Chapter One
The Boomerang shuddered when a cannon blast ricocheted off the port hull. Eli glanced over his shoulder, but he didn’t react.
“They are bringing the marauders forward,” Jood reported from the engineering station in his cool Xynnar voice. “They can match our speed and even overtake us, and they have a lot more firepower than we do.”
River barked from the helm, “Tell us something we don’t know. If you’re just gonna make noise, keep it to yourself.”
Another shot hit the ship’s tail. She skidded forward against her own engine thrust. River yanked the controls to divert, but too late. “Come on, you bastards!” she bellowed. “You want a piece of this? Come on!”
Eli shut all the noise out of his mind. He trained his attention straight ahead, searching for any wink of light out there in space. Nothing else mattered.
He strained his eyes at the cockpit window when three ships whizzed into view. They surrounded the Boomerang on all sides and corkscrewed in front of her. River whipped the scout to starboard in a stomach-turning spiral. “They’re onto us, Sarge.”
“They are closing from the front,” Jood informed him. “Another five marauders are advancing from our rear. They will block our course in—”
“Keep going,” Eli muttered. “Maintain course and speed.”
“We’re already running at full throttle!” River shrieked. “It ain’t enough!”
The marauders pivoted in front of the Boomerang. “Evade them,” Eli murmured under his breath.
River shook her head over her console. She fought the helm, weaving the ship to port and zipping back to starboard. One of the marauders spotted the maneuver and tried to intercept. River smashed the helm straight down, and the Boomerang twisted into a dive. She rocketed under the vessel’s belly and launched up behind it.
Another ship barreled up on her starboard side and opened fire. River wrenched the helm upward again, but not fast enough. A rocket blast hit the Boomerang and jolted her off course.
A devastating explosion echoed through the bulkhead behind Eli’s ear. Shrieks and screams reached him, along with words that sounded oddly like hull breach. He ignored them, along with the crashes and smashes coming from aft. “Open fire.”
Another withering impact hit the ship from above this time. “External cannon is offline,” Jood told him. “We have onboard cannon. That is all we have.”
Eli glanced over at Jood for the first time, and his throat constricted. “Yasha! Is she..?”
Jood dipped his flinty gaze to his instruments. “Her life signs are all within normal parameters. The shot ripped off her cannon gauntlet. She is unarmed.” He looked down again. “It appears she is on her way back inside. It will not be safe for her in the external cannon port.”
“Good. Maintain course.” Eli faced forward, but he found it impossible to relax.
“Sarge…” River began, but another concussion cut her off.
Jood’s fingers danced over his console. “I am bringing onboard cannon online. We cannot outrun them. Our best chance will be to make a stand here and hope we can—”
Eli leaped forward in his seat, and his finger shot out. “There! There it is. Take onboard cannon offline and divert power to the tenders. Punch it to the wall, River!”
She locked her jowls, and her mighty arms seized the helm with fresh vigor. A weighty silence fell over the cockpit, broken by yells and explosions from aft, along with booms and thumps from outside.
Eli clamped his lips shut and settled deeper into his chair. He did his best not to crush his armrests in a death grip. He focused his unwavering attention on the glimmer of light beyond the window.
It expanded, coming closer, and his heart skipped a beat. He even ignored the marauders crisscrossing his view. Two of them streaked over the window, pivoted in space, and throttled back to assault the Boomerang from the front.
He didn’t bother to tell River to evade them again. She’d concentrated everything on doing that already. She didn’t need him distracting her at a time like this.
He stared at the light, widening to a massive, wavering golden curtain hanging in the starry blackness. He willed the Boomerang and everyone on board to get there. The marauders didn’t exist. They meant nothing. Only getting there mattered.
The marauders closed around the ship. Continuous hammering shots reverberated off her hull until she groaned and screeched from the effort of holding herself together. Eli retracted his head into his neck. He tensed all over as the Boomerang crawled ever closer to the vessels attacking her.
The three marauders tightened their attack pattern. Their blazing fire blocked out the whole window. River howled, wrestling the controls from port to starboard and back to port so fast the ship barely had time to respond.
Eli winced as River sent the craft plummeting on a collision course for her enemies. A devastating eruption of fire enveloped the ship. The sound of tearing metal ripped Eli’s brain apart and then, as quickly as it started, she punched through.
River skated in a rapid zigzag directly at one marauder’s bridge. The ship checked its speed and she rocketed off to starboard, almost into the underside of another enemy vessel. Quick as lightning, she whizzed under that and through the other side to emerge behind the marauders.
“They got the port tender!” she shrieked.
“Can we still get through?”
Eli didn’t have to ask. The Boomerang jumped when the throttle bit, and she penetrated the Topaz Curtain of glorious sparks. The field wavered as the engine wash stirred the magnetic waves. The Curtain closed behind them, leaving the marauders on the other side.
Eli slumped in his chair and River flung herself back from her station. “We’re through.”
Jood didn’t look up. His hands blurred over his instruments. “The Brotherhood is coming out to meet us.”
Eli swung to his feet and headed for the bulkhead. He could already see another armada of ships advancing from within the field. “Send them our identity signature and follow all their orders. They’ll probably want us to hold position here while they check our credentials.”
“The marauders are still patrolling beyond the Curtain.”
“Suck on that!” River gloated. “How you like me now, huh? You can kiss my fat ass, suckers!”
“They appear to be setting up a surveillance pattern. They are not withdrawing to rejoin the fleet.”
Eli didn’t listen anymore. He strode aft to find Waylon and Miles working themselves into a froth, trying to secure a steel plate over the hull breach. A shrieking gale ripped at their hair and clothes. Miles squinted into a hail of dust peppering his cheeks while he leaned his weight against the plate. Waylon grimaced over his welding torch, doing his best to hold it steady through the storm.
Eli rushed to Miles’ side and added his bulk to the plate. He shut his eyes and wedged his shoulder against it as freezing air sliced his skin. Waylon snarled under his breath over the torch’s hiss.
Waylon jumped back. “Done!”
Eli and Miles opened their eyes, and Miles blinked around him. “Are we through?”
“We’re through,” Eli told him. “Where’s Yasha?”
Waylon jerked his thumb behind him. “Over there.”
Miles picked up another torch, and he and Waylon finished welding the plate over the breach. Eli continued down the gangway. He found Yasha sitting on a stack of crates next to the aft hatch. She still wore a full suit of external body armor that made her slender body appear three times its size. Her head looked comically small perched on top.
Sweat plastered her short curly brown hair to her forehead and cheeks. She panted through bared teeth. Her right arm hung limp and useless at her side, while she tried to unlatch her armor with her left. She jammed a screwdriver into one of the lock slots, but when she tried to turn it, the tip slipped out and she had to start all over again. Her throat wheezed with every breath.
Eli hustled up to her. “Give me that. Let me do it.” He took the screwdriver from her and started unlatching her armor. He didn’t want to look at her, and he did his best to ignore the pained little noises she made each time she exhaled. “How bad is it?”
“It’s broken. That’s all. Sorry about the cannon.”
“Screw the cannon.” He unlatched the thick plates around her injured arm first. When he laid them aside, he saw she was right. Her arm was floppy from the elbow down, and she hissed when he removed the armor that held it still.
Eli put the plates and the screwdriver on the floor and went to the galley. He returned with a medkit, loaded the SubQ injector with the strongest painkillers in the pharmacy, and pressed the device to the side of her neck. He depressed the trigger, and Yasha gasped out loud.
He put the injector down and took up the screwdriver again. He got to work on her chest plate. “Don’t worry about it. The Brotherhood will fix it. Shit, they’ll probably try to steal you from me.”
She snorted, but she didn’t answer. She pinched her pallid lips while he removed the rest of her armor. By that time, the painkillers had started to kick in, and she relaxed into the procedure.
Once he finished, he took a length of cloth out of the medkit to make a sling. He draped it over her neck when Jood’s voice quacked down the intercom. “Excuse me, Eli, but I really think you better come forward.”
He glanced up at the Xynnar’s tone, and he met Yasha staring at him with huge eyes. He left her to tie up her own sling, and returned to the cockpit. As soon as he showed his face, Jood vacated the engineering station and retreated to the far side of the compartment. That never boded well.
Eli sat down in Jood’s seat. A signal light flashed on the console. He tapped it, and a man’s bearded face materialized on the engineering screen. “Speed scout Boomerang, this is Captain Xenon Fricks in command of the Brotherhood destroyer Brewster. Do I have the honor of addressing Captain Eli Bryce?”
Eli bit back a grin. “I don’t know how much of an honor it is, but yes, you do. Good to meet you, sir. Thank you for having us.”
Fricks dipped his chin. “We wouldn’t pass up a chance to host you. You guys are legends.”
Just great. Another fool who thought Eli and his crew were legends. That was exactly what Eli didn’t need.
“If you don’t mind,” Fricks continued, “our procedures require us to hold you here for at least two hours while we run your numbers with the Squadrons’ database. It’s merely a formality. I’m sure you understand.”
Eli stiffened. “Yes, sir.”
“We just need to cross-reference your logs with the news on the pipeline and the Squadrons’ information. I’m sure there’s no discrepancy.”
River swiveled her chair around and raised her eyebrows at Eli, but she said nothing. Jood made himself awfully scarce over in the corner, too.
Eli took a firm hold on himself. He’d expected this. It was nothing out of the ordinary. The Brotherhood wouldn’t find any discrepancy, because every crook and gunrunner in the galaxy knew what Eli and the Boomerang had been doing for the last six months.
He reclined in his seat and swiveled it sideways. “You take all the time you need. One of my crewmen has a broken arm and needs medical attention, but it isn’t urgent. Other than that, we’re at your disposal.”
Fricks nodded again. “I appreciate it. I’ll be back in touch as soon as we clear you to enter.”
He switched off, and the screen darkened. Eli looked up to find Jood and River watching him. He squared his shoulders and sliced his finger toward the bulkhead. “Both of you get aft. We need to talk.”
Chapter Two
Eli found Waylon, River, Jood, Yasha, and Miles already in his cabin. He wedged himself into the tiny compartment and shut the door behind him. He muscled through them and sat down on the bunk, while they remained standing.
They all waited for him to speak. He scanned their faces one after the other before he broke the portentous silence. “I don’t think I need to remind you all that we’re treading on dangerous ground here. It’s critical we all watch our step and mind our Ps and Qs. If they suspect us of anything, we’ll never make it out of here.”
“I wish to take this opportunity,” Jood replied, “to repeat my objections to this plan.”
Eli held up his hand and shut his eyes. “Don’t bother. We all know how you feel, and the rest of us feel exactly the same way. I spent twenty-five years making sure never to cross the Topaz Curtain or to put myself in the Brotherhood’s debt, but we have no choice. We have nowhere else left that’s safe to take refuge from the people hunting us.”
“The Brotherhood ain’t all that bad,” Waylon ventured. “They have their code of honor and loyalty and all that, but when it comes down to it, they’re just people like the rest of us. No one likes getting betrayed. They just go to greater lengths than most to ensure it doesn’t happen to them. You can’t blame them for that.”
Eli rounded on him. “Yeah? If that’s true and they’re just regular people like the rest of us, how come you never crossed the Curtain before? I don’t see you cozying up to ‘em, if you can possibly avoid it.”
“From what I hear, they’re like a whole society of Declan Tanners,” River almost whispered. “They’re ruthless.”
“It’s too late to go back now,” Eli told them. “We’re across, and now we have no choice but to do it their way. It’s critical that we mind our manners and toe the line. Whatever they tell us to do, we do, understand? I’m sure they’ll require us to participate in some of their operations to prove our loyalty.”
Jood cocked his head. “Their operations? What operations?”
“Don’t you know?” Waylon cut in. “They’ll commandeer us and probably the Boomerang to attack other ships, steal shit, blow people up, destroy outposts, disrupt supply lines…”
Eli waved his hand again. “Yeah, okay. We get the picture.”
Waylon twisted his neck inside his collar. “He asked.”
“The Boomerang won’t be attacking any ships,” Yasha pointed out. “She doesn’t have that kind of firepower.”
“No, but you’ll probably be attacking ships,” Eli told her. “They’re out there checking the Squadrons database as we speak. They’ll pull up all our service records, and they’ll use our experience and our skills to their advantage—and that means all of us. They’ll take payment for their hospitality, but that’s nothing we didn’t know when we decided to cross the Curtain. We’re here and we’re doing this—no questions asked. You hear me? You do what they tell you to do. If you don’t like it or you object to something they tell you to do, don’t ever let them know it. Just throw down and do it like it’s the greatest privilege of your lives. Understand me?”
River nodded. Jood kept inspecting Eli, with his head to one side. Miles stared down at the floor, and Waylon scowled. Only Yasha didn’t react to what he said. She already knew everything she needed to know about the Brotherhood.
“I’ll tell you something else, too,” Eli went on. “Don’t ever tell them about the Parker-Nolan Grenade. Understand? Don’t mention it. Don’t tell anyone about it, no matter how trustworthy you think they are. Just forget it exists.”
“What about the records?” River asked. “They’ll see the Grenade was stolen by the Boomerang.”
“It was not stolen by the Boomerang,” Jood replied. “It was stolen by the Hummingbird.”
“Won’t they search the ship?” Miles asked. “If they find it and they realize we lied about having it, they’ll kill us all.”
Eli braced his shoulders. “We won’t lie, we just won’t mention it. If anyone out there so much as mentions the Parker-Nolan Grenade in passing conversation, it means they already know we have it. They must have found out from some other source. If that happens, you can be honest about us having it. Until then, just keep that little detail to yourselves.”
“Wouldn’t it be safer to just tell ‘em upfront?” River asked. “Why take the risk?”
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