Matt & Michelle 1: The Fugitive Heir (6 page)

I felt confusion giving way to consideration in Paco’s mind. This was no time for me to let him start thinking about things.

“Michelle, I find it difficult to think with the lackey’s yammering. If you would?”

The lackey danced forward, raising a fist. “If she would, what, boy?”

A blaster report echoed through the bar, followed by a thump as the lackey fell to the floor.

Terror surged in Paco’s mind, driving away all attempts at rational thought. I had been aiming for fear and confusion, not terror.

“Don’t worry, Paco, he’ll be fine.” I turned my head in Michelle’s direction. “You did have the blaster set to stun, didn’t you?”

“Of course.” Michelle turned a serious look on Paco. “Do you have any idea how much paperwork is involved if I kill someone in the line of duty?”

Wide-eyed, Paco could only shake his head.

Michelle flashed a sweet smile. “There are so many forms, I sometimes wish I was the auditor instead of the arresting officer.”

I could have kissed Michelle right then. I’d been looking for the right words to spark emotions in Paco and she had gone right to them.

“A-auditor?”

Paco’s confusion was swept away, leaving only fear. Fear for his position on the station and, much less powerful, fear for his father.

“Oh, didn’t I mention my position, Paco? I am sorry for the oversight.”

“Um, I, uh, gotta go, now.”

“Of course. You probably want to take your friend to a doctor, just as a precaution. You never know who’s going to have an allergic reaction to stun bolts.”

“Right. Yeah. That.” Paco motioned to his two remaining lackeys, who picked up the one on the floor.

“Remember, my visit is a surprise. Don’t say a word to your father.” I checked my chrono. “I want to eat and get settled into our rooms before going to your father’s office. Why don’t you meet me there in, say, five hours?”

“You got it, sir.” Paco and his friends walked wide around Michelle and disappeared into the main corridor.

Michelle and I watched them go, then took seats at the bar.

“We don’t get no auditors out here,” the barkeep said. “You know Paco’s gonna run right to his daddy.”

“Yep. I’m counting on it.” I saw no reason to drop the part. You never knew who was listening. “We’ll each have a cheeseburger and fries.”

The man yelled the order over his shoulder and got an answering yell from the kitchen.

“You ain’t worried ‘bout them hiding all their books and stuff while you sit here eating?”

I pulled out my pad and started flipping through menus. “Who said I was just eating?”

When the barkeep left to help another customer, Michelle leaned in close.

“You aren’t actually planning to try to do an audit, are you?”

“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea what to look for.” I turned to her and kissed the end of her nose. “That whole auditor and arresting officer bit was brilliant, by the way.”

“Thank you. It seemed to fit the whole Man of Mystery spiel you were spinning.” She leaned closer to see what I was doing on my pad. Her eyebrows rose in surprise. “Why are you using one of my father’s message drops?”

“GenCo holds most of the ore contracts with Rockville Station. I looked it up before we jumped into the system.”

“So?”

“I thought it might be a good idea to have a real auditor pay this place a visit.”

Michelle buried her head in my shoulder and laughed.

A moment later, the barkeep dropped two plates in front of us. The guy in Rockville Control was right. The burger was delicious.

We spent the next several hours poking around the station. Rockville Control pinged me when they started refueling the ship. We were heading back to the
M&M
when the ambush came.

CHAPTER SIX

Ambush

Hand in hand, Michelle and I wandered back toward the docking bay. Other than our encounter with Paco and his pals, we’d had a good time on Rockville Station. There wasn’t anything of any real interest on the station, but that was the point. We cuddled while looking at the spectacular view of the system’s gas giant. We strolled down the main corridor, ducking into the odd shop just to see what was what. We bought a few trinkets from station crafters.

It was nothing special and that’s what made it special. We were just a couple out on a do-nothing date. No one gave us a second glance. Well, no one gave
me
a second glance. Michelle got a lot of second glances, but after our walk into the station through the docks, I decided it wouldn’t bother me if it didn’t bother Michelle. The day was so different than any other day I’d ever spent that I was disappointed when station control notified me that refueling was complete.

Nearing our docking bay, Michelle was the first to realize something was amiss. Holding hands, I felt her emotions shift from contented to concerned.

“Pretend like everything is fine,” she whispered, smiling brightly at me.

“Okay.” I looked around us as casually as possible. “But, I don’t see anything to be worried about.”

“
That
is what you should worry about. This place was full of dock workers when we came into the station. Now it’s empty.”

“Maybe the work shift is over?”

“It’s only four in the afternoon, local time.”

“It is?” I’d completely lost track of everything other than Michelle. “So, what do we do?”

“We can keep acting casual and draw out Paco and his gang or we can make a run for it.”

I opened my mouth to ask why she thought it was Paco and then shut it again. I’d embarrassed Paco in front of his followers. Guys like him always felt like they had to get even for things like that.

We were about midway through one of the docking compartments, one about a quarter of a kilometer long. I figured Paco’s father owned everything in the compartment and employed everyone who worked here, giving Paco the authority he needed to clear the area. If we could just get to the next compartment, we’d probably be safe.

“You’re the bodyguard. What do you think we should do?”

“Run.
Now!”

Shouts erupted as soon as we broke into a sprint. A couple of blaster bolts sizzled past, well wide of the mark. Both shots scorched the deck where they hit.

“They’re shooting to kill, Matt!”

Drawing her own blaster, Michelle thumbed off the stun setting. I did the same.

Behind us, we heard feet pounding on the deck. To the side, we saw young men pop up from behind crates and take aim at us.

Michelle snapped off three quick shots to the right and I did the same to the left. My shots went wild, but Michelle blasted apart a crate one guy hid behind. He screamed as splinters flayed him.

I half turned and fired at the four or five guys behind us. Again, I didn’t hit anyone, but they scattered, diving behind crates or dropping to the deck.

“Nice shooting, honey.” Michelle fired a few shots at the guys on the right, again blasting apart a crate.

“I was trained by the best.”

I fired shots to the left, again. One shot burned the deck next to one of Paco’s shooters. He yelped and ducked out of sight.

“Matt, look out!”

Michelle shoved me hard to the left. A blaster bolt seared the air where I’d been standing. Thrown off balance, I stumbled and fell. All sorts of training took over at that point, from gymnastics to martial arts. I tucked into a roll as I heard another bolt hit the deck somewhere behind me.

“You made me miss my shot, bitch.”

Paco’s voice sounded different than he had in the bar. It was wilder, even less in control than he’d been a few hours ago.

“Your boyfriend made me look stupid in front of my father.”

I heard him take another shot and felt my blood run cold. The weapon’s report was deeper, the sound of the bolt striking the deck louder. Without looking up, I knew Paco had gotten his hands on a blaster rifle. A person might survive shots from a pistol, but a rifle could blow away half a person’s body with any hit.

“I was going to kill him,” Paco raved on, “and save you for some fun. I’d have let you go eventually, but then you had to go and shove him away from my shot.”

I came out of my roll and up onto one knee.

To my right, Michelle was on the deck, rolling away from Paco’s shots. She was using all her training to good effect, but had too far to go to reach any kind of cover. Paco’s next shot seared the deck centimeters from her head.

“So I’m going to kill you in front of your boyfriend and then I’ll throw him out an airlock.”

I raised my blaster in a two-handed grip, just like Jonas had taught me. At the same time, Paco took aim for another shot at Michelle.

“Hey, Paco!”

My shout distracted him just for a second, delaying his next shot at Michelle. I pulled the trigger, pulled it again, and then pulled it a third time. The first shot hit Paco in the shoulder. The next two hit him right in the middle of the chest.

Paco’s eyes went wide, a puzzled look crossing his face. Then the light went out of Paco’s eyes and his body fell to the deck.

I watched Paco fall backward. Saw his body bounce slightly as it hit the deck. Watched a wisp of smoke spiral up from Paco’s chest. Heard nothing beyond the roaring of my blood and the pounding of my heart.

Movement came from my right and an angel, with deep blue eyes and a halo of golden hair, slid between me and Paco. She grabbed my shoulder and shouted at me, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Though she blocked my view of Paco, I still saw him with my mind’s eye. Saw the spiraling wisp of smoke thicken and the hole in Paco’s chest burning brighter, consuming Paco in an ever-widening circle.

Sharp pain exploded from my left cheek, and then from my right cheek. I blinked and the angel’s face swam into focus.

“I killed him, Michelle.”

“I know, Matt, and I’ll help you deal with it. But right now we’ve got to get out of here.”

Michelle leaned to the side, gripping her blaster with both hands, and snapped off five shots in quick succession.

“Paco’s boys are getting over their shock, Matt. We’re going to die here if you can’t put Paco out of your mind until we’re safe.”

My memory replayed the blaster bolts burning a hole in the chest, but this time it was Michelle’s chest. That brought me out of it.

Spinning on my knees, I added my blaster fire to Michelle’s. Paco’s gang scattered from our combined fire, still skittish after seeing their leader killed.

Michelle jumped to her feet, pulling me up with her. “Let’s go!”

We dashed toward the door out of this compartment, the door that led to safety. As we sprinted past Paco, Michelle bent over and scooped up Paco’s blaster rifle. A bright flash splattered against the wall near the door, followed by another one.

Michelle spun about and fired the blaster rifle from the hip. “Keep running. Get the door open.”

The deep report of the rifle echoed again and again, as Michelle laid down covering fire for me. I smacked the control for the door and it began grinding open.

“Michelle! Come on.”

Already backpedaling in my direction, Michelle turned and ran. I dashed through and found the controls on the other side. A bolt scorched the deck just inside the door as Michelle slipped through the widening opening. I slapped the controls and the door reversed itself, grinding shut again.

“The ship?” I asked as we ran from the doors.

“Yes.” Michelle gasped.

All around us, dockworkers stared. Then another bolt flew through the closing door. It didn’t hit anyone, but it startled the workers into action. They dove behind crates and ran clear of our path.

I heard the door’s mechanism give a clunk as it reversed yet again. Blaster shots echoed in this new compartment and the air around us was filled with little bolts of lightning. Then we ran out of the compartment and into the docking bay. The airlock to the
M&M
was just meters away.

We ran past a surprised station official waving a datapad in my direction.

“Hey, you need to approve the charges.”

Michelle and I slid through the outer airlock.

“I trust you. Keep my deposit. And I’d run if I were you.”

We slammed the outer hatch in his face. I spun the locking wheel while Michelle opened the inner hatch.

“Take the controls and get us moving, Matt. I’ll seal the hatches.”

“On it!”

I slid into the pilot seat of the ship and keyed the emergency startup sequence. It skipped a few safety protocols and wasted energy, but we didn’t have five minutes to go through the normal sequence. Michelle slipped into the copilot chair as the startup completed.

“Can you break free of the docking clamps and the tractor beam?” Her brow was furrowed in concern.

“Don’t believe everything you see in the vids, Michelle. Military tractor beams are the only ones strong enough to stop a ship. The magnetic docking clamps aren’t strong enough to hold us, either.”

Muffled banging began on the station hatch. Too late to stop us, Paco’s boys had caught up.

I shoved the maneuvering thrusters to full throttle. The ship bucked a bit as it broke free of the magnetic clamps and shook again as it pulled out of the tractor beam.

Rockville Station didn’t attract much starship traffic, but it had a lot of in-system mining ships coming and going at all times. Much as I wanted to just punch the throttle and blast toward the wormhole on a column of fusion-powered flame, I couldn’t. My hands flew over the ship’s controls, weaving in and out of the local ships as fast as I could manage.

“
M&M
, this is Rockville Control. You are not cleared for departure and are ordered to return to the station.”

Michelle took the comm. “No can do, Rockville Control. We’ve got a pressing appointment somewhere else.”

A new voice replaced the controller. “This is Station Security Chief Tucker. You
will
return to this station for questioning concerning the death of a station citizen.”