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  Boyd looked back to his console. A few more light thruster bursts and the Odium Fist would be clear of the immediate area where the Blades were hunting. Two days they had been tracking the Union heavy, and they had closed in without detection. Boyd admitted to himself that if Raye hadn’t brought the cannons online prematurely, the Blades would not have come in support, and the crew of the Odium Fist would have walked into a trap, a Union heavy transport laden not with valuable material but with a strike squad of Union Fleet Marines. But Boyd was not going to admit that the thug Raye might have actually saved them from capture.

  Minute after tense minute slipped by and eventually stretched out into long dull hours. Finally, the Odium Fist drifted into the sphere.

  Boyd moved the Odium Fist into orbit around a large asteroid, skirting the surface of the ancient black ice world at only a few hundred meters altitude. Close enough to be practically indistinguishable from the icy body in a long-range scan, yet mobile enough to move off in an instant should they need to run.

  Boyd sat back in his chair. He could feel Raye’s eyes burning into him. Boyd was never going to make friends with the old pirate, and he was a dangerous enemy. But Faction ships were dangerous places, not least of all for Boyd. He turned and gave Raye a cheeky wink. Having such a dangerous enemy was not ideal, but Boyd knew that if Raye hated him, he would actually be quite easy to manipulate. Besides, he couldn’t resist irritating the old thug. It was good for Boyd to make friends on the Fist, but one strong enemy was also very useful.

  “There’s something down there,” Jemmy Noland said. “Scanners are picking up something.”

  “What kind of something?” Poledri walked over to the scanner console and shoved Noland aside.

  Boyd accessed the scanner data on his flight console. The ‘something’ down there was creating a strange power signal. It appeared to merge with the asteroid, vanish momentarily, then come back strong, only to vanish once again.

  “Is that some kind of Union power system down there?” Poledri said as much to himself as anyone else.

  The Fist’s scanners focused on the point where the signal was coming from and put the image onto the holo-stage. The holo-stage flickered and refocused on the source of the signal—a large, deep black structure partially embedded in the black ice of the asteroid.

  It was unlike anything Boyd had seen before. He knew Union ships, and this wasn’t one.

  The black ship flickered on the holo-stage.

  Poledri walked away from the scanner console and sat in his command chair, his arms folded, looking at the strange image.

  “It’s a ship,” Poledri said. “Have any of you seen anything like it before?”

  Raye and Noland replied no.

  “I want a closer look,” Poledri said. “Put us down on the asteroid, Boyd. And then you and Raye suit up, get out there, and take a look. Is that clear?”

  Boyd looked back at Poledri and then at the flickering image of the black ship.

  “Should we maybe send the drone first?” Boyd suggested, looking back to Poledri.

  “Maybe you should just do as you are kravin’ well told for once! Now get down there and take a look. Something tells me this find is going to be juicy, real juicy.”

  3

  Will Boyd stood in the airlock of the Odium Fist alongside Raye. A group of Faction fighters arrived and nodded at Raye, ignoring the pilot. With the full team in the airlock, Raye hit the control panel and closed the inner hatch. It screeched as it slid shut, sending a shiver down Boyd’s spine.

  The display on Boyd’s visor showed him the countdown to the opening of the outer door. Thirty seconds to go as the pressure was equalized with the outside environment, a virtual vacuum. Green numbers ticked down to twenty-nine, twenty-eight, while the tenths of seconds raced down alongside.

  Then the display turned red as the countdown hit ten seconds and counting.

  Boyd double-checked the seals on his suit. He ran a system check that slightly increased the internal pressure of the suit before measuring the pressure, checking for any leaks. The increasing pressure filled his ears. The check responded with the all-clear, but there was something about these Faction extreme environment suits that he did not trust.

  Like most Faction equipment, Boyd’s suit was old, worn, and close to failure. Also like most Faction equipment, it was a stolen Union kit. It had once been state-of-the-art, but without regular maintenance and system updates, they were now dangerous, potentially fatally.

  Boyd had secured his own suit for personal use rather than taking one from the equipment stash in the hold of the Odium Fist. He had maintained it and brought it up to higher standard than the other suits he saw on the bodies of the fighters around him in the airlock. Even Raye wore a suit that was scuffed so badly in places that it would have been trashed by any self-respecting Union Fleet Marine.

  Despite Boyd’s maintenance of his suit, he left it looking disheveled, beaten, and as worn and tattered as everyone else’s. He didn’t want it to look like he didn’t trust the kit. He needed to blend in.

  The one piece of kit that he did trust was his pulse pistols. The Odium Fist had recently seized a container transporting decommissioned Union equipment from a garrison on the moon Kallis One, orbiting the planet Extremis. The haul had contained several heavy weapons, rapid-burst pulse guns, and a crate of pulse pistols with various holsters. It had been Boyd’s first major act of piracy aboard the Odium Fist, and he had secured himself two extremely well-kept pistols.

  Boyd checked the one on his right hip, tapping it with the palm of his hand to surreptitiously make sure it was still there. He felt safer knowing it was within his grasp. The holster on his hip was fastened shut, so he gently unclipped the top cover and let his finger check that the pistol was secure within.

  The second holster was on his right side just under his arm. He slid his hand over to the pistol and touched the handle. He was as ready as he could be. But it was not what was beyond the doors of the Odium Fist that had him most concerned. He was stepping out onto the planet with a band of Faction fighters, and a Faction second-in-command who deeply disliked him. Boyd was new to this crew and they owed him nothing. If he died now, no one would miss him and no one would be sorry, and few would ask questions about what really happened. He was good at his job, but everyone could be replaced. Boyd was not yet truly one of them.

  These were dangerous times.

  The red numbers on Boyd’s visor counted down to one, and the tenths and hundredths flashed past, blinking as the final countdown raced to zero.

  The outer hatch slid open, rising slowly, and the boarding ramp slid away from the airlock deck to make contact with the asteroid’s surface. The servos pressed the boarding ramp across the black ground, scraping at the top layer of super-hard ice, piling it up in a neat ridge in front of the boarding ramp. Pristine glistening white ice appeared beneath the blackened surface.

  Raye shoved Boyd toward the opening. The old pirate’s deep, gruff voice crackled over the helmet speaker next to Boyd’s ear.

  “Move,” Raye growled.

  Boyd didn’t need any encouragement or coercion, and he certainly didn’t need to be bullied. He was more than prepared to step out onto the asteroid’s surface. He’d been in dangerous environments before.

  “Moving out,” Boyd responded. He stepped out onto the surface, the toe of his boot brushing through the ridge of ice bulldozed forward by the boarding ramp. Pure white crystals of ancient ice sparkled on the tip of his worn boot.

  The Faction fighters stood in the pools of light from the lamps on the underside of the Odium Fist. Boyd walked ahead of them to the edge of a pool. With the lower hull of the Odium Fist above his head, Boyd felt that he was still in relative safety. The area was lit up brightly, safety only a few steps away. The others hesitated at the edge of the darkness. Boyd glanced up at the hull of the Fist. The composite hull was pockmarked by micro meteorite strikes and charred with weapons fire from its many encount
ers with Union forces. Boyd took one more step forward, out from under the hull.

  Above his head, space. Distant stars sat as perfect points in the black velvet canopy. The closest star, the system’s blue giant, appeared small at this great distance on the edge of the system. Boyd stared for a moment as he stepped further into the dark.

  Checking the terrain on his wrist mounted holo-stage, Boyd picked an easy path to the location of the strange signal they were there to check out. At about fifteen hundred meters or more away, the strange signal continued to appear at intervals. Boyd turned back to the group.

  “First Squad, with me. Let’s move.”

  Moving along at a steady pace, Boyd soon found that the group of Faction fighters were falling behind. He checked their formation on his wrist-mounted holo-stage as he advanced toward the signal. First Squad was huddled together in a tight group behind Boyd as he walked over the asteroid’s surface, the surface turning from black to pristine white with every footstep. Boyd held his left arm in front of him, looking at the stage. The image appeared above his wrist and pointed him directly toward the distant signal. His own position and that of First Squad appeared as a series of small red dots. The names of the men in his squad were kind of familiar, but he hadn’t had the time or the desire to get to know them all personally. Some had been on the Odium Fist under Poledri for a year or more. Others were relatively new, having been posted to the Fist by Faction bosses higher up the organization. Some had been on the Fist as little as a month.

  But none of the Faction fighters or the flight deck crew had been on board for less time than Boyd. He was the new guy, he had to be the best of them, the toughest and bravest, if he was to stand any chance of gaining their acceptance.

  Walking ahead of the small group, Boyd kept a constant check on his small holo-stage. Data transferred to him from the Fist’s sensor assembly showed him the terrain and the location of the mysterious signal. After a walk of around ten minutes, Boyd could see something on the surface—a thin, black structure about a hundred meters long, like an extremely long, thin claw. It came arching out of the surface of the asteroid reaching out to stab at space. The black claw appeared blacker than the backdrop of space, even seeming to vanish from time to time, lost against the void.

  “Are you going to fill me in? Or do I have to come down there and looked for myself?” the voice of Poledri burst over Boyd’s helmet speaker.

  “I can see something on the surface up ahead, Captain,” Boyd said. “I’ll be at the location in another ten minutes or so.”

  Boyd moved forward at a steady pace, his eyes fixed on the point of the horizon with the black structure flickering in and out of view. It was strange, and Boyd sought an explanation. He reasoned the visor of his helmet was scuffed and obscuring the view. Or maybe some reaction with the crust of the asteroid, some magnetic anomaly or temperature differential with the backdrop of space that was causing the structure of the crashed ship to flicker like a mirage. Maybe it was hidden just beyond the horizon and was being brought into view by some kind of chromatic effect.

  Glancing down at the holo-stage on his left wrist, Boyd saw he was moving ahead of First Squad. Second Squad, with Raye amongst them, was even further back. Boyd checked his heart rate on the suit’s medical readout and saw that his pulse was elevated. He had been moving quickly, but his elevated pulse was more due to excitement, maybe a little apprehension, nervousness and fear. It was certainly not overexertion.

  A quick check of the medical readout on the rest of the team showed that they were all tired, breathing heavily and struggling to keep up with the punishing pace that Boyd was setting. Boyd was fit, but he had been careless here. Allowing himself to appear so much fitter than everyone else might suggest he hadn’t spent his youth in Faction camps, scrabbling for scraps of food with other urchins. It was known that the Faction leaders had the best of everything, but Boyd wanted to be seen as just an ordinary guy from some tiny settlement in the belt. The central asteroid belt that lay between the orbits of planet Glacies and planet Supra was teeming with settlements, and a million destitute families. Boyd needed to look like he was one of them.

  He dropped to one knee and looked at the target location.

  “Captain Poledri, this is Boyd. I am moving as fast as I can, but I need to take a rest. I should make it to the signal location in another few minutes. I’ll report to you when I am in visual range.”

  “Stop complaining, Boyd,” Poledri’s voice crackled in Boyd’s helmet. “Get moving and get to that signal location. And send up a micro drone as soon as you get there. I want to see everything you see.”

  Boyd checked he had a micro drone on his suit. A cluster of three were functional and he prepared them for deployment. He knew Poledri wasn’t truly interested in the sights of the signal location, he just wanted to make sure none of his crew pocketed anything of value for themselves. If there was anything of value at the site, it would be Poledri’s plunder alone. He would decide how much he would share with the crew, and those further up in the organization would decide what portion Poledri would offer to them in duty.

  But Boyd wasn’t interested in plunder. He was becoming increasingly interested in the strange flickering structure that again appeared on the horizon.

  The rest of the team eventually caught up. Boyd stood up only to be knocked forward by an aggressive shove from Raye.

  Boyd tumbled forward, his suit’s artificial gravity losing its center momentarily. The light asteroid gravity field and the imbalance in his suit’s artificial field caused him to stumble. He reached out with his left hand to stop his fall and landed back on the asteroid’s surface on one knee. He was upon his feet in an instant and standing square on and face to face with Raye.

  “Watch where you’re going, why don’t you!”

  Boyd could see Raye’s smirk through his helmet visor.

  “Calm down. Just try and keep your balance. You sure you’re not drunk?” Raye brushed past Boyd, giving a shove with his right shoulder as he passed.

  Boyd took the shove, stumbled slightly, and then regained his balance. Raye stepped ahead of the team toward the signal location.

  “I’ll take the lead,” Raye said, “if that’s okay with you?” He turned and grinned at Boyd. “I’ll take First Squad, and Second Squad as well. Why don’t you hang back, Boyd? Let the experts take over.”

  Boyd stood his ground as Raye walked ahead. The fighters from Poledri’s crew chuckled darkly as they followed Raye, one or two of them jostling Boyd as they passed.

  While Boyd had not yet earned their trust or respect, Raye was a favorite among his crew. A vicious and violent thief, he was always going to have the support of any Faction pirates.

  Boyd released the three micro drones and sent them after Raye. He positioned them at fifty meters above the surface of the asteroid, the scanning range giving Boyd a wide view around the group as they advanced. He let them take a short lead and then followed.

  Following in the footsteps of the group, Boyd looked at the image on his wrist-mounted holo-stage. The structures that appeared to be moving in and out of sight were only meters ahead, jutting out of the asteroid surface.

  A small ridge, the edge of a crater, came up on the surface as Boyd moved toward it. The black claw Boyd could see was indeed not entirely solid. It appeared to shift in and out of focus. More of the structures were also now visible, all curving one way or another. Some appeared stunted and did not taper off to fine points like the others, but on closer inspection, Boyd thought they looked damaged, as if snapped off halfway along their length.

  But one thing Boyd felt sure of was that this was not a natural structure—it was mechanical, though it also appeared somewhat organic.

  And it was clearly a ship.

  Boyd sent the micro drones racing ahead of the Faction crew. He opened the channel to the flight deck of the Odium Fist.

  “It’s a ship, Captain,” Boyd said, “but like nothing I’ve seen before. And it
looks like it has crashed. It has taken some damage, possibly when it impacted into the surface of the asteroid, and is sitting in a crater, partially buried in the ice. We are getting close now. We should be able to get a better view once we get over the ridge of the crater.”

  “Just get on with it, Boyd. I don’t need a running commentary, I just need you to get there and find out what it is,” Poledri said.

  “Yes, Captain,” Boyd said as confidently and respectfully as he could manage. It was a full-time job trying to put up with Poledri and his mood swings.

  Boyd could see that Raye was struggling to maintain the pace. He was an old thug for sure and would go fifteen rounds of bareknuckle fighting with anyone, but he couldn’t maintain a rapid fifteen-hundred-meter march over rough terrain. Boyd was catching him by the second and in danger of overtaking.

  Superior fitness and curiosity drove Boyd forward. The Faction fighters were dropping off the pace Raye had set that had driven them forward briefly, covering thirty meters at the most.

  Now only a few dozen meters away, Boyd could see more clearly the strange, black, shimmering claw-like structures jutting out of the ice. He sent the drones forward to scan then looked at his holo-stage and zoomed in. The drones cleared the crater rim and gave him a view down onto the ship.

  As the drones moved higher, Boyd could see into the crater. Immediately, he saw the movement. A dozen individual signals moving rapidly away from the crashed ship. They were scrambling up the inner wall of the crater, and the first came to the ridge edge. They were human, but they wore no environmental suits, their flesh exposed to the vacuum of space. Their eye sockets were hollow and red, and their tongues swollen and filling their gaping mouths. They rushed forward toward the Faction fighters, their tongue-filled mouths open and offering a silent scream.

  Boyd pulled the pulse pistol off his right hip and opened the channel to the group on the asteroid’s surface.