Wings of Pegasus Read online

  She waited just a few seconds, and then she pulled the knife out as Brewer’s body fell with a cold thud. She wiped off her blade on the side of his shirt, a largely pointless effort to clear away the mess. Then she stood up and slipped back into the shadows, and on to her next destination.

  She uttered one sentence, a rushed whisper whose meaning only she knew, and then she was gone.

  “One down…”

  * * *

  Carmichael walked into the room, each of his arms extended and wrapped around a buxom, and scantily clad woman. The three of them had been downstairs, but now, the gangster had decided to retire to a more private place, for a little one on two recreation.

  His tastes in such areas were rather perverse, and even violent at times, but the women had been well-paid, and if either of them complained, well, the District had no shortage of such professionals, and another body or two found in some garbage strewn lot somewhere wasn’t going to trigger any kind of red alert among the authorities.

  “Over there.” He pulled his arms free, and he gestured toward a very large piece of furniture, some kind of strange combination of a bed and a massive sofa. “Undress.”

  The two women walked across the room, and after the third step, the one on the left winced and crumpled to the ground.

  Carmichael scowled. “I knew you had too much to drink. Now get back on your feet, unless you want a real beating this time.” Even as he was finishing his drunken rant, the other woman dropped like stone. The gangster turned around, reaching for the weapon he suddenly realized he’d left on his desk. Then he felt something, a sharp pinprick…and he collapsed next to the women.

  “I always suspected you were a sick and twisted piece of shit, Carmichael, but you’re more disgusting than I’d even imagined.”

  The voice was familiar, and the gangster’s stomach shriveled inside him. He struggled to move, putting everything he could muster into the effort. But to no avail.

  “It’s a very good paralytic, wouldn’t you say, Carmichael? All the more intriguing because, while it renders the victim completely helpless, it does nothing at all to dull the pain centers of the brain. In fact, there are those who claim it enhances such feeling.” Andi paused, and then she added, “It’s a derivation of the Blast narcotic. I was just explaining to your friend, Brewer, how to make a highly effective poison from that banned substance. The paralytic is quite close chemically to the pure toxin, and it is made in almost the same way. But it is entirely harmless, and it wears off without effect in several hours.”

  She turned and looked down at the two woman. “I must apologize to both of you…but I couldn’t have you running downstairs and giving alarm. I’m afraid your…date…and I have some things to discuss. You’ll both have to be satisfied to sit and watch…and I fancy that you might just enjoy the festivities.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. “These are platinum Confederation credits…enough for you both to crawl out of these pathetic lives you seem to live. I have no moral problems with any trade, as long as it’s conducted fairly, but seriously ladies…choose your clients with better care than this.” She gestured toward the man who had now fallen to the ground and lay in an almost fetal position looking up.

  She looked down at Carmichael, and she set a small tablet on the floor in front of him. “Do you see these images, Carmichael? They’re my friends, Gregor and Jackal.” She sat down next to him, slowly drawing a long knife from behind her. “I thought we could talk about them for a while. They are—were—very important to me.”

  Carmichael stared at the knife, and he flailed around wildly, but only in his thoughts. His body was immobile, rigid…and the only thing he could do was look up at Andi’s blade, and at the horrifying glint in her eyes as she moved closer.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Golden Strip

  Port Royal City

  Planet Dannith, Ventica III

  Year 302 AC

  Andi Lafarge sat in one of the two plush chairs overlooking the street below. She’d intended to find some District dive to stay in…something that would have itself been a significant step up from the abandoned ruin where she’d originally intended to hide from the authorities. But she’d received a communique from Durango just before her shuttle docked, one that told her she could abandon her disguise, and throw away whatever fake travel documents she’d acquired. The unfortunate situation at the spaceport had been resolved. She wasn’t sure how that was possible, but as with everything else he’d promised her, Durango’s word had proven to be good. She passed through the arrival checkpoint with her own ID, verifying that Andi Lafarge, wanted fugitive, was now Andi Lafarge, upright citizen.

  She’d also found out that a hotel reservation was waiting in her name, not at one of the District’s seedy dives, but for a suite at the Grand Royale, right in the middle of Port Royal City’s Golden Strip. Another gesture of appreciation from Durango, and whoever he worked for.

  She appreciated the gesture, but truth be told, she found the luxury to be a bit uncomfortable so soon after Gregor and Jackal had died. She’d come to Dannith on business—personal business—and she’d settled some scores. The revenge had felt good, as such things always did at first. But when the initial satisfaction dissipated, she had been left with two cold realizations. First, her friends were gone, and no amount of vengeance would bring them back.

  And second, she had led them to their deaths.

  What the hell was Captain Lorillard thinking? I’m not ready for this. I’m not capable.

  She wanted to quit, to walk away from Pegasus and never turn back. She didn’t care about the pursuit of wealth, not as she sat there…hell, she’d have gladly gone back to the Gut and dug for food in the garbage the rest of her life if it could have brought back Gregor and Jackal.

  But she knew she couldn’t quit. There was another ghost in her mind, standing in the way, staring at her with disapproving eyes. Captain Lorillard. She didn’t know why, but he’d left the ship to her. More than that, he’d left his people to her care.

  And you just got two of them killed…

  She wasn’t sure if the thought had been hers, from the depths of her own self-loathing, or if it had come from the ethereal lips of her lost mentor…but she was sure it didn’t matter. She had led them all deep into the Badlands, and she’d come back without two of them. She would never forgive herself. She could blame the Foudre Rouge, Sector Nine, even Durango for not being clearer about what her people had been up against. But those were all excuses, cop outs. Andi had been in command. Pegasus was hers, and its crew had followed her. The blood of those who had died was on her hands. Their ghosts would haunt her until she closed her own eyes for the last time.

  She would suffer, she would torture herself. But she wouldn’t quit. That would be the ultimate breakdown, a failure to those who remained, and to the memory of the captain. And no matter how much pain she bore, she knew she could never do that. Andi Lafarge would never let anything defeat her. Not the deaths of her friends, not the guilt even then hollowing her out like a rotten tree trunk. Not the dangers that awaited, nor District gangsters and Badlands rivals. Not even Sector Nine, and all the Foudre Rouge the Union cared to throw at her.

  She might fail, she might be beaten, she might die…but she would never quit.

  Never.

  * * *

  “Andi, do you have a minute?” Lex Righter stood in the open doorway of Andi’s cabin, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.

  “Sure, Lex…what’s up?” Andi had been unpacking a few things. Durango had made good on his word, and Pegasus looked almost new. Every bit of damage, every scarred wall, was smooth and freshly polished. Andi couldn’t even comprehend what the repair job would have cost…assuming Durango had accepted any payment. Which he hadn’t.

  “Sure, Lex…come on in.”

  “I wanted to tell you something…something I’ve never told anyone else. What I told you…about Maria, about how I lost contro
l, it wasn’t true.” He paused, standing, looking very uncomfortable. “I mean, it was true about the relationship and how it ended…but it wasn’t why I…had the problems I did.”

  Andi looked back, quiet, listening. She nodded gently, but she didn’t respond. She knew Righter had more to say.

  “I was on a ship’s crew, Andi, one a lot like Pegasus. It was before I worked for Durango, about five years ago.”

  “I thought you seemed used to the Badlands. I’ve seen people out there for the first time. It gets to them, almost always…but not you. I’m not surprised to hear you’ve been there before.” Andi tried hard to keep any anger or judgment from her voice. She didn’t like being lied to, especially by one of her crew, but she could tell Righter was telling her something he rarely spoke about.

  Perhaps never spoke about.

  That was difficult honesty…the most valuable kind, and a building block of loyalty.

  “Yes, I spent a considerable amount of time in the Badlands, though most of it is a blur now. All I can remember clearly is…the last expedition.” He paused, clearly struggling to continue.

  “Lex…you don’t have to talk about this. We can just start over, move forward from here.”

  “No, Andi…I have to tell you. Pegasus already feels like home to me, and you’ve got to know the truth. Now.” He hesitated and sucked in a deep breath. “I have to tell you about Serpent, and about its crew. About my friends, my comrades…who all died out there because…” He paused again, and Andi could see tears streaming down his face. “…they all died because I couldn’t save them. Because I failed. And I was the only one who came back.”

  Andi listened to Righter’s story, and then she reached out and put her arms around him. Offering comfort wasn’t the easiest thing for her, but she understood the kind of guilt that had broken the engineer.

  “It’s okay, Lex…I blame myself, too…for Gregor and Jackal. For so many things. But we have to go on. For the others who remain…and for the memories of those no longer with us. And for ourselves.”

  She sat quietly for a moment. She’d visited Yarra Tork in the hospital. Her friend was recovering, but she faced a long road of therapy before she was back on her feet…and she’d told Andi she needed some time after that. They’d both agreed, nodded and promised each other they would be together again on Pegasus. But Andi knew it would never be. All people had their limits, and Yarra had reached hers. The fire inside her, the power that drove her into the deadly emptiness of the Badlands, had gone out. Andi wished her friend well, with all her heart, and Durango had extended his annuity grant to Yarra as well as the families of the lost crew members. She would be okay. Between Durango’s bequest, and the share of the payday Andi had insisted she accept, Yarra would live well, almost anywhere in the Confederation she chose.

  Andi was happy for her comrade, and yet to her, it was the loss of yet another friend.

  She spoke with Lex for a long time, hours, and she found some catharsis in it for herself. And when they were done, Lex Righter had found a new home, a permanent one…and Andi had accepted a new friend into her inner circle.

  And Pegasus once again had an engineer.

  * * *

  “I’m sorry, I really am, but the data chips are too badly damaged. It’s almost as though they caught a heavy dose of radiation…but of course, three centuries is a long time, and who knows what happened to these imperial ruins during the Cataclysm. It’s beyond me to pull anything off these. I don’t know if anybody else could, but I doubt it. Still, they’re worth something as a curiosity. Maybe even worth a good bit. You want me to try to find a buyer?”

  Andi looked down at the folio. She’d found the box of data chips in the imperial facility, and she knew they had been fully readable when she’d taken them. It was the antimatter explosion that had damaged them, she was sure of it. Pegasus’s data banks were shielded, but the folio had been in her bag during Pegasus’s flight from the planet, tossed on the floor of the ship’s infirmary when her people had carried her back aboard.

  “No, I don’t think so. I’m going to hold on to these, I think. A souvenir of sorts.” There was something about the small leather case that intrigued her. She’d tried to translate the writing on the cover, but with no success. It was Old Imperial, almost certainly, but nothing she’d been able to find in any database. “Before you go…do you have any idea what this writing on the cover says?”

  The man looked down at it for a few seconds. “It looks like some kind of proper name to me. Let me see…” He pulled out a small analyzer, and he ran it across the smooth leather. “This has a pretty good database…a lot of rarely seen words and names.” A couple seconds later, the man stared at the small screen with a puzzled look on his face. “Well, I’m not sure this is going to mean anything to you. It certainly doesn’t to me.”

  “What does it say?”

  He looked back at her for a few seconds, then his eyes went back to the screen on the device.

  “It says, ‘Chronicle of the Highborn.’

  The Andromeda Chronicles Will Conclude With

  Into the Badlands

  Coming Soon

  For Those Who Haven’t Read Blood on the Stars,

  it Begins with

  Duel in the Dark

  Appendix

  Free Trader Pegasus (formerly Nightrunner)

  Pegasus is a Veritas-class light cargo ship designed for long-run hauls of valuable freight.

  Veritas-class vessels are sought after for illegal prospecting operations in the Badlands, mostly because of their extremely long cruising distances, often expanded further by the addition of secondary fuel tanks occupying part of the cargo hold. With the extreme value of even small amounts of imperial contraband, cargo space is far less crucial to such operations as extended cruising range.

  Veritas-class ships are an outdated but extremely successful design, with more than nine hundred vessels delivered before production ceased in 261 AC. With the increasing age of ships remaining in service, spare parts have become increasing rare and difficult to obtain, resulting a wide variety of customized modifications and adaptations.

  Pegasus was launched by Devellian Shipyards in 243 AC, and operated by Quincy Freight Lines for approximately forty years as Gretel, before being decommissioned and sold several times (records of these transactions are spotty and incomplete), ultimately being purchased on the secondary market by James Lorillard in 294 AC and rechristened, Nightrunner.

  The specifications listed below are for standard Veritas-class vessels, plus known improvements installed in the ship. There are significant rumors of atypical, and often illegal, enhancements to Pegasus, especially in the early years of the fourth century AC, when the ship passed to the ownership of Captain Andromeda Lafarge. Previous owners had often skirted regulations, but none had shown Captain Lafarge’s utter disregard for ‘inconvenient’ rules.

  Engines:

  One Enigmatic Industries 80-megawatt, dual cone engine.

  Reactor:

  One General Power Systems 125-megawatt tritium/helium-3 fusion reactor (with several unspecified upgrades in the case of Pegasus).

  Weapons:

  Top and bottom dual 30-megawatt laser turrets. There are rumors these weapons have been uprated beyond legal levels for civilian craft, and also that unidentified imperial artifacts have been installed to increase the hitting power of Pegasus’s weapons.

  Cargo Capacity:

  One thousand eight hundred tons.

  The Andromeda Chronicles Will Conclude With

  Into the Badlands

  Coming Soon

  For Those Who Haven’t Read Blood on the Stars,

  it Begins with

  Duel in the Dark

  The Crimson Worlds Series

  (Available on Kindle Unlimited)

  Marines (Crimson Worlds I)

  The Cost of Victory (Crimson Worlds II)

  A Little Rebellion (Crimson Worlds III)

  The First Imperi
um (Crimson Worlds IV)

  The Line Must Hold (Crimson Worlds V)

  To Hell’s Heart (Crimson Worlds VI)

  The Shadow Legions (Crimson Worlds VII)

  Even Legends Die (Crimson Worlds VIII)

  The Fall (Crimson Worlds IX)

  Crimson Worlds Successors Trilogy

  MERCS (Successors I)

  The Prisoner of Eldaron (Successors II)

  The Black Flag (Successors III)

  Crimson Worlds Refugees Series

  Into the Darkness (Refugees I)

  Shadows of the Gods (Refugees II)

  Revenge of the Ancients (Refugees III)

  Winds of Vengeance (Refugees IV)

  Storm of Vengeance (Refugees V)

  Crimson Worlds Prequels

  (Available on Kindle Unlimited)

  Tombstone (A Crimson Worlds Prequel)

  Bitter Glory (A Crimson Worlds Prequel)

  The Gates of Hell (A Crimson Worlds Prequel)

  Red Team Alpha

  (A New Crimson Worlds Novel)

  Blood on the Stars Series

  (Available on Kindle Unlimited)

  Duel in the Dark (Blood on the Stars I)

  Call to Arms (Blood on the Stars II)

  Ruins of Empire (Blood on the Stars III)

  Echoes of Glory (Blood on the Stars IV)

  Cauldron of Fire (Blood on the Stars V)

  Dauntless (Blood on the Stars VI)

  The White Fleet (Blood on the Stars VII)

  Black Dawn (Blood on the Stars VIII)

  Invasion (Blood on the Stars IX)

  Nightfall (Blood on the Stars X)

  The Grand Alliance (Blood on the Stars XI)

  The Colossus (Blood on the Stars XII)