Prologue
“We’re not leaving,” Krek said. He rubbed absentmindedly at the raised identification code embossed on his neck as he leaned forward in the tactical chair that doubled as the captain’s chair. Everything doubled as something else on the salvage ship Scrap. That was the kind of ship she was. It suited Krek just fine.
Norbit spun around, a stupid look on his robotic face. “But sir, we—”
“We’re not leaving,” Krek said firmly, trying to will the damn asshole to stop staring at him that way. It didn’t bother Krek that the android had exposed metal and ceramic from head to foot. He’d lost his synthetic skin a long time ago in the Plague Wars, and nobody in Krek’s clan cared. Norbit was a good luck charm. Krek could count on one hand the number of members of his clan that had lived through the Plague Wars. Besides, Norbit was a useful tool to have around. But he was a coward, and Krek didn’t need a scared robot to tell him he was taking a risk.
Norbit turned back to the forward monitors.
Krek stood up and reached above Norbit’s head. He pulled down the comm tower link. It ran on a mechanical line right up to the dish on the top of the ship. Norbit had to lean back quickly not to get his head smashed in when Krek lowered it. Whoever’d had this installed, during one of the ship’s innumerable modifications, they hadn’t worried much about the pilot’s seat.
The Scrap was tiny, one of the Alliance’s earliest support ship designs, and it lacked AI. It was better for that—not that Krek or any of the rest of them flew under an Alliance flag these days. The ship was so modified that no Alliance dipshit would ever recognize it. It was also armed to the teeth, so they wouldn’t get close enough to take a look anyway.
“You hear that, Jawad?” Krek said into the comm speaker. “We’re not leaving. At least, not empty-handed.”
There was a long hiss of static. He knew the connection to his salvage team on that wrecked Empire dreadnaught was active, and he knew Jawad was listening. His right-hand man was a lot of things, including a backstabber looking to take his job, but he wasn’t careless.
“Yeah,” Jawad said. “So what the hell are you planning to do, then?”
Krek considered what he was looking at on the forward viewscreen. The screen was easily the nicest thing on the ship. He’d had it retrofitted specially. After all, being a scavenger in this universe meant that first and foremost, you had to have damn good eyes. So in addition to the huge floor-to-ceiling viewscreen, the edges were taken up by another pair of displays. One had tactical information coming in from their drone blanket, showing the space out to the very edges of the system. The other viewscreen showed the view from the helmet of one of the men with Jawad. It looked like the team was very nearly at the outer doors, which they shouldn’t be, unless they were turning around and expecting to hop on their transport sled and come running back to the Scrap.
The forward screen showed the current problem. They’d been tracking it on the drones’ tactical network for a couple of minutes now, but it had finally reached visual distance. There, in all its glory, was an Empire fast-attack corvette. The patrol ship was flanked by a half-dozen battle drones. Krek knew it was an AI ship. The Empire wouldn’t risk manned ships here, not this soon after the catastrophe that had been this battle. The ships that hadn’t been able to limp home were part of a floating graveyard: a graveyard ripe for the picking, if Krek didn’t end up dead.
“They’re going to be here in thirty seconds,” Norbit said, his voice quivering now.
“Don’t shit all your oil out, metal man.”
“I’m with the metal asshole,” Jawad said. “If we leave now, we can still get a decent haul.”
Krek glanced again at the transport sled. A couple of men were already aboard it, and Jawad was directing them to load some missile components. They’d started there. If there was time, the reactor core components would follow.
“Don’t tell me that,” Krek snapped. “You got shit. If we could take half a day here, do you know how much salvage we could get?”
“Not enough to do shit with if we’re dead.”
“You just stay down there and don’t make noise,” Krek said.
Jawad paused, and this time he marched directly at the viewscreen. Krek watched with detachment as the view shook. The man was clearly trying not to shrink away as Jawad snarled up at the camera attached to the top of his helmet. “Don’t do something stupid, Krek. I swear to God, if this is some way for you to—”
Krek slapped the comm tower closed as the incoming corvette breached the inner distance to intercept the signal. They were on radio silence from here on out. “Norbit, get the hell up.”
The android leaped out of the pilot’s seat. One thing the robot had going for him was fast reflexes. It was the reason Krek liked him on the stick, under normal circumstances. But this situation called for some creativity, and that definitely wasn’t Norbit’s specialty.
Krek slid into the pilot’s seat and immediately pushed the throttle forward. He watched the Scrap instantly respond. He wished he could feel it, too, but his days of flying fighters were long gone. He’d have to settle for flying this hunk of metal.
“Sir, if you aren’t careful, we’re going to crash into the ship we’re salvaging.”
“That’s the idea, Norbit,” Krek said as he throttled in tight against the side of the disabled dreadnaught.
“That’s a bad idea, sir.”
“Kill the coward, Norbit,” Krek said. It was something his father used to say to him. He’d been a powerful man in the Ardan system once upon a time, a broker among the elite. But their fall from grace had echoed the rise of the wars, and his father had killed himself. Krek had been fighting off his inner coward ever since.
“I’m not a coward,” Norbit said, crossing his arms. Or her arms. The robot wasn’t much clearer than the rest of them, but Krek would feel bad punching a woman, so a male robot he’d decided Norbit was. “I’m prudent.”
Krek waved Norbit away. He had more important things to do now. He maneuvered the Scrap right up along the dreadnaught’s rear superstructure. He could see from here how the force of the reactor core had exploded outward, ripping the back of the ship open and breaking two of the four fuel lines that ran to the rear thruster assembly. She’d never fly again.
Krek assumed that the dreadnaught had been abandoned quickly. Whatever had happened out here, the first volley must have been close to a perfect hit on the power systems. The rest of the vessel was in remarkably good shape. It was the haul of a lifetime.
“We’re in visual range,” Norbit said.
Krek ignored the impulse to glance up at the viewscreen. If he’d done his job right, and he was sure he had, he’d not fired thrusters until they were obscured by the biggest star in the system, just emerging from behind the wreck. The incoming corvette and her drones were coming out of the shadow of the wreck just as Krek was slipping under it.
But his chance to maneuver was over now. It was all gliding from here.
And that was when he realized he’d screwed up.
It was bad enough that he’d miscalculated. He was human, after all. That was the reason that Norbit did most of the flying. Whatever other issues the robot had, his reflexes were immaculate.
What was worse, of course, was that Norbit had been right. Krek should have been more prudent. Or, as he’d told Norbit, cowardly.
Krek had been trying to fire the thrusters one last time before the corvette could see the energy burn, and then nestle the Scrap right up against the side of the ship, where a huge, gaping hole had torn up the hull and left a goodly chunk of it free-floating next to it like trash. He wanted the Scrap to look like just another chunk of trash.
But he’d fired the thrusters too hard. His angle was all wrong, and now it was too late. He reached up and behind the pilot’s seat, his hand groping the tactical chair he normally sat in. His hand closed on the lip of his helmet. He pulled it to him and unclipped the gloves that were magnetically attached to its side.
“Kill power,” Krek whispered to Norbit.
“But sir—”
“Do it, you damn robot bastard!”
Norbit complied instantly, taking two lightning-fast steps across the tiny cockpit that had originally been built for just one person before some retrofit had managed to cram a second data console in here.
Two up here. Four in back. Helluva way to make a living, but salvagers couldn’t be picky, and he had the freedom of space that few men had. And in this case, it seemed, the freedom to be killed.
Good job, asshole.
Norbit executed a complex set of hand motions against the wall console, his fingers moving too fast for Krek to see. A moment later, they were bathed in darkness. The stick in Krek’s hand went as limp as his dick felt at the moment. The last image in the viewscreen was the corvette looming larger.
Krek heard Norbit slip back into the tactical chair. He heard the click of the restraints a moment before he snapped his own restraints into place.
They were going to hit it. The only question was how hard.
Krek slammed his helmet on and felt the pressure locks at the neck seal shut. Then he shoved his gloves on, feeling the hiss and pop as the wrist seals locked. The helmet’s HUD lit up, telling him that he had only a few minutes of oxygen-cycling power left in the pressure suit. He’d forgotten to charge it up.
Shit.
There was the sound of metal bending and scraping on metal a moment before Krek was yanked forward, straining against the restraints.
With the power off, he’d just have to use his imagination to see all the red emergency lights flashing on the cockpit displays, but he knew they would be. He watched as a series of metal bearings popped loose and started to float in front of him.
They’d lost pressure in the ship. That surely meant that there was a seal break. He had to hope it was only a superficial puncture. The Scrap was tough, but Krek didn’t have the supplies or the time to go fixing her up from a major rupture.
Besides, the salvage crew were using their max-protect suits, and they’d still need rad pills for a month. And now Krek had managed to—
“Drone scan,” Norbit hissed.
Krek made his thoughts go quiet. He made his everything go quiet. In theory, they were fine. They had no energy signature. If a human looked, sure, they’d make out the ship, but these were automated: the drones for sure, the corvette, too. They’d have to be very unlucky to come across an actual manned ship out here.
“They’ve spotted us,” Norbit said.
“What? How?” Krek said, his whisper gone. “Did you trip it?” Even though the power to the ship was dead, Norbit wasn’t, and his power would allow some use of the ship for short bursts. The viewscreen came to life.
“It doesn’t matter,” Norbit said. “Look.”
On the viewscreen, a phalanx of battle drones was heading toward them. At least two of them were weapons hot, their railgun loaded with enough slugs to rip the Scrap in half.
There was no time to think. Which, Krek’s ex would say, was his time to shine. “Go for power. Weapons hot.”
“It’ll take time—”
Krek snapped his restraints off, spun around, and shoved Norbit aside as he engaged the power. Norbit might have used a complex set of instructions to power down systems as quickly as possible without causing internal damage, but powering up was all or nothing. And right now, Krek wanted all.
“They’re firing!” Norbit said.
Krek jumped back into the pilot’s seat as the front battle drone belched fire. The plasma-charged slug smashed into a floating chunk of hull plating that their impact into the ship had cut loose.
See, baby, dumb luck is still my friend.
The impact broke open the debris field even further. It also slammed a couple of good-sized chunks of splintered hull against the Scrap, causing her to rumble and bounce. Krek grimaced as he finally got his restraints on. “Stop smashing things into my ship!”
“To be fair, you smashed into it first.”
“Shut up, Norbit. Do we have thruster power?”
“No, but we have weapons.”
The screen in front of Krek powered up. It showed a pair of red flashing lights going green. “That’ll do!”
Krek didn’t take any time to aim. He didn’t take any time to think. He just smashed down on the hammer trigger to fire the twin cannons on the belly of the ship. As he did it, he opened the tube doors and dropped two powered charge bombs. They were dumb weapons, but effective enough. They pointed themselves, crudely, in the direction of the first energy signature they saw and ignited their thrusters for a single sharp burst of power. Then they would coast into their target.
The twin cannon pulses missed the lead battle drone, but somehow managed to clip one of the two tailing it. It fired just as it was hit, and spun, and Krek watched in shock as the drone accidentally fired into the back of the lead drone. It exploded spectacularly. The drone that had been clipped behind it spun away into space.
“Yeah, bitch!” Krek shouted, as if he’d planned that all along. But his euphoria lasted all of a second before the third drone fired.
It must have zeroed in on the twin cannons, because they took the brunt of the drone’s shot, the slugs shearing the cannon assembly right off the bottom of the Scrap.
The ship spun violently on its axis, sending the stars in the viewscreen spinning by in a blur. Something smashed into the side of the ship, probably debris nearby, and Krek waited for the drone to line up a kill shot as he struggled to regain control of the ship. He had full thruster power, but he’d have no chance to dodge the next shot in this condition.
“Where the hell are those charge bombs?” But Krek knew the answer already. He’d vaguely registered them shooting off into space beyond the drones. They were completely useless against the fast-moving drones, which probably didn’t even try and evade them. Just the act of moving was enough to throw off the dumb bombs, which, after all, weren’t made for this kind of combat. They were made for hitting a stationary target.
The Scrap danced violently and Krek shut his eyes tight, panic causing every muscle in his body to contract.
This was it. He was going to die here.
After another second passed, Krek slowly opened his eyes. He could only hear the beep and hum of instruments. “Norbit, why aren’t we dead?”
Norbit was leaning over the tactical board. Now Krek wished they hadn’t switched seats. He’d rather have Norbit down here with the stick, and himself with the tactical data in front of him.
“Um. It seems that the drone was caught up in the blast wave. On the bright side, it seems that it cleared the space around us to a large degree. The debris and the drones are all scattering now—”
“What blast wave?”
Norbit looked up. “From the charge bombs. They must have impacted a core system. A lucky shot, really, but still. Take it, right?”
The charge bombs?
Krek had steadied the ship. There was still a fair amount of debris, but the view was mostly clear through the viewscreen. He could see the corvette burning in front of him, her superstructure badly mangled. Krek could only guess at what had happened. The corvette must have burned to a stop so it could sit at a distance behind the drones as they went in to investigate. The charge bombs must have picked up on her thruster output.
So that was why they’d bypassed the drones. They’d found a bigger energy signature. And because the corvette had stopped and was only using passive sensors, the dumb bombs had coasted right into her undetected.
Krek felt his pulse quicken. “Yes!” he shouted, causing Norbit to jump. How a robot could be scared of loud noises, he didn’t know or care in this moment. He popped his restraints loose and jumped out of the pilot’s seat. He stabbed at the release on Norbit’s restraints and yanked the robot up. The artificial gravity was restored in the Scrap, so Krek switched off his mag boots. The ship still had some gas venting, so he still had his helmet and pressure suit on, but he didn’t care.
Norbit stared in shock as Krek jerked him upright and started dancing around the tiny cockpit. “Captain, I don’t understand what is going on.”
“We’re celebrating, you damn tin can!” Krek spun Norbit around again, laughing. “I told you we weren’t leaving, Norbit!”
The comm blew up with static a moment before Jawad’s voice filled the cockpit. “What the hell just happened?”
“We blew those Empire bastards back to their goddamn gods!”
“You disabled it?” Jawad sounded dumbfounded—as well he should, thought Krek. He was dumbfounded too. He’d never in his life disabled an Empire ship, let alone a corvette at full power.
“We hit it with charge bombs. They never saw it coming,” Krek said. “Must have hit right along the power nerve. I can’t believe we got that lucky.”
“I’m not registering any power,” Jawad said incredulously, but there was a tinge of excitement in his voice. “God, their weapons systems are intact.”
“Their everything is intact,” Krek said. “Get off that damn dead dreadnaught. We need the sleds to get over to that corvette now. If their—”
“Excuse me,” Norbit said. “Something just dropped in from near-FTL.”
“Shit,” Krek said, slapping the comms closed before he jumped back into the pilot’s seat. “Magnify it, Norbit.”
On the screen, a ship had appeared. She was small, but still significantly bigger than the Scrap. The hull was retrofitted with a pair of heavy cannons, top- and bottom-side, but nothing like the Scrap had. Krek relaxed a bit.
Then he saw the markings along the hull.
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