Heart of the Nebula (16 page)

The kitchen was full of sharp tools and
heavy pans, but few good hiding places. Knowing that the soldiers
would soon find a way in, he crept to the other side of the room,
keeping low against the food prep counter.

There’s got to be a way
out of here,
he thought to himself. Sure
enough, on the other side, a door led to the receiving area.
Thinking fast, he palmed the access panel and dove for the nearest
counter. As the door hissed open, he crawled underneath it, pulling
his legs tight against his body with his back against the
siding.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the hard floor
tiles. Three Hameji soldiers ran past his hiding place without
stopping. James’s heart pounded in his chest, but he waited until
they were gone before scrambling from his hiding spot and running
back into the con suite.

The scene before him was horrible. The
employees lay dead and dying in pools of their own blood, some of
them crying like helpless children. A pang of guilt struck
him—after all, he was the one who had led the soldiers here—but he
put it aside. No time to think about that now.

Keeping low, he worked his way around to the
baggage claim behind the concierge’s desk. With luck, it would have
a relay connecting it to the docks: in upscale stations like this,
it was common for luggage to be transferred to the concierge’s desk
directly from the spaceport. Sure enough, the relay tunnel was
exactly where he’d expected it to be. He climbed in and started
crawling through the dark, narrow space.

After going a short distance, he activated a
flashlight on his wrist console and keyed in the sequence for
another encrypted call, hoping the walls were thick enough to keep
the Hameji from overhearing.

“
Sterling? Sterling, are
you there?”

“
Captain? What’s going on?
We heard gunfire and—”

“
Never
mind that now, we haven’t got time. Is the
Freedom Star
ready to
depart?”

“
Y-yes, sir, we’re ready.
Do you have Sara?”

“
Negative,” said James.
“I’m going to get her now.”

“
You’d better come fast,
sir. The captain is getting ready to take off.”

“
Tell her
to wait. I have a way back to the ship, but I want to find Sara
first and bring her back if I can.”
I’m not going to leave her behind.

“
Right, sir. We’re waiting
for you.”

He stopped in the narrow space long enough
to disconnect and put a call through to Sara. The sound of gunfire
echoed through the bulkheads, but if he hurried, he might be able
to—

ERROR IN CONNECTION, the screen read. James
frowned.

He tried to put the call through again, but
got the same error message. Were the Hameji blocking the network?
That didn’t make sense—he’d been able to get through to Sterling
just fine. The only other reason he could think of was that Sara
had turned off her wrist console.

That, or she was already dead.

“
Come
on,” James muttered, trying again to place the call. When the error
message popped up a third time, he slammed his fist against the
bulkhead and swore. His arms and legs trembled in anger, mostly at
himself for not being able to get to her in time. As much as he
wanted to save her, he couldn’t afford to search the whole station.
Every minute the
Freedom
Star
waited for him was a minute that he
was putting everyone else in danger. For the sake of the others, he
had to abandon Sara and get back to the ship.

Up ahead, the passageway
merged into a slightly larger one, just large enough to stand in.
James rose to his feet and picked up the pace. After several
minutes, he came to a chute that let down from a loading chamber.
The place was eerily quiet, as if the dock workers had abandoned
it. Fortunately, the loading chamber had access to a service
corridor that ran all along the main terminal right to where
the
Freedom Star
was docked.

He brought up a map of the spaceport on his
wrist console and used it to guide him down the right service
corridor to the ship. He was taking a tremendous risk, since the
Hameji could theoretically locate him through the network, but
speed was more important than stealth right then.

Stars, what he would give for a gun!
Unarmed, he felt lost and naked—completely defenseless. In his
mind, he knew it didn’t make much of a difference—a handgun would
hardly give him a fighting chance against a squad of elite shock
troops—but that didn’t make it any better.

At last, he reached the correct gate. The
airlock was on the deck directly above him. A ladder ran up to that
deck from the service corridor, while a number of refueling hoses
connected with the ship through the hull. The hatchway was open,
which meant that any noise he made would carry through the
terminal.

He huddled in the corner and typed out a
message to Sterling, fingers racing over the keypad.

BELOW AIRLOCK—IS THE WAY CLEAR?

Several moments passed, the eerie silence of
the empty corridor marked only by the pounding of his heart. He
kept to the shadows and did his best to stay calm.

As he waited for an
answer, footsteps sounded over his head, as well as voices.
The
Freedom Star’s
engines were already starting to rumble—they made a distant
humming noise through the bulkheads, making it difficult to make
out the conversation. Sweat trickled down the side of his face, but
he was listening too intently to wipe it away.

The vibration of his wrist console made him
jump. He held his breath and glanced down at the screen.

NOT CLEAR—FOUR GUARDS.

At that moment, he heard a gasp, then a
scream.

It was Sara.

Time froze, and he became hyper-aware of
everything around him—the beating of his heart, the sweat clinging
to his shirt, the twelve rungs of the ladder leading up through the
open hatchway above. Without thinking, he sprinted up the ladder.
As he cleared the hatchway and leaped to the floor, it seemed as if
he were moving in slow motion, toward the four men standing with
their backs to him.

James pounced on the nearest one. Every
muscle in his body focused on the assault, moving with near perfect
efficiency. He took hold of the man’s head and twisted it quickly
around, and the guard’s body tensed for a very brief moment before
going suddenly limp.

The two nearest guards spun around, guns
already in their hands. James crouched, using the first guard’s
body as a shield while he drew the man’s gun. Five shots hit the
body: two on the chest, three in the stomach. Three others screamed
past James’s ear, striking the wall as he returned fire.

His first shot took the nearest guard in the
thigh; his second in the chest, his third in the face. The man’s
arms flung upward as his body fell spinning to the floor. His next
shot hit the other guard in the groin; he collapsed to his knees as
another shot hit him in the neck. Blood boiled from the wound, and
he fell forward onto his face.

Before his head struck the ground, James
aimed the gun at the last guard, almost twenty yards away. The
guard had been running toward Sara, but at the sound of the
gunshots he had stopped and turned to see what was going on. His
eyes widened as he realized, too late, that he was a dead man.
James took him down with one clean shot in the forehead.

As quickly as it had begun, it was over.
James slowly lowered the gun, fingers tingling as the adrenaline
rush slowly died away. At his feet, blood from the second guard
began to spread across the floor.

“
J-James? Are
you…”

James turned and gasped. Sara stood in the
corridor, next to a strange man dressed in dark olive-green
fatigues. In the darkness, it was impossible to make out his face,
but he was short and had a round face, not unlike many of the
Hameji.

James raised his gun, but Sara motioned for
him to stop. In that moment, the mysterious figured melted into the
shadows and disappeared.

“
Who the hell was
that?”

“
Never mind,” said Sara.
“We’ve got to get out of here!”

As if to confirm this, the
airlock door hissed open. James blinked, then ran with Sara through
the doorway and onto the
Freedom
Star.

* * * * *

Sara barely had time to register what was
happening. Four dead bodies were bleeding out in the terminal
outside the airlock—bodies of men that James had killed before her
eyes. But that wasn’t important now. What was important was that
they get away from the station. Fast.

“
Sara!” Jarvis exclaimed,
greeting her and James on the other side of the airlock. “When we
heard about the massacre, we feared the—”

“
There’s no time for that,
Captain,” said James. “The Hameji sent a squad out to kill us, and
they’re bound to send more. Are the jump drives
charged?”

“
Yes, but—a squad? Where
are they?”

“
They’re dead,” said Sara.
“The lieutenant… he killed them.”

Jarvis’s eyes went wide, but James was
already running down the corridor. “Sterling!” he shouted.
“Sterling, get to the bridge!”

“
What is he doing?” asked
Captain Jarvis, frowning. Sara said nothing, but ran after
him.

They followed him onto the bridge, where he
was already addressing the crew. “Who’s the pilot around here?” he
asked. When the pilot raised his hand, he motioned for him to give
up his seat. To Sara’s surprise, he actually did.

“
What are you doing?”
Jarvis asked. A frown crossed her face, and her cheeks began to
turn red.

“
I’m taking temporary
command of this ship,” said James, sliding naturally into the
pilot’s chair. “Since the Hameji have massacred the conference,
it’s safe to assume that they’ve got combat ships waiting to
intercept anyone who tries to leave. Sterling!”

Ensign Jones shouldered his way past Sara
and Jarvis onto the bridge. “Lieutenant,” he said, giving James a
quick salute. “What are we doing?”

“
Get in the astrogator’s
chair.”

“
Right, Lieuten—I mean,
Captain.”

“
Now just hold on a
minute,” said Jarvis, her fists clenched and her cheeks positively
crimson. “This is my ship, not some Defense Corps gunboat. If you
think you can just—”

“
If you feel that I’ve
overstepped my authority, you’re free to bring that up with my
superiors when we get back to the Colony. Detaching from station in
three, two…”

“
Why, I—”

The floor lurched, cutting Jarvis off. Sara
reeled and caught herself on the wall as the view out the forward
window began to spin. Her stomach turned, and she drew in a sharp
breath.

“
Sterling, the
dampers!”

“
Right,
sir—sorry!”

Gutsy,
Sara thought as she recovered her balance. Captain Jarvis was
so furious, she looked as if her veins were about to burst, but
James ignored her as casually as he would a fly on the wall. Here
at the helm, he was completely in his element. Every movement was
smooth, every glance purposeful. There was no hesitation in him,
nor any room for doubt. Like some sort of starbound juggernaut,
nothing in the universe could stand in his way.

“
Let him go, Captain,” she
said, touching Jarvis’s arm. “He’s right.”

Captain Jarvis opened her
mouth as if to protest, but Sara gave her a sharp look that carried
the weight of her father’s authority behind it.
Whatever you do now, my father will hear of it—and he’ll hear
about it from me first.

“
This is highly irregular,”
Jarvis grumbled, so taken aback that she was unable to come up with
a better retort. “I just hope you know what you’re doing,
Lieutenant.”

“
Noted. Burning engines in
three, two, one…”

A rumbling noise sounded through the
bulkheads, and the floor began to shake. Sara pulled down a chair
and sat down, strapping herself in. Outside the forward window, the
station began to move.

Get us out of here,
James,
Sara thought, her heart
pounding.
Take us home.

* * * * *

James gripped the flight stick in his sweaty
hands and throttled the engines to fifty percent. The luxury yacht
wasn’t built for combat by any means, but its sublight thrusters
still had quite a kick. Even through the gravitic dampers, he could
feel the pull as they accelerated into space.

The curved hull of the station passed over
them, slowly at first, but quickly picking up speed. He nosed the
ship up, hugging the exterior as closely as he could. If the Hameji
had warships waiting for them, he wanted to present as small a
target as he possibly could.

“
Sterling, how are we
looking?”

“
Jump drives are charged,
sir. Shall I set coordinates for a jump?”

“
Yes. Send us just outside
the system orbital plane, distance no less than… fifty
light-hours.” It took a second to make a rough guesstimate of their
jump capabilities in his head. He trusted, though, that Sterling
could fine-tune the particulars.

“
Right, sir. Shall we head
for galactic north or south?”

“
It doesn’t matter, so long
as it’s away from here.”