as we raced over the golden savannah grass. Large herbivores with rough, brown, leathery skin grazed in the grass, large spinal spikes up in the air. I didn’t know what they were, but they looked magnificent.

  A minute later, we picked up the ping of the Sanara’s transponder. We found Jinx, K, and my ship parked in a steep gully of red rock cut into the savannah like a bad scar. With the way the sun shone, my ship would be hidden in the shade for much of the day, so she would stay hidden. Didn’t need any scavengers touching my baby.

  With the others aboard, I gave way to Ketellin, and he took us out. The junker, thankfully, had a jump drive, so we would be able to travel like we were used to. And it was fueled up as well!

  I cracked open a bottle of yalen I’d snagged a while back, even before the theft at Valrude’s brothel, and passed it around as Ketellin punched in the coordinates for the next system.

  I raised my shot. “To fortune.”

  They raised theirs. “To fortune!”

  We clinked our glasses together. We drank. K pulled back on the jump switch. We shot forward, my gut dropping.

  And we sailed toward our dreams and to our fortune. And we would have them both.

  Act 2: The Heist

  9

  Red blaster bolts zipped over my head and nearly nicked my hair, but luckily were just a…well, a hair shy. My boots pounded against the cold metal floor of the space station as I pushed through throngs of seedy vendors and the even more suspicious clientele that perused their wares. I didn’t have too much trouble, because as soon as the blasters sounded, the throngs that crowded the market scattered and parted before me. That made it a lot easier for me to run, but made it easier for my pursuers to hit their target. Which would be me.

  I risked a glance behind me and was annoyed to find the Aaugor bounty hunters still hot on my trail. Their species was fat and round with paper-thin leathery skin that was very fragile to most air outside of their hom
e planets, so they wore thick leather trench coats over advanced carbon armor systems that kept their skin concealed. They had thick masks covered in twisting tubes and red visors. So, in total, they looked like a nightmare.

  Now, one would think that creatures so large and fat would be slow and awkward, but that wasn’t the case. They had stubby legs with small retractable appendages like insect legs that allowed them to glide over the ground quickly. Just my luck. They weren’t very vertical, so if I found something to climb up, I could evade them, but so far, I hadn’t found anything.

  They yelled at me in their gargling language, not bothering to use Galactic Standard. Their words were menacing, so coupling that with their appearance, it was no wonder they were feared by many amongst the stars.

  A bolt shot past me, singing my coat and sending a hot pain along my arm. I yelped but kept on going. It’d just grazed me. I would be fine.

  I shouldered a pair of Zarthians with green and yellow skin. They yelled at me and I apologized, glad they didn’t use their surprising strength to crush me. Their scowls turned to fear as the Aaugor pushed past them. More shots. I dove over a meat vendor. The bolts slammed into and charred some strange bluish-brown meat that I thought was Gorkin, which I’d heard was delicious…for non-humans. If I ate one, it would kill me.

  All the best things do though, don’t they?

  I kept on, pumping my arms and dancing around bodies large and small, around slime and scales and feathers and leathery skin. I even nearly collided with a Ter’vi, which wasn’t good because they looked like giant walking flowers, but their petal-y faces would peal back to reveal rows of jagged teeth that would devour me happily.

  As I ran, the large, open-air hall of the market closed and the gate to the next district loomed before me. Security guards in rustic brown-and-red fiber-mesh armor stood at attention. I didn’t have time to flash them my forged ID, though they would hopefully help deal with the Aaugor on my tail. Kaori Station 5 was a hive of shady dealings and illegal activity, but even it had rules, and I’m sure the members of the Crimson Court that ran the place didn’t appreciate bounty hunters shooting into crowds and scaring off valued customers.

  Still, no time for talk. The guards snapped to attention and raised their guns. At me and my predators.

  “Stop, present identification, please.” The guard had a hollow, metallic voice, so he must’ve been an android. A rare toy. But I couldn’t stop to comply.

  “Sorry, no can do!”

  I flashed the android and the large Torgoran guard on the other side a smile as I launched myself onto the generator next to the door. It whirred and clinked and was warm to the touch, but my gloves kept my hands from the worst of it. From there, I scampered up to the vents above and pulled out my blaster pistol. I blew a hole into the vent as more bolts pinged around me, scorching the metal walls. Thank the saints these particular Aaugor were bad shots.

  I pulled the vent free and hauled myself inside. They wouldn’t be able to follow me in here. Sure, I didn’t know exactly where this vent would take me, but it was better than being shot or arrested.

  It was a tight fit, but I was able to shimmy my shoulders and crawl forward. I’d experienced smaller vents on previous jobs, so this wasn’t too bad. The perks of being a scrawny thing was that you could get to places that others couldn’t. The Aaugor shot at the vent, which shuddered violently and rang like a rocket blast in such close quarters, but I was too far in for them to hit me. They barked in their guttural language before finally resorting to Galactic Standard.

  “Open door, machine,” one said with clear malice directed at the android.

  “I cannot. Please relinquish your weapons and present appropriate identification.”

  The fat slug cursed and growled. “I’ll scrap you for parts! What say you, Torgoran?”

  There was no response from the Torgoran guard, so maybe they were mute, or maybe I got too far away to hear, but either way, the dialogue ceased. I smiled and wiped a sheen of sweat from my forehead.

  “Boring conversation anyway.”

  The vent was hot and dirty, and more than a few times I spotted a few critters scuttling ahead of me that I didn’t have names for, but if they were hardy enough to survive in the vents of a black-market space station, they weren’t to be messed with.

  I continued through the cramped spaces, taking a winding path through until I was thoroughly lost, which meant the bounty hunters wouldn’t know where I was either. After several long minutes, I came to another opening. The din of hundreds of loud voices sounded as I approached, and a moment later I was looking through a grate, peering down on a small arena-like room.

  People of all races and species and allegiances crowded around a small ring, a hundred of them, maybe two hundred, all cheering and jeering and pumping fists. Their attention was focused on a dusty circular arena covered in dirt and chunks of what looked like broken exoskeleton. I immediately thought of Pivek, my friend and my ship’s mechanic. He was insectoid, and though I doubted he would be captured so easily, slave gladiator fights were not uncommon in the lawless Free Systems.

  Thankfully, that wasn’t what this was.

  Two large beetles, one greenish-black with a wide ramming horn on its head, squared off against a smaller red beetle. This one had spikes all along its back and sides and legs. It was faster and had fluttering wings that let it hover ever-so-slightly, but the green beetle had size and better armor. A classic matchup, one I would have enjoyed watching if I had the time and money, but I had somewhere to be.

  I wasn’t in the best position to open the grate, but nonetheless, I managed to punch it open, thanks to the always-convenient power of neglected maintenance. It clattered into the crowd below but was hardly noticed over the chaos of the fight. That suited me just fine. With a lot of effort, I wriggled myself free and carefully climbed down. I was two stories up, but there was enough loose wiring and broken panels to repel down.

  Once in the crowd, I received some nasty looks and even some shoves, but nothing more than that. I smiled and shrugged and pulled on my hood. Who knew if there were bounty hunters here just soaking in some harmless extracurricular entertainment? No need to tempt the saints.

  The exit was on the far side of the room. High above was a large cage-like ceiling, revealing the stars above and the many ships and arms of the station. It was quite a view.

  I slowly made my way through the pulsing mob, careful to not draw too much attention to myself. Eventually, I made it to the door and slipped out along with others and came out into a bright corridor of neon lights and delicious smells. Food stands and restaurants lined the walls, illuminated by signs for their wares and services. There were windows with scantily clad dancers moving to a faraway beat. This was my kind of place, and my stomach rumbled, but there was no time to indulge. One day, I would come back and have my fun, but I had my mission.

  Feeling safe, I made myself act casual as I strode through the crowded way. I stuck my hands in my pockets and took a deep breath. Everything was fine. We’d gotten what we came for and just had to get back to the ship. I hadn’t had contact with Rowan, but I trusted his abilities. Besides, he wasn’t the one being hunted.

  I fished the device out of my pocket and held it in my palm, the neon glow painting it in light. The cause of all this trouble. A perduleq, or as us beings with tongues would call it, a pulse-hack. It looked like a tiny bug with a stinger, but it didn’t fly, and the stinger didn’t sting. Well, it did, but not in the conventional sense.

  Plug it into any computer system and it would emit an undetectable pulse that would just turn everything off for three seconds, and in that span, it would take over everything. Pivek said there was no system that could stop it, but because of that, it was highly illegal. Only a few people made them in the entire galaxy and frankly, we didn’t have the funds to simply buy one. So here I was, with one stolen perduleq in my pocket. Worth more than my life, probably.

  A simple job that wasn’t suppo
sed to result in a chase and bolts flying over my head, but that sort of thing always seemed to find me. Honestly, I was a tad tired of all the life-and-death struggles lately.

  It was only a couple of weeks since our near-death encounter with Baron Oro Valrude of the Elexae crime family and his squadron of ships. We managed to escape after we allowed them to capture us and used a vortex bomb to create a mini black hole in the middle of the baron’s ship, which crushed them into a singularity. It was glorious, but we were lucky to be alive.

  We’d laid low for the last fortnight, after we ditched my precious ship on a backwater planet for safekeeping. But we’d now decided it was time to get back to work. By we, I meant me, and by work, I meant enacting my scheme to rob Xarren Elexae’s vault. It would the heist to end all heists, an end to the struggles of my friends and I. But we needed some things.

  So, here I was.

  At least this time, we weren’t tracked by bounty hunters. This encounter was entirely accidental, and also my fault. I’d pulled back my hood to scratch my head for a whole five seconds and of course I was standing next to a wanted poster of myself. It was one of the poorer ones that I personally felt didn’t capture my likeness well at all, but apparently, it was enough for the Aaugor, who’d been looking in my direction.

  I wasn’t used to being recognized so easily. Even though I had by far the largest bounty out of my crew, I prided myself in being shifty and anonymous enough to keep my likeness relatively hidden. I was known, but someone shouldn’t have been able to look right at me and recognize me in seconds. It was unnerving.

  If we managed to pull off this heist, we could disappear for good. We could fulfill our every dream and desire. We wouldn’t want, nor worry. But we had to survive, we had to succeed, and that was a daunting task to say the least.

  But I liked a challenge.