Gravity Flux: Kestrel Class Saga Book 3 Page 6

  She pointed to him and then to herself. Ben felt his throat burn as tears stung his eyes.

  “So you’re just leaving,” Ben said. “On Torrent Four? Please, Kim. Don’t leave now. Just wait until we get to someplace better than this. I’ll do anything, really. I don’t want to lose you.”

  “It’s too late,” Kim said. “I’ve been trying to ignore the signs, but I can’t do that anymore. I wish I was the kind of woman you need. I’m sorry.”

  She pushed past him, and Ben watched her go down the stairs. He wanted to chase after her, but he felt so weak suddenly he was afraid he might fall if he moved. When she disappeared, the professor’s voice close behind him surprised Ben.

  “Love is difficult,” he said. “For men like you and me, that is. Genius requires a singular focus, I’m afraid. There isn’t room left for personal relationships.”

  Ben looked at the old man, and for an instant he saw himself in the future. A man tied to his work, haunted by all he’d sacrificed, all alone. The shock of it frightened him, and he stumbled back.

  “I…I…can’t do this,” Ben said. “I’m sorry.”

  He turned and ran down the stairs. He leaped down the metal steps, his heart racing and tears falling from his eyes. When he reached the lower level, he had just enough time to see Kim slip out the rear hatch.

  “Kim!” he shouted.

  Dashing across the cargo bay only took a few seconds, but when he reached the hatch, she was out of sight. She had only opened the big cargo door slightly. Ben tried to wiggle through the opening, but he was too big. He turned to the controls and hit the button to open the door the rest of the way, only to see it close. He cursed and reversed the door, which seemed to take forever.

  As soon as he could slip through the opening, he did. It was a shock to see the vast salvage fields of Torrent Four again. It was almost like a slap in the face. He had sworn never to return, yet somehow the junk world had drawn him back and was threatening to take the person he cared for most in all the universe.

  “Kim!”

  There was no response and he didn’t see her. He moved around to the side of the ship. There was no sign of Kim there either. He turned and ran to the other side, knowing she hadn’t had time to go far, yet she wasn’t there. The salvage field seemed deserted and his heart dropped into his stomach. He thought for a moment he was going to be sick.

  Pulling himself together, he climbed up the ladder built into the hull of the ship. From the top, he had an unobstructed view of the salvage fields. He could see over the junk that jutted up from the mounds of refuse. The salvage fields weren’t flat, but undulated with short hills and shallow valleys. Ben turned slowly, searching every direction, but it was as if Kim had just vanished into thin air.

  He was about to call her name again when movement far into the distance caught his attention. It was a Savage Scalper using some type of telescope or binoculars to take in the ship. Ben wanted to scream, but he didn’t want to attract any more attention. They needed to get whatever they could salvage and then move on. He had planned to only stay as long as it took to get what they needed to create the missiles Jones was hoping to build, and the modifications to their artificial gravity generator that Ben wanted to add. He knew the ship wouldn’t go unnoticed, but he hoped that, if they only stayed in one place a day at a time, they could move under the cover of darkness and avoid trouble from the locals. Without Kim, that would be much more difficult.

  She was hiding, he knew that. She couldn’t have gone far enough to be out of sight. And he had done the same thing countless times hiding from outlaw Scalpers. Given enough time, he was certain he could find her. What was uncertain was if he could convince Kim to stay even if he found her, which she obviously didn’t want him to do. And time was the one thing he didn’t have a lot of. They were in a dangerous place surrounded by ruthless people who would do just about anything to get the Echo. He couldn’t search for Kim and protect his ship at the same time. As much as it hurt him, he had to let her go. He had to respect her decision, since she was so obviously intent on getting away from him, and focus instead on the task at hand.

  It felt like someone had stabbed a thick shard of ice into his heart. His stomach hurt, and he couldn’t stop the stupid tears that kept spilling from his eyes. The only thing that was in his control was the decision of what he would do next. Even though every fiber of his being wanted to search for Kim, he chose instead to go back into the ship, tapping his com-link as he went.

  “Magnum, we have a spotter to the southwest of our position,” Ben said as he walked across the cargo bay to the storage compartment where he kept his tools. “We could have company soon.”

  “I’ll get up top and have a look around,” Magnum said. “We should all be armed.”

  “Roger that,” Ben said.

  “I’ll use the ship’s cameras to help keep watch,” Nance said.

  “Good idea,” Ben said. “We should keep the engines powered up, but offline. If the Scalpers come back, we’ll need to take off.”

  “Without Kim?” Nance asked.

  “She made her decision,” Ben said, the pain in his stomach getting worse. “She’s gone. We’ll have to pilot the ship ourselves. I’m going out to start collecting materials. If anything happens, anything at all, let me know.”

  “Of course,” Nance said. “Are you alright?”

  That was the one question Ben had no answer for. He honestly didn’t know if he would be alright ever again. All he knew for certain, was that he had work to do. Work was the one thing he could count on. There was always work to be done. And staying busy was the only thing keeping him from dropping to the deck, curling into fetal position and weeping uncontrollably. The pain of rejection and loss was hardening his heart, almost as if he could feel it. And in the back of his mind, Ben vowed never to let himself be so vulnerable ever again.

  Chapter 11

  The morning passed without much fuss. The Scalper he’d seen was gone by the time Magnum reached the top of the Echo’s hull. With no immediate threat, Ben forced himself to work.

  Returning to the salvage fields was as natural as breathing to Ben. Piles of junk, as far as the eye could see, surrounded their ship. And where other people saw refuse, he saw valuable materials. It was no mystery that Torrent Four had as many recyclable materials as other worlds being mined for those same minerals and ores. Eventually, according to the Imperium propaganda, all the salvage fields would be cycled. Metal and minerals could be recycled, everything else was ground down to be used as filler in industrial applications. The government promised the citizens of Torrent Four that in two generations, their planet would once more be a pristine and prosperous planet, but Ben knew from personal experience that it would take centuries to remove all the junk from the planet’s surface. And the Royal Imperium was certainly in no hurry. They contracted the work but charged a heavy fee for the recycling rights. There was no shortage of good metal in the galaxy, and until the price of raw materials increased, very few companies were interested in recycling Torrent Four’s vast fields of junk.

  Ben lifted a flimsy piece of dirty plastic sheeting. Underneath was an ancient-looking water pump with six filtering tubes, each three feet long. Ben dropped to his knees and powered up the old angle grinder he’d used for so long to gather parts for the Echo. It took an hour of monotonous manual labor to remove the six cylinders, but each one would make an excellent housing for Jones’ gravity flux missiles.

  When he got them back to the ship, he stored them neatly in a bin just inside the ship’s cargo hold. They would need a lot of raw materials before everything was said and done. But the Echo’s cargo hold had plenty of room. Ben planned to keep it all neat and organized. He also planned to keep it secured in case they had to make a hasty getaway.

  “You are hard at work,” Forrest Remington Jones said as he came down the staircase.

  “We have to take advantage of the light,” Ben said. “Besides, we’ve already been spotte
d by Scalpers. It’s only a matter of time before they come back.”

  “Scalpers?” Jones asked.

  “Savage Scalpers,” Ben said. “They’re outlaws who roam the salvage yards. Gangs mostly, looking for people who know how to find valuable trade goods in all the junk.”

  “What do they do if they find one?” Jones asked.

  “Rob them, beat them, and force them to work,” Ben replied. “There’s no law out here. The Imperium keeps a security presence in the cities and near the recycling operations, but they’re few and far between. That’s how we could land out here without attracting attention.”

  “They aren’t looking for people coming to this world,” Jones said. “I see.”

  “Most people living out here are pretty desperate,” Ben said. “Conditions are harsh and there isn’t any real education other than what a person picks up on their own. Families used to band together, but you don’t see that very often anymore.”

  “What have you found?”

  “Some old water filtration cylinders,” Ben said. “They’ll be perfect for making your missiles.”

  “Rockets,” Jones corrected him. “Missiles are weapons; rockets are vehicles. Wouldn’t it be easier to reuse old munitions? I heard this world was littered with old bombs and missiles that didn’t explode.”

  “There are some,” Ben said. “But they’re extremely volatile. Plus, they’re easy to spot and have some value in trade. I run across a few occasionally, but I wouldn’t recommend them for your rockets.”

  “Very well,” Jones said. “This is your home. You know best. How can I help?”

  “Have you ever cut metal?” Ben asked.

  “No, my experience is limited to electrical and chemical engineering.”

  “Well then, you can help Nance keep watch on the bridge. Hopefully, we won’t have trouble, but if it comes along, we should spot it long before it arrives.”

  Ben took the older man up and got him settled at the coms console, where he began scanning the south and east horizons. Nance would continue watching to the north and west.

  She waved Ben over and spoke to him in a quiet voice after the professor was settled.

  “I saw her,” Nance said. “She went west.”

  “When?” Ben asked.

  “Half an hour ago,” Nance said. “She’s out of sight now over that swell. From our position, I’d guess she was headed toward the canyons.”

  “She’s so stubborn,” Ben said, hoping Nance didn’t notice the way his voice quivered. “How’s Magnum?”

  “Fine,” Nance said. “The Scalpers haven’t shown up again.”

  “They will,” Ben said. “I better get back to work before they do.”

  There was a look of sympathy in Nance’s eyes. Ben acted as if he didn’t see it, and hurried to the stairs so she wouldn’t see him well up with emotion. The pain of Kim’s sudden exit was like being wounded, and he had plenty of personal experience to draw on for comparison. Still, there was nothing he could do about it, so he pushed the feelings down as far as he could until they were just a dull ache deep inside.

  By noon, he had gathered an entire bin full of materials and was thinking about getting something to eat when Magnum called to him over the com-link.

  “They’re back,” Magnum said.

  “Same ones?” Ben asked, standing up and straining to see.

  “I never got sight of them before,” Magnum said. “There’s a group headed this way though. Due south.”

  “Roger that,” Ben said. “How far out?”

  “I’m guessing half a mile,” Magnum said. “Traveling on foot. They’re moving slowly.”

  Ben forgot his hunger and began removing a wave amplifier from the busted reactor core of an old Osprey. The ship was even older than the Echo and had crashed hard by the looks of things. The airframe was a total wreck, and most of her interior was either destroyed or salvaged already. Ben wasn’t sure if the wave amplifier even worked, but he was hopeful. There was no sign of damage to the component, and it wasn’t too rusty. Getting the salvage parts took longer than he was used to. He had regained some movement in his broken arm and could hold things, but twisting or pulling were out of the question.

  “Let me know how many as soon as you can make out the individuals,” Ben said. “I’ve got a few more things I want to get before we move on.”

  “Roger,” Magnum said, as stoic as ever.

  The safest thing would be to take off. They could fly low and slow to avoid the Imperium’s radar. But the sound of the engines would attract attention. And perhaps even more importantly, leaving would mean that Kim couldn’t find them if she changed her mind. It was a foolish hope, he knew, but part of him wanted to believe that she would come back. He loved Kim, and that love wouldn’t let his hope die.

  Chapter 12

  The pirate looked nervous and Pershing understood why. Le Croix was an intimidating man when he was angry. The brigadier general was struggling not to smile from where she stood near the door of the secure briefing room. They had already been in the room for hours and she was certain the pirate was telling the truth, but the answers they were giving him didn’t make sense.

  “So, the rebels took control of the ship,” Le Croix said.

  “Only to get to Brigton,” the pirate said. He had told the story a dozen times already. “They left me on that island, so I don’t know what happened after that.”

  “So these smugglers were in control of the ship?” Le Croix asked. “The injured man, his big friend, a woman pilot, and a fourth member of their crew. You’re certain.”

  “I’m certain it was their ship. I’m certain they were running guns for us when we tried to hijack their ship. But we hid on the island for nearly a week. It seemed to me, from what I could tell, that the rebels intended to stay and fight. If the ship did what you say it did, that was the crew. The pilot was good. Everyone talked about it. I don’t know about the rest of them.”

  Le Croix looked at Pershing and she nodded. They left the briefing room and walked to her office without a word. The office was a stark, sparsely furnished box that resembled a closet. There was a metal desk with a small computer station, but no personal effects, no pictures of celebrities, or military award plaques on the walls.

  “Let’s review what we know,” Pershing said.

  “The Kestrel class ship on Brigton is the same ship in the video from the Bannyan system,” Le Croix said. “Has to be.”

  “Why?”

  “It fits the profile,” Le Croix said. “The pirate said it was armed with lasers and missiles.”

  “That’s not unusual,” Pershing said.

  “Maybe, but we know it was a ship with ties to the Confederacy,” Le Croix pointed out.

  “That was obviously strained,” Pershing said. “If we can believe your rogue pirate, then the crew of that ship didn’t want anything to do with us. And the ship in the Bannyan system was an integral part of that attack on our cruiser.”

  “But what are the odds there are two Kestrel class ships working with the Confederacy?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Pershing said. “We’ll have information on the ship and its crew shortly.”

  “What? How?” Le Croix said.

  “It was spotted in the Torrent system,” Pershing said. “It’s confirmed as the same ship from the Bannyan incident. Our agents will know everything about it soon.”

  “Outstanding,” Le Croix said. “Who is leading the assault team?”

  “There is no assault team,” Pershing said. “The admiral general is sending an armada to the Torrent system. He wants to put on a show.”

  “So why not let us take out the crew? We can have them interrogated. We’ll know everything about the attack and we can still have their precious ship vaporized on live feed from the Torrent system.”

  “My thoughts exactly, but the admiral general is under a lot of pressure. The destruction of the ship can’t be too staged or no one will believe it. The rumors ha
ve to be crushed. Public opinion is vital, and if the rebels can convince people their ship is still out there, they’ll continue to see their recruiting boon.”

  “I hate politics,” Le Croix said. “So we just sit back and do nothing?”

  “We make a report that will go unread,” Pershing said with a smile. Le Croix frowned until she continued. “And you go to the Torrent system.”

  “Your orders?”

  “I want eyes on the crew. I want to know everything about them.”

  “Isn’t that just an exercise in futility?” Major Le Croix asked.

  “Perhaps,” Pershing said. “If Admiral General Volgate gets his way. But I think perhaps we are underestimating these people.”

  “You don’t think they just got lucky? If that battle cruiser had attacked instead of holding a defensive position by the space station, the outcome would have been very different.”

  “Perhaps,” Pershing said, as she leaned onto her empty desk and crossed her arms over her chest. “But if your guess is correct, and the Kestrel class ship from the Briggs system is the same ship from the Bannyan incident, then these people, this motley crew flying an old ship, has done the impossible.”

  “You mean you really think it’s possible they flew through a black hole?”

  “Yes,” Pershing admitted. “I think it’s possible. They lured our capital ship to its destruction outside the Briggs system and managed to destroy a valuable space station and battle cruiser in the Bannyan system. If that’s the case, what might they have planned for the armada that the admiral general is sending to stop them?”

  “You mean…” Le Croix frowned. “Are you actually saying you think it’s possible that this one little ship could be capable of taking on a fleet of our best ships?”

  Pershing didn’t answer. She let the idea just hang in the air between them until Major Le Croix stood up straight, saluted, and hurried from her office. Maybe she was wrong and the admiral general was right. Perhaps the little ship had just gotten lucky, twice. But Pershing didn’t believe in luck, and she had a feeling that the little Kestrel class ship was instrumental to the changes she felt coming. The Royal Imperium had become fat with politicians and bloated with bureaucracy. The Confederacy was growing stronger, smarter, and more determined than ever. In her mind, it had only been a matter of time before they found a way to win.