Marauder Kronos: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Mating Wars) (9 page)

F
iring
?

I can feel Jerky’s panic deep in my bones. At his urging, I hold up my other hand – the one not forming a five-kilometer long – and growing – tendril attached to a super-fast spaceship. My free hand forms into a big shield.

Moments later I feel heat slam into and radiate across the shield.

“Plasma beam is on us,” Lila says, “but Minna’s biosuit is shielding us.”

No shit.

“Can we fire some torpedoes at it?” Kronos asks.

“That would destroy most of the loot, crewman!” Ramu shouts over the comms.

“Delphie?” I ask. “Any ideas?”

“The plasma turret seems fixed. The ship had to re-orient itself straight toward us just to fire. If you hold it in place like that, Minna, it will be stuck pointing at your shield.”

My stomach churns. The real problem is that this is a game of chicken. Can the ship power its plasma beam longer than I can hold up the shield? Do I have more food in me than the enemy ship has power? If I guess wrong, I’ll die, and then everyone on board will, too.

“Wait,” I say, “so I can just point the thing away from us then.”

“The plasma beam would cut across the unshielded parts of our ship as you pulled,” Delphie says. “You have to keep it on the shield...or you’d have to move the shield.”

I nod. I can already feel the ship struggling against my tendril, trying to re-aim toward a part of the ship I can’t shield.

“I need to cut loose.”

“No!” Kronos says, tightening his grip on me.

“You’ve got the winch,” she says. “Just be ready to reel me back in if needed.”

“It’s not safe – ”

“Kronos,” I say. “If I hold this shield much longer, I’ll die. We’ll all die. Nothing is safe right now.”

“Fuck,” he says. “I should never have let you do this.”

“You didn’t
let
me do anything,” I say. “I chose to do this. And I don’t regret it.”

I make Jerky release the bonds to the floor, and I jump out of the airlock. I shoot a tendril back and hook myself to the outer hull. I can still feel the heat on the shield. Now that I’m outside of the tight confines of the airlock, I expand the shield as much as I dare. As it widens – and thins – I feel the heat more intensely, but I need the extra wiggle room if I’m going to do this.

I start to tug on the kilometers-long tendril, it pulls on the back of the scout ship, which forces the plasma cannon to move slowly along our ship. As I feel the epicenter of the heat blast moving, I crawl along the outer hull of the ship, keeping the shield up and pointed at the source of the beam. I have to make the movements all slow. If I pull too fast, I risk the beam hitting the ship directly.

“I told you we should have gotten a light sail!” Delphie says. “It not only saves on fuel costs, but it would have perfectly defended us in this situation.”

“It was Ramu or a lightshield,” Kronos says. “I don’t hear you complaining about Ramu.”

I hear Delphie’s teeth grinding through the comms.

“Crewman Kronos is right,” Ramu says. “Not only am I more valuable, but a lightsail wouldn't just have shielded us, it would also have pushed us
away
from the scout. We’d never have caught it.”

“Instead of the extra energy being converted to propulsion,” I say, “it’s making me hungry as hell. There better be something ready to eat when I get back in there.”

“You need help,
Time’s End?
” Malcolm asks. “I have a clear shot on the scout ship.”

“It’s your call, Minna,” Ramu says. “Can you handle this?”

“I’ve got it,” I say.

I’m near the back end of the
Time’s End
now. The beam will soon be pointed away from us, with no hope of pointing at us again so long as I hold it tight.

“No,” Kronos says. “We want him to help us, I’m not risking Minna.”

“Sorry, crewman,” Ramu says. “I’ve muted everyone’s comms but mine out to Malcolm. He can only hear me, and as acting captain, I’ve asked crewwoman Minna if she can handle this, and she said she can. I trust my crew.”

“You asshole!” Kronos grunts. “I only made you captain – ”

“But you did make me captain,” Ramu says. “So let’s see what your girl can do. Captain Ramu ain’t begging a peacekeeper for help.”

I reach to the engines, and I realize I can’t actually get too close to them. They are shooting out fusion-heated blasts of reaction mass, and shielding myself from that would drain me even faster.

“Don’t get mad, Kronos,” I say, “but I’m going to do something risky. Be ready to reel me in.”

Jerky launches me off the ship and I fly through space, tethered only by the harpoon rope and the winch. I float out so that I’m between the enemy ship’s plasma cannon and our engines, and I keep rotating the scout ship to stay fixed on me as I fly. I’m having to tug faster on it now, and the extra strength required for that is draining. It’s also harder to keep the ship fixed on me – I feel the beam coasting toward the outer edges of my shield several times; one slip off my shield and the
Time’s End
is toast.

And then I hear Lila’s voice. “Clear!”

I pull hard on the enemy ship, and I see the beam floating out uselessly into the space past us, and finally it cuts off.

“All right,” Ramu’s voice says. “We’ll be moving just a bit faster than the scout ship in a few minutes. Prepare to board.”

“Good thing you guys caught that thing,” Malcolm says, “because all the other ones got away.”

* * *

K
ronos grabs hold
of me the moment he reels me back in. It’s a good thing he did reel me back in, because I’m totally spent and starving, and propelling myself back in with the biosuit would have used up the last of my energy.

I hug him back, squeezing his broad shoulders. “Sorry, Captain, but I knew I could do it.”

“You did great,” he says. “I’m sorry for...it’s not that I didn’t trust you.”

“I know.”

“I knew you could do it, but if something had gone wrong, I don’t know if I could have forgiven myself.”

“It was my call!” Ramu grunts.

Kronos shuts the outer airlock and seals it. There’s a hiss of air as the airlock begins to pressurize.

When the light turns green, Kronos removes his helmet. I let mine fall away.

We kiss, it’s slow and warm rather than rushed and desperate. We both know by now that neither of us is going anywhere, and we can really start to enjoy being together rather than feeling as if something is going to rip us apart at a moment’s notice.

He pulls away and says, “Ramu may not give command back to me.”

“It’s your ship,” I say.

He nods. “But computers don’t work that way. I made him acting captain, and he’ll have to voluntarily relinquish control now.

“Just act normal,” I say. “Don’t cast doubt on him. Trust your crew.”

I smile, and he laughs.

When we reach the command room, Ramu jolts up. “Ah! Crewman and crewwoman.”

“Captain,” Kronos says.

“Kronos, you gotta’ be captain again. I can’t handle all this shit with Malcolm. I just want to go raid that juicy scout ship!”

I give Kronos a look, and his ears twitch. “Okay, Ramu, just order Lila to make me captain again.”

“Lila,” he says, “make Kronos captain again.”

“Yes, crewman,” she says. “Captain Kronos, you are now captain again, Captain.”

Kronos’s ears perk up. “Great.”

“Now fucking deal with Malcolm, Cap,” Ramu says. “He’s going all irate and shit.”

“On screen,” Kronos says.

Malcolm is shouting. “
Do not
step one foot on that scout!”

“What about the contract?” Kronos says. “It’s our right.”

“What does your scanner say is on board there?” Malcolm asks.

“Mute our broadcasts to Malcolm,” Kronos says. “Lila? What do the scans show?”

Lila chirps. “It’s very, very advanced. Beyond my comprehension, unfortunately.
A lot
of antimatter though, that’s for sure.”

“How much?” I ask, nearly drooling.

“Enough to move the scout ship to several other star systems. Or enough to destroy Mars.”

“Shit!” Ramu says, his eyes bugging out of his sockets. “That belongs to
us
now, Cap! The contract fucking says it!”

Kronos falls into his seat. “They’re not going to let us keep it.”

“The contract! Right, Minna?” Ramu says. His eyes are wild and searching, like he’s just won the greatest prize of his life, and he’s looking for confirmation that it’s not all too good to be true.

I pull up the contract. “There’s a clause in here that says we are still subject to certain inter-solar laws. My guess is that even if we take that antimatter, the lawyers will find a way to say that private citizens – especially pirates – cannot own or sell antimatter.”

“Fuck!” Ramu says, slamming his fist on the console. “What is the point of the fucking contract if they can just be all tricky with it?”

“Being tricky is usually the point of a contract,” Delphie mumbles under her breath.

“Al lright,” Kronos says. “Here’s what we do then. We get Malcolm to cut us the best deal we can while he’s still desperate and shouting. I agree with Minna that they aren’t going to let us keep this or sell it to some psycho, but any deal we sign right here is probably going to stick. We can sell the antimatter to the peacekeepers.”

“Hurry then!” Ramu shouts. “Make the offer!”

Kronos unmutes Malcolm and says, “Fifteen million.”

“What?” Malcolm’s face scrunches up.

“Give us 15 million Venusian Rubles and we will keep our hands off the scout.”

“No,” Malcolm says. “Now – ”

Kronos cuts off the comms to Malcolm. “Starting engines.”

“What are you doing?” I ask Kronos, squeezing his arm.

“I’m bluffing,” he whispers. “This Malcolm guy seems low on the totem pole. If he just refuses to cut a deal with us, he can wait for one of his superiors to get here. But what do you think he’s more afraid of? Us tampering with the scout or telling his superiors that they owe us 15 million?”

“What if he calls your bluff and lets you onto the scout?” I ask.

“If we have the antimatter on our ship,” Kronos says, “then maybe even his superiors will cut a deal with us.”

He flicks his ears at me.

I can’t exactly protest this idea. My biosuit is just as illegal as the antimatter – if not more – and I refuse to give it up to the peacekeepers. Kronos is a pirate, and I’ve got to let him steal and sell
something
.

“Okay!” Malcolm shouts. “Cut the engines and I’ll cut a deal with you.”

Kronos pulls the engines down to 1 percent.

“I said cut them,” Malcolm growls.

Kronos unmutes the comms. “I gotta’ keep the pressure on you. High stakes deal here.”

“Fifteen million is too much. I can do five.”

Ramu starts laughing.

Five is a lot. Enough for all of us to retire on...but I’m not the captain.

“Fifteen,” Kronos says.

“Eight,” Malcolm says, teeth clenched, and anger seeping into his voice.

“We don’t take eight million?” Kronos asks, looking back at the crew. “Do we?”

“Hell no!” Delphie shouts.

“Fifteen,” Kronos says.

“Ten! Final fucking offer!” Malcolm says.

The crew all starts nodding.

“Deal then,” Kronos says, cutting the engines.

Another ship shows up on the map just as Kronos cuts the engines.

“Who is that?” I ask, pointing.

“It’s another peacekeeper,” Lila answers. “Malcolm’s superior. Seems we made the deal just in time.”

Two more faces appear on the screen. One is an extremely young looking Marauder, barely 25 years old, and the other is a Seraph of the same age.

“This is Ramses Ivanov,” the Seraph says.

“And Kain, son of Grius,” the Marauder says.

Malcolm’s face looks nervous. “Kain, Ramses, there is a significant amount of antimatter on this ship. The pirate – privateers – managed to stop it. Per the contract they have – ”

“Cut the shit,” Kain says. “What did you tell them they get?”

“Ten million, sir.”

Ramses laughs. “You shouldn’t have gone over five. These assholes would have taken five.”

“It’s Captain Kronos,
sir
,” Kronos says, flapping his ears at the screen.

“All right, Captain Kronos,” Ramses says. “You get to keep your 10 million, we’re good on our word.”

Kronos gives me a look, and I smile at him.

“But you’re a dumbass!” Kain barks.

“Why’s that?” Kronos asks.

“You should have negotiated yourself out of the privateer contract while you had your hands on Malcolm’s balls.”

“Shit!” Ramu shouts.

Delphie’s ears fall flat, and she stares down at the ground. “We really are dumbasses.”

“So,” Ramses says, “privateer. We’ve got an assignment for you. A dangerous one. We’re going to milk you dry during your one-year contract, then you can enjoy your money.”

“
T
he city of Atlantis
?” I ask. “Are you guys trying to pull a prank on me or –?”

“Quiet, privateer!” Malcolm shouts.

“Atlantis is real, and it’s a planet, not a city!” Ramses says. “Kain and I would know. We’ve been there – fought there. We’ve analyzed that scout, and it doesn’t just have a shitload of antimatter, it also has a full copy of Harmony on it.”

“So…,” I say, “you want me to take a copy of Harmony to a planet that no one knows exists? What’s to stop her from just setting that planet up as her second base?”

“It’s a risk,” Ramses says. “One we need to take. Atlantis has a field around it that disables all advanced technology. When you get into orbit, we’ll check the copy of Harmony and see if the field shuts it down.”

“And then what?” I ask.

“Atlantis is full of Atlanteans,” Ramses says. “We want to give the copy of Harmony to them.”

“We trust them?” Minna asks.

“We trust them to destroy Harmony,” Ramses says. “Or to at least find a way to scan the copy and figure out what the fuck she’s trying to do.”

Delphie coughs. “I think I have an idea what she’s doing.”

“Who is that?” Kain asks.

“My chief engineer,” I say.

“She’s your only engineer!” Malcolm says. “That doesn’t make her a chief!”

“Do any of you play computer games?” Delphie asks.

The faces on the screen all give each other looks, their ears flapping up and down.

“Just listen,” Delphie says. “There are a lot of games where you have a big base and build up big armies and attack enemy bases. Say you’ve been playing the game for an hour just building up a huge army, what do you think you do right before you attack?”

“I grew up on Darkstar,” Kain rasps, “I was too busy fighting for my life to play any
games
!”

“He’s scary,” Minna whispers to me.

“What do you do?” Ramses asks.

“You save the game,” Delphie says. “That way, if the attack doesn’t go how you wanted it to and your base gets wiped out, you reload your save and can try again.”

The peacekeepers all give each other looks.

I jump up. “She’s made copies of herself and sent them in all directions! She’s backed herself up in case her attack fails!”

The faces on the screen don’t look surprised.

I point at them. “You already know she’s about to attack, don’t you? That’s why you’ve got this whole privateer swarm patching itself together suddenly.”

Ramses nods. “We knew – suspected – but this makes sense. Maybe if we had been able to stop all of the backups, she’d have delayed her attack. But they’re all moving too fast to intercept. This just confirms what we suspected: that the attack is imminent.”

“Kain,” Ramses says. “Go report to my father and uncle, join up with them and be ready to fight.”

“What are you doing?” Kain asks.

“I’m going with these privateers down to Atlantis.”

“Take Malcolm with you,” Kain says.

Malcolm’s eyes widen and his ears flick up, but he quickly regains composure. “Yes, sir.”

* * *

W
e all step
aboard Malcolm’s ship. Once my whole crew is aboard, I seal the airlock behind me.

Minna grabs my hand and squeezes my arm. “Don’t worry, your ship will be safe.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Better than taking it into a battle, or having Atlantis fry all its electronics.”

“Atlantis doesn’t fry anything,” Ramses says. “It just makes everything go dormant. Everything except this bioglove.” He flexes his hand.

“So my biosuit won’t even work down there?” Minna asks.

“I read the report on it,” Ramses says. “It’s not a regular biosuit, so there’s no way to be sure. Even if it shuts down, it will be perfectly fine once we leave Atlantis.”

“
If
we leave Atlantis,” Ramu says, crossing his arms. “Must be why you were fine promising us 10 million. You know you only have to pay it to us if we survive.”

“Believe it or not,” Ramses says, “the Atlanteans are reclusive and seem very reluctant to fight. The main reason I’m dragging this Harmony corpse to them is to goad them into finally lifting a finger to help us rather than sitting on their asses. Atlantis is cold and creeping with giant spiders, but – ”

Minna grabs my arm and squeezes.

“But,” Ramses continues, “if I thought we were going to be fighting a battle down there, I’d have brought more than this skeleton crew.”

“We’re not skeletons,” Delphie huffs.

I look at the map. Atlantis shows up on the map, but I can’t see it at all through the windows. “You sure that map is right?”

“The field makes the planet invisible,” Ramses says. “We won’t see it until we’re within the field.”

“How do we land there if the field shuts down everything?” Delphie asks. “I’m a good engineer, but not that good.”

“Dropship,” Ramses says, “glides right down.”

“How do we get back up?” Minna asks.

“Primitive rocket,” Ramses says. “Took us a while to construct one that worked within the field, but we managed it. Look, as much as I don’t want to give you assholes 10 million rubles, I’ve got a wife and kid back home. I’m going down there with you, so I’m doing everything I can to get us off this planet alive.

We load onto the dropship. I sit next to Minna. I considered making her stay on the peacekeeper ship, but she’d have been alone. With the possibility of Harmony attacking, maybe being on the surface of Atlantis is the safest place in the solar system right now.

But I don’t trust Ramses. I saw the look on Malcolm’s face when Ramses first mentioned we’d be landing on Atlantis.

“I’m afraid of spiders,” Minna whispers to me. “Very afraid.”

I squeeze her hand. “I’ll squash any spider that gets near you. Do you think Malcolm’s afraid of spiders, too?”

“No, why?”

“He looked really uneasy when Ramses said he needed to go to Atlantis with us.”

“Ask him.”

“Yo, Malcolm!” I shout across the dropship.

“What?”

“You holding some information back on us? You know something about this place that should have us worried?”

“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” Ramses says.

“So he told you?” Delphie says. “You know what it is, but we don’t get to know?”

“It’s a rumor,” Ramses says. “The chance of it being true is low enough that we can’t afford to plan around it.”

“Malcolm shit his pants over a rumor?” I ask.

“Quiet, pirate!” Malcolm hisses.

“Okay,” Ramses says. “If you all promise to shut the hell up, I’ll tell you. Then we are launching this dropship either way. Kain was working undercover on Darkstar, where he recruited Malcolm –”

“Ha!” I say, pointing. “I knew you were Fallen Seraphim! And you went to
Darkstar
to act on it? You fell for all that shit?”

Malcolm unbuckles his harness and lunges at me, but Ramses grabs him and holds him back.

“Quiet!” Ramses shouts. “Sit the fuck down, Malcolm.”

Malcolm sits back down, but doesn’t strap in. He glares at me, his ears twitching up and down.

“Malcolm saw the error of his ways and he helped Kain escape. He also fought to defeat Darkstar’s High Command.”

“Wow,” I say sarcastically. “A true fucking hero.”

“Better than being a pirate!” Malcolm spits.

“Malcolm was on Darkstar longer than Kain. Just before he left, he overheard some Marauders talking of leaving Darkstar to go settle on Atlantis.”

“So there are Darkstar Marauders on Atlantis?” Ramu says, laughing. “Let me at ‘em.”

“There
might
be,” Ramses says. “If there are, they’ll be fighting us with basic weaponry. I have a bioglove and enough antimatter to power it for years. We’ll be fine.”

I cross my arms. “Any other surprises for us?”

“Everyone strap in,” Ramses says. “We’re going down.”