Rise the Renegade (Rork Sollix Book 1) Page 3

  The ship rumbled. Rork sensed light and heat from behind him despite the growing blackness at the margin of his vision. It was now or never, whether it made noise or not. He jammed the lever down, the recessed door slid away and he pulled himself in head first.

  The ship’s artificial gravity drew him down. He fell on his head in the narrow airlock. The hatch closed automatically and his face slammed into the back wall as the ship accelerated.

  He picked himself up from the floor of the small compartment. He hit a green button and air poured into the space. The light above the button turned from red to green. He snapped off his helmet and took a deep breath.

  Footsteps sounded outside. His lungs burned and his lower back screamed but he maneuvered himself into a crouch, one foot in front of the other. He pulled the screwdriver from his belt and held it above his head. A bead of sweat arced across his forehead and dropped down through his heavy, black eyebrows into his eye.

  The door slid aside. A wiry man in a skintight, black suit looked up at Rork’s face, his eyes wide. In his hand, a pulse pistol pointed at Rork’s gut.

  Rork brought the screwdriver down into the Barbary man’s jugular. With the other hand, he pushed the pistol high and twisted the man’s forearm away from his body. The thin man fell to his knees and Rork grabbed the pistol.

  “Rork?” Lala’s voice sounded over the ship’s intercom. “He says he’s going to kill me unless you drop the pistol and surrender now.”

  He peeked into the corridor. It was clear both ways. He searched the wall across from him for the camera and stepped out. He advanced towards the bridge, staying close to the corridor wall.

  “Don’t you dare listen to this smug meerflarker,” she added. A dull concussion, followed by a groan, came over the speaker.

  Rork smirked. That’s my girl. He popped an eye around the corner of the curving passageway. Empty.

  He proceeded down the corridor and pressed his back against the wall next to the door. He heard a slap, then the sharp pop of a weapon discharge. His pulse jumped.

  Rork hit the open button and rolled through the doorway, staying low. He found one target and burned a hole in his head. He pivoted.

  “Kill him!” The surprisingly heavyset young Barbary grabbed at his side.

  Lala ran and threw herself at her kidnapper, a savage scream escaping her lips.

  The third man faced Rork, his pistol pointed at Rork’s head and fired. The beam glanced past Rork’s left cheek and he smelled the sick odor of burnt hair. Rork returned fire and burned a hole through the man’s eye socket.

  Lala sat on Barbary’s chest, flailing her fists into the heir’s flabby face. She stopped and put her face an inch from his. “You don’t mess with us!”

  It was a small bridge, a little wider than the mining station’s command center, but also with three seats and a smooth, black control console. Here everything was sharper and cleaner. And the deep vroom of the engine excited him.

  Through the viewscreen, Rork noted the wrecked mining station. She could have died there. He rebuked himself.

  He walked towards the closest chair. “Is there anybody else?”

  She raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Baby?” She was sucking him in and there was nothing he could do about it. It was predestined. She’d loved him even when he couldn’t love himself. She was the only good thing left in his life.

  “Just the four.” She looked over at him, her face tired. She blew a lock of cyan hair out of her eyes and smiled up at him.

  “Don’t let him up yet, baby.”

  The viewscreen shimmered. A double-chinned man with a full head of gray hair and a neon orange handlebar mustache looked down at Rork.

  “I have video proof this time. I’m swearing out a Cartel warrant for piracy and murder,” Old Man Barbary said. “Kidnapping, too. They’ll vaporize you for this, Rork. Or—”

  Rork ended the transmission. “Let’s get him up. He’s going to float.”

  5

  “WHERE ARE we going?” Lala slumped down in the captain’s chair on the bridge of Barbary, Jr’s cruiser, the Blockchain and petted the sleeping Buff.

  Rork finished typing some commands into the Blockchain’s computer and hit return to execute them.

  The ship rumbled beneath them. The dark, jagged-walled mining station moved away to the left as the ship performed a graceful one-eighty.

  “Does he have enough air?”

  “If daddy rescues him in the next couple hours. I strapped on the reserve tank.” He scrolled through the list of known destinations in the Solar System and selected Earth, the Asian continent. The computer began its calculations.

  “We’ll be there in just a few minutes,” Rork said.

  She growled at him.

  He suppressed a smile but said nothing. She was so cute but this was a moment for strength and discipline.

  “Hey!”

  He swiveled his chair around but looked away from her.

  “How do I know you really love me if you won’t call me ‘baby?’”

  He opened his mouth to say he didn’t know what but closed it again. The emotion was too much. His throat locked up. If he spoke now, his voice would crack. He loved her. He’d loved her since that first moment when he found her in the cage. But he couldn’t have her. Even if he overlooked the impropriety of marrying a former bound servant, he was dying. He had to get her to safety before that happened.

  Before his enemies caught up with them, and made her pay for his actions.

  She stood up, screamed and walked away from him.

  The computer chimed, announcing the imminent firing of the zolt drive.

  “You need to sit down. We’re going now.”

  “No! Tell me where we’re going!”

  “Earth.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Please?”

  She hunched forward and sulked back to the captain’s chair, Buff held tightly in her arms.

  Rork swiveled back around and triggered the zolt drive. He whooshed backwards into the cushioned chair, his lungs compressed against his vertebrae. Ahead of them, Jupiter took form as a bright star at the lower right of the viewscreen. The acceleration reduced and he took a breath.

  “I’d like a little more notice next time. I’m not a pet along for the ride. I’m your partner. I’m your lover!”

  “You’re my bound servant.” Rork swung his chair back around. He sat back, his eyes heavy, his legs spread wide, blood blotting his pants and shirt.

  “Now just— Oh my God!” Her face shifted from outrage to concern and she moved to get up.

  “Stay there! It’s fine.”

  “Is it bad?”

  He nodded. “We’re going to Earth.”

  “You told me that,” she said. “Why?”

  “It’s not safe for you. You could have died out there.” And it would have been my fault.

  He tried to imagine a Solar System without Lala. There was nothing in it for him, not even revenge. And he owed his father better.

  She stood up, Buff cupped between her forearm and bicep. “I’ll decide what’s safe for me. Not you. You’re my partner, not my master, no matter what the registry says.” She sat back down again and sighed. “We’re sticking together, aren’t we?”

  He looked away.

  “We have to stick together!” Buff scampered up her arm, leaving pink marks behind where he laid his claws. He settled in next to her neck, his rear end facing Rork. “Don’t do this to me. I’ve waited. You promised.” Her eyelids puffed up and her eyes turned red.

  “I promised you nothing more than your freedom.” He swiveled around in the chair. The control panel beeped. In the viewscreen, the pockmarked back side of the moon lay in twilight. Beyond it, the blue and tan ball moved to the left. The control panel beeped again, more urgently.

  “Buckle up.” He pulled the dual straps from the back of the chair, put his arms through them and fastened it with a thin click at his waist. He waited fo
r the same click from Lala.

  “What about Buff?”

  He grinned despite the tingling that signaled an oncoming seizure. “Hold tight.” The straps cut into his chest and gut. Good thing we didn’t eat first.

  The ship banked and bucked. The view turned from black to blue. The pressure eased and the ship leveled off.

  She released her restraints. “I really missed it, you know.” She put her hands on Rork’s shoulders and massaged them. Ahead of them, the ocean rolled and pitched. “Do you see what I see?”

  “It’s the Indian Ocean.” He shrugged and arched his neck to look back at her.

  “You weren’t made for revenge. It’s too small for you.”

  He looked away. “Take your seat. We’re going to land.”

  They plunged into the soupy smog at the outskirts of Delhi on a lazy curve to the spaceport. Rork popped his restraints, stood up and grabbed her hand. They walked out of the bridge, the door swooshing out of their way and to the back of the ship.

  His stomach fluttered as the zipship auto-landed. He hit a button on the wall and the large back door unfolded. He studied the tool-packed walls of the cargo bay, then grabbed a rope and a large metal hook that hung next to a cracked helmet. They stepped out into the muggy Indian morning.

  “Follow the lux markers to Bureau of Immigration with your papers ready,” said a female voice. They stood in a large, round landing dock, its smooth gray walls at least fifteen meters high.

  At Rork’s feet, bright green arrows, each the size of his foot, popped into reality, pointing him to his left. He turned right.

  Lala scurried behind him, her hand in his. “My papers are on our ship.”

  “Mine, too.” They reached the front of the sleek zipship. He stopped. You parked too close to the damned wall.

  “There’s only one way out for each of these pods,” she said.

  Rork secured the rope to the loop at the end of the hook with a bowline knot. He measured the distance again. It was too far. He played out some of the black nylon and dropped the rest in the sand. He held the rope loosely in his left hand and grabbed the cold base of the hook in his right hand.

  “I don’t know how to climb a rope, baby.”

  He grinned. “I do.” He fixed his aim on the top of the wall. He brought the hook down and lobbed it sideways in the narrow space between the rounded bottom of the ship and the only obstacle to their escape.

  Lala crossed her arms and frowned.

  The hook bounced off the top edge of the wall, whistled back down and lodged in the sand at Lala’s feet.

  Her frown intensified.

  He suppressed a laugh. “Relax.” He arched himself back, one foot pointing at the wall, the opposite hand next to his head. He threw it overhand and the flying claw passed over the top of the wall. He pulled tight on the rope and heard a soft clank. He grabbed the rope in both hands and pulled down on it. It went tight, then stretched a little. He raised a victorious eyebrow at her.

  She sniffed.

  Rork pointed to his back with an index finger.

  She shook her head.

  Hard footsteps sounded on metal. He kneeled down and looked under the ship. A pair of black-booted feet hunted them.

  “We gotta go.” He turned and grabbed the black rope in his two hands. He put his feet against the too-smooth wall and tilted his head.

  “I don’t like this!” She wrapped her arms around his neck and her thin legs around his waist.

  He began to climb.

  “Hey! Get down from there!” said a voice below them.

  Rork put one hand over the other, one foot above the other. His blue-haired servant girl was light but her weight pulled on his neck and his throat rasped as the air struggled to enter his lungs. “Are they armed?” he whispered. Her weight shifted.

  “No. Immigration people.”

  The rope slipped and they fell a meter. She yelped. His heart leapt.

  Buff jumped to Rork’s shoulder and dug his claws in just below his collarbone. Rork made a face.

  “You’re only going to injure yourselves,” the immigration agent said from below.

  “Are we going to make it?” she whispered.

  Her breath tickled his neck. He shuddered and the pain came back. His legs fell and they hung there, bobbing up and down on the bouncy line. He groaned and felt her breathing fast, her chest pushing into his back, her palm sweaty on his cheek.

  “Come on, baby,” she whispered.

  He saw the top of the wall now. It was a peaked, soot-blackened cement. Irregular shards of glass poked out of it. The hook was lodged in something beyond the limits of his vision but the cable was snagged on a particularly ragged piece of glass. He put one hand above the other and saw that for each movement, the rope rubbed against the sharp edge and another strand of it severed.

  A helicopter appeared above them. “This is Delhi Immigration Control. You will return to your ship now.” The one-person chopper angled forward and its spinning blades edged to within three meters of them. The operator, if it had one, sat inside a reflective glass bubble.

  The wind blew Rork’s hair back. He pulled them up once more and grabbed two fingers onto the cement peak between shards of glass.

  “We have to go back down!” Her grip around his neck loosened.

  Rork looked down. It was a long fall. He grabbed her forearm and pulled it closer to his neck.

  The helicopter floated forward and its blades nicked a glass shard, sending a chip into Rork’s forehead. He saw the flash of light and felt something burn through his scalp. He closed his eyes and the wave of hurt coursed through his body. Life returned to his legs despite his sluggish muscle control.

  “You will comply with Earth immigration procedures or face corrective action,” said a voice from the chopper. It floated closer.

  Rork relaxed his bicep and hung there. The men moved in below them. The line jerked and the rope frayed further. Not more than a half-dozen strands stood between them and a long fall to the ground below. Not to mention detention and being locked in a cage, somewhere underground. They’ll charge her as my accomplice. He felt her hot breath on his neck.

  The chopper drew closer. The tip of its landing skids appeared just above Rork’s head. He jabbed his left hand into the air and wrapped it around the padded, narrow plastic. He pulled himself up. With the other hand, he pressed in the cockpit door handle. It popped open.

  A whizzing sound tickled Rork’s ear and the helicopter bubble exploded above them. Pieces of plastic rained on them. She took her hand from Rork’s neck and held it in front of his eyes. There was blood on it.

  “Stop or I will fire again!” said the voice from below.

  Rork pulled himself up into the helicopter. He disengaged the mechanical arm from the stick of the remote-controlled aircraft and pulled it hard to the right.

  Lala settled next to him in the tiny cabin, her feet pulled up into her chest, her face buried in her knees. Buff jumped to her and wrapped his body around her neck.

  Bullets whizzed through the protective bubble. The plastic cracked and fault lines spread across its surface, obscuring Rork’s view. He leaned to the right as the world rotated around in the opposite direction.

  “Is it almost over!” She dug her fingernails into his shoulder.

  The back of the undersized aircraft shuddered and Rork felt himself pushed forward. The rotors above them slowed and made an awful grinding noise before dying completely.

  “Rork!”

  They glided towards a green area pockmarked by pools of water. Beyond it, a series of irregular, corrugated metal roofs meant they would land in a densely packed slum.

  “We’re going to crash but it should be soft. Strap in!” he yelled.

  The engines picked up again and they rose.

  Rork frowned. He pushed the stick forward. Something snapped. Metal met metal and the chopper spun. Metal roofs. Soft green land. Metal roofs. Damn!

  He let go of the controls and pull
ed her into him. A deafening pop sounded, then nothing. Everything went bright white. Rork bounced into a gentle cushion and lost connection with Lala.

  6

  RORK WOKE. He lay still and listened, without any urge to remember what had happened or what might take place next. The sound of excited laughter came from far off. He tried to decipher the words but it wouldn’t come.

  He sat up and smacked his head on thick metal. He rolled to one side but was stopped again. He twisted his head the other way and opened his eyes.

  Short, thick metal bars stood between him and the rest of the dusty room. He was in a low, flat cage with a thick floor. His legs were twisted to the left and pushed up in a horizontal crouch. His back was flat to the floor of the cage. His arms were bound together at his gut. He breathed deep and his chest touched the top of the cage. A heavy odor of rot and excrement hung in the air. His stomach heaved.

  Who would think up a cage like this? He started to shake and the panic rose in him. He had to get out of here. Lala. The thought hit him like a laser blast. I’ll kill them. I will rip their—

  A door creaked and a brown-sandaled foot stepped into the room. A fine dust rose from the insistent footfalls. Chickens scratched and squawked.

  “How much?” a boy’s voice asked.

  “Ten-thousand each,” said a girl.

  “Who are they?” the boy asked.

  “No.”

  “It’s too much,” the boy said.

  “We could buy that ship.”

  Rork’s side erupted in a cramp. He bumped his legs against the top of the cage and arched his torso up to align it with his hips. But the muscles cramped. He screamed.

  Feet scuffled over and a brown sandal kicked the bars of his cage next to his nose. Dust lodged in his mouth and he spit it back out but his mouth was dry. It tasted like it smelled — musty, moldy and faintly metallic. He tried to collect the soil matter in his mouth and eject it en masse but it clung to his tongue.

  “Shut up,” the boy yelled.

  Rork moved his body up and down the best he could. “Let me out! Please! It hurts!”

  “No!” the boy kicked the cage bars again.

  Spiked motes of dust lodged in Rork’s eyes. He opened them wide and rolled them around. He blinked uncontrollably. “I have a ship! I can get you whatever you want!”