Pirates of the Outrigger Rift (26 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

T
he hangar was not crowded. In fact, it was practically deserted. “I think this is going to be easier than we thought,” Brock said.

“Shut up. Every time someone says something like that, it jinxes me,” Chandler said.

As they entered the hangar, they retreated to an alcove to remove the manacles from Hank and Helen. Chandler handed Hank his comlink, his pistol, and Sai’s whisperblade.

Hank glanced at the whisperblade, then slipped it in his pocket because he had no idea how to use the damn thing. He readied his pistol.

Helen was still scared, but for a different reason. She thought she was no longer in the hands of enemies, but lunatics.

“Stay with us, Helen. We’ll get you home,” Chandler said.

“Thanks,” Helen said.

Hank sneaked a peek out into the hangar and did a head count. “I see only four guys out there, and most of the ships are gone.”

“Great,” said Brock.

“Not great. That means it will be easier to get a ship, but harder to get away. Those ships are patrolling out there. We blast out and they intercept us. We’d better be ready for a firefight.”

They kept to the shadows, moving along the hangar wall to the nearest ship. It was Marauder class, and although it wasn’t pretty, it looked functional. It was large enough for three, but it could hold four people if they were friendly. Most importantly, it was fast and already lined up in a launch chute, ready to fly.

It was a simple matter to enter the ship unobserved—the vessels were not guarded. Brock and Helen strapped in while Hank and Chandler got in the cockpit seats and checked out the controls.

Hank had never flown a Marauder, but the layout was typical. He flipped a few switches and checked the status board. Everything looked okay.

“I don’t like this ship,” Hank said.

“Why?” Chandler asked.

“No cup holder.” He glanced back at them. “Are you all ready?”

“As ready as we’ll ever be,” Brock said.

Helen clutched the arms of her chair with all her might. “I guess,” she said.

“Okay, let’s go!” Hank reached for the row of engine control buttons. He intended to do a shit-hot takeoff that would hopefully damage the hangar and possibly rupture the air seal on the base. It would be gravy.

He hit the launch control and nothing happened.

“You know,” Brock said. “I just thought of something. They probably took all the ships that worked when they left on patrol.”

“Remind me to strangle you later,” Chandler said.

Suddenly the ship stuttered to life. The engines caught, or tried to.

“Everybody stay strapped in. I think we may be in for an interesting ride.”

The engines finally powered up, and the force of the takeoff pressed them into their seats as the ship left the base for clear space. They gained speed, and the base started disappearing in the distance behind them. It looked good.

For a few seconds.

Almost immediately, Hank and Chandler saw the pirate fleet. They were evidently on their way back from patrol. A formation of at least one hundred Marauders approached, led by Glenn’s flagship.

“Okay, now what?” asked Hank.

“You’re the hotshot pilot,” Chandler said. “I did my job back there.”

“Thanks.”

He took a hard turn to starboard and hit the afterburners, hoping to get a head start. He was sure the alarm had been sounded as soon as their ship left for its unauthorized cruise. Immediately, the fleet turned toward him and moved to intercept.

Hank was familiar with the territory, but unfortunately, so were the pirates, and his memories were almost ten years old. A lot changes in such a chaotic region. He wished he had
Elsa
instead of this junker.

Then he remembered his comlink. “Elsa, this is Hank. Are you out there?”

“Hank! What happened? Where are you?”

“I’d love to chat, but there are about a hundred pirates who want a piece of me,” Hank said. “They may be monitoring our transmissions, so I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point if I can shake these jerks.”

“Got it.”

Hank smiled and looked at Chandler. “Contingency plan.”

Already the ships were beginning to close in. Even though they weren’t yet in range, some of the ships were firing. Glenn’s flagship, faster than the others, was gaining.

He had to buy some time. Hank cut around a small asteroid and dove between two intersecting hunks of debris that might once have been the hulls of spacecraft.

He hit the com. “Hey there, pirate scumbags, this is Hank Jensen. I have something that is very important to you on board. You don’t want to screw up and hurt Randol’s kid. Tell your men to back off.”

Glenn’s voice answered. “You can’t get away, Jensen. We will follow you wherever you go. There is no escape, so why not let us have the girl? I promise that you and your friends will be released.”

Hank grinned. “Somehow I doubt your sincerity.”

“You might as well trust me, as the alternative isn’t pretty. If you force me to chase you, I promise to make you the nightly entertainment for a month.”

“Sorry, I don’t do stand-up.”

“You won’t have to do anything but scream.”

“Cheerful guy,” said Chandler. “I wouldn’t piss him off if I were you.”

“Now you tell me?” Hank said.

“His name is Glenn,” Brock said. “Maybe I can talk to him.”

“What the hell is the leader doing out on a patrol?” Chandler asked.

“He’s surrounded by idiots, so he’s keeping a hands-on approach until he can find a few decent men. He’s actually reasonable as pirates go.”

“Yeah, he sounded real reasonable,” Chandler said. “Let’s get out of here quick.”

Hank angled around and pushed his thrusters to the limit as they entered the outskirts of the Rift itself. The ship bucked and rocked as it encountered pockets of space-time distortion. Glenn and his men followed, splitting up into two groups, the smaller following directly behind Hank’s ship while the other veered to one side to try to maneuver into a pincer formation.

The blaster fire stopped, so apparently his talk with Glenn had at least served to cut down on those itchy trigger fingers.

What he really feared was that Glenn’s flagship would get close enough to use its tractor beam. If that happened it would be all over.

Hank dodged rocks and debris, left and right, searching the viewscreen for a landmark in order to get his bearings. He checked the coordinates and knew where he needed to go. Glenn’s ship gained ground slowly but steadily.

A few of the other Marauders were entering weapons range, so Hank activated the computer-controlled rear guns. He took one of the vessels by surprise and clipped it across the bow. Most of the other shots missed, but it was the psychological effect that counted. He could shoot them, but they couldn’t shoot back. At least not without risking the wrath of their leader. It wasn’t fair, but life was rough.

Up ahead, Hank saw what he had been looking for: the chance to ditch some of his pursuers.

Suddenly, the ship was struck hard by something in the debris field. Hank read the severity of the damage in the now-sluggish controls and the warning lights that turned his lime-green status board into a blazing red inferno.

“Shit.”

“Is everything all right?” Helen asked.

“No, everything is not all right. The rear guns have overloaded and it looks like we’re down to fifty percent power on the drive. Our only weapons are forward and we wouldn’t have a chance if we turned to face them head-on.”

Hank brought up a tactical display on the viewscreen. It plotted the positions of their ship and the pirate fleet, superimposed against a backdrop of the sensor scan and star map of the area. “The good news is that I know where I am.”

“I’ll take all the good news I can get,” Chandler said.

“Do you see that large derelict?” Hank asked, pointing to the display of a wrecked starcruiser, ten times the size of their ship, that lay drifting nearby.

Chandler nodded. “Yes, it’s hard to miss. What about it?”

“In my younger days, I used to prospect for salvage in the Rift. I think I can guide us through a breach in its hull. We can sit in its belly and attach ourselves there with a magnetic anchor.”

“Okay,” Chandler said. “Now explain why?”

“That’s where a little prior knowledge comes in,” Hank said with a smile. “Do you see that debris directly ahead? I know for a fact that there is an old-style nuclear drive pod in it, and some unexpended fuel. We used to stay clear of it. There’s enough radiation to curb your reproductive ability permanently. No salvage value, but I think I can make some use of it.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Trust me,” Hank said. “I’m gonna tear them a new one.”

Chandler moved in close to Hank and looked him in the eye. “Are you sure it will work?”

Hank looked back. “Truthfully? I have no idea,” he said.

There was a pause, then Chandler shrugged. “What the hell, let’s go for it. I got nothing better.”

“Fair enough. Hold on, y’all.” Hank activated the braking thrusters and swerved to port, yelling “Yahoo!” as the ship followed his command. The sudden maneuver overwhelmed the ship’s G-force dampers, throwing the passengers around the cockpit.

Helen screamed. “You people are crazy! I think I was safer as a hostage.”

Hank imagined he could hear Glenn cursing him as the larger ship passed over Hank’s position. He managed to take a fair lead by the time Glenn could turn and follow. Building up every bit of speed he could muster on a straight vector, he prepared for the second turn that would take him to the derelict cruiser.

“Three … two … one … now!”

Hank kicked in the braking thrusters again and took a nosedive toward the derelict. He cut so close to a large piece of space junk that he clenched his teeth, expecting to hear the screech of metal on metal. Quickly, he reversed thrust and made last-second corrections as the derelict loomed huge on a collision course.

The hull breach was where he remembered it. The craft slowed to a crawl, and gently he guided it inside. Hovering in place, he spun the ship around to face the outside.

Hank brought the ship down against the hull with a dull thud. He switched the mags on, anchoring the ship. He fiddled with the forward targeting controls for a moment, then cinched his G-harness tightly about him and crossed his fingers. “You guys really ought to double-check those harnesses. Just a suggestion. Oh, and if there are any cushions back there, I would put them around your head.”

Helen and Chandler scrambled to comply.

“Okay, this is going to be bad, isn’t it?” Helen said.

“Oh yeah, this is going to suck,” Chandler answered.

As the wave of Marauders passed by in front of them, Hank daintily pressed the fire control button. “Bye-bye.”

The small ship lurched from the recoil as the forward gun fired. A rolling ball of burning plasma hurtled outward toward the leaking nuclear drive pod.

Glenn changed course, hoping that his wave of fighters would flush Jensen out. He saw the flash of the gun shoot from the derelict and laughed. It was like a bee stinging a bear’s ass. Merely an annoyance.

The plasma round raced ahead with perfect precision, hitting the drive unit of the old vagabond ship dead-on. A chain reaction followed as the unexpended fuel around the drive erupted into nuclear fire. Glenn had only enough time to mutter a surprised curse before half his fleet was engulfed.

The shock waves from the blast buffeted his ship but did no serious damage. “Damn it, Jensen!” Glenn screamed. “That was brilliant! Are you kidding me?”

Everyone looked at him.

He looked around at his bridge crew. “What? Didn’t you guys see that? One man in a damned Marauder. Why can’t I get people like that?”

He decided right then and there that the informant could go to hell. Daughter of a lord onboard or not, Glenn was going to blast Jensen’s ship out of the sky. The so-called informant was not as invulnerable as he seemed, and Glenn was not Thorne; he thought for himself.

Glenn watched and waited. As soon as the blast debris cleared, he was rewarded with the sight of the stolen Marauder sneaking back out of the derelict that Jensen had used as a protective shield.