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  VENGEANCE

  Celestial Empires Book 3

  Raymond Cooper

  Copyright © 2017

  Interstellar Press

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to historical places, events or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  “Cargo ship will be in range in two minutes,” Xavix reported from his position at the navigation console.

  I gave him a nod and a tight smile, feeling that rush of anticipation and excitement I got whenever we were on a mission. If you would have told me a year ago that I'd be where I was, doing what I was doing, I would have called you crazy.

  But then, a year ago, my mom was still alive and I wasn't hellbent on killing the man who'd murdered her.

  I wasn't a woman who craved adventure. In fact, once upon a time, my ideal life was going to be spent on my native Earth, with my family. I was going to have a life that was calm, mundane, and as unadventurous as humanly possible. A life that was going to be downright boring, in fact. I'd had enough of space and adventure to last me a lifetime

  But then, circumstances beyond my control – meaning, that son of a bitch Boygan – had conspired to draw me away from Earth and back out into space. Boygan tried to use me to murder a politician who he saw as an adversary, and when I wouldn't do it, he'd murdered my mom and my aunt to punish me.

  After my mother's death, there was no reason for me to go back home – my life on Earth would never be the same again. There was just nothing left for me there. Especially not with the need for Boygan's blood burning brighter in me than a supernova. I knew that if I went back to Earth, I'd never feel settled. I'd never feel like I belonged there.

  I knew that I was never going to feel like Earth was home ever again. Boygan had taken that from me as surely as he'd taken my mother. I was now not only an orphan. I was a homeless orphan.

  At least I still had the Umbra. My ship had become not just my base of operations, but my home. I had my trusty robotic sidekick, Xavix. Plus, the newest member of our team, Theron. Not that we had much of a choice in him being our newest crewman – not at first, anyway.

  When Boygan hijacked my ship, Theron had been trapped aboard the Umbra and was pulled back into space along with us. And although he had some mysteries and secrets of his own, he'd become a reliable ally and a valued friend.

  I'd overcome my initial misgivings about him and had actually come to not just rely on him, but trust him quite a lot. Which said something, since there were precious few I actually trusted.

  “You know,” Theron said, breaking into my thoughts, “back when we started all of this, I actually thought we were going to be blown into space debris inside a month.”

  “I had actually calculated the odds,” Xavix chimed in, “and I did not think we were going to last more than two weeks.”

  “Well gee, thanks for your confidence in me, boys,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”

  I laughed and shook my head, but I honestly couldn't blame them for being so skeptical. What in the hell did i know about being a soldier or running a military-style campaign? If you didn't count my half-assed attempts at being a political assassin, the closest I'd ever come to the military was my time spent as a bounty hunter – which, let’s be honest, wasn't all that close.

  But over the eight or nine months we'd been targeting Boygan for harassment, I was proud to say that we'd become pretty efficient at it. And the more efficient we became and the more success we had, the bolder we got.

  I was a quick, very motivated learner, and my only mission in life at the moment was to bring Boygan down – and to kill him. That had made it easy for me to read, learn, and absorb successful tactics that had been used in past conflicts. Before we launched our first mission, I'd spent weeks studying histories and detailed battle plans.

  It wasn’t an ideal way to wage war. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But I took it seriously and had studied as hard as I did because I wasn't going into this half-cocked. I was eager – maybe even desperate – for vengeance, but I wasn't stupid. I was smart enough to know what I didn't know, and then set about trying to learn it.

  We had some good moments and we had some bad moments. We weren't a perfectly oiled military machine by any means. But we were starting to become more dangerous. And more importantly, we were starting to become a pain in Boygan's ass.

  I knew that over the time we'd been waging our little guerrilla war, we'd done some damage. We'd hurt Boygan. Financially, at least. We'd shut down a number of his businesses. And by shutting them down, I meant we blew them the hell up. Literally.

  Cargo ships carrying weapons and other contraband items had been destroyed. Freighters carrying human cargo were raided, the prisoners set free, and the ships themselves scuttled – after we salvaged whatever we needed off the ships.

  Raiding Boygan's ships and stripping them of parts we needed was a cheap way to repair and even upgrade the Umbra. Had to keep my ship up and running and in the fight, after all. I wasn't going to be satisfied until Boygan had been shut down entirely – and I had his head on the end of a stick.

  “Thirty seconds,” Theron said.

  The butterflies in my stomach swarmed even harder and the flow of adrenaline increased. It was almost showtime.

  Our target was a cargo transport bound for a planet called Thysis in the Argyto system. Its manifest showed it to be carrying agricultural equipment and supplies. But I knew better. I knew that on board we were going to find exactly what the manifest said, but that we were also going to find weapons. Lots and lots of weapons.

  I'd gotten a tip that Boygan was being paid to supply an insurgency hellbent on toppling the Thysian government and seizing power for some despotic monster. The sort of man who'd be able to do business with a disgusting creature like Boygan.

  “The Star Queen is emerging from hyperspace and is coming into view,” Xavix said.

  As if on cue, a large freighter dropped out of hyperspace and popped into view in front of us. It was large and, because of the success of raids, it bristled with weapons – guns and torpedoes you didn't usually find on your standard cargo ship.

  But, given the fact that Xavix had us sitting on a large asteroid at the edges of a small belt, we were virtually invisible and had the element of surprise on our side. Not to mention the fact that we had a weapon they couldn't possibly be ready for.

  “What's their situation?” I asked.

  “Their gun batteries are armed and ready,” Theron reported. “Missile bays have not yet been opened. Their forward shields are at full-strength, but aft shields are only at thirty-seven percent effectiveness. They might be diverting power to their weapons array.”

  I nodded as I ran a hand through my shoulder-length black hair. I'd been forced to alter my appearance a little bit since my “fame” – or perhaps, it was better called notoriety, maybe even infamy – had made me somewhat recognizable.

  “Well, as long as we can get close enough, the cannon will do the res
t,” I said. “Xavix, how many life forms on board?”

  The droid consulted the screens in front of him for a moment. “Readings indicate there is a crew of fourteen on board.”

  I shrugged. I did my best to not kill when I didn't have to - but as far as I was concerned, if they were in bed with Boygan, that made them complicit in all of his affairs. Which meant that I had absolutely zero sympathy for any of them.

  They made their bed and they were going to have to lay in it.

  “Let's hit it,” I said.

  Xavix powered up the engines and lifted off the rock we were floating around on. He powered us straight toward the freighter.

  “Guns are powering up,” Theron said, his voice tight with tension.

  “Steady as she goes,” I replied. “Xavix has got this.”

  Theron cut a quick glance at the droid. Xavix was an excellent pilot and had gotten us out of more than a few tight scrapes. Whereas I might freak out and fly us straight into the side of a freighter to avoid a missile, Xavix always remained cool and calm, his movements precise and controlled, and managed to make the right call that got us out of harm's way.

  The darkness of space in front of us was lit up by the muzzle flashes and tracer rounds of the gun turrets mounted on the freighter. Xavix deftly maneuvered the Umbra, avoiding most of the incoming shots. Some of the rounds clanked off the flanks of the ship, but nothing that did any real damage. One of the many upgrades we'd made to my ship was giving it a much thicker hide.

  The Umbra was no longer just a transport ship – it was a ship ready and capable of waging war. No, we weren't going to ever be able to stand toe-to-toe with the military vessels out there, but for our hit-and-run campaigns, the Umbra was perfect.

  “Five thousand meters until we're in range,” Theron reported.

  “Gemma, the missile bays are opening,” Xavix said.

  “Three missiles away,” Theron said, his eyes glued to his screen. “We should probably jump out of here.”

  “We will not be able to complete a hyperspace jump before the missiles arrive,” Xavix replied.

  “Wonderful,” Theron groaned. “We're space dust.”

  I ignored him and the Umbra shuddered as a line of shots raked the port side of the ship. The lights flickered for a moment and I feared they'd done some damage. But, she kept on going, strong and true. Xavix bobbed and weaved through the line of fire, doing his best to keep us from taking hits – and was having more trouble than he usually did. The Umbra rocked from side to side as we took a hit on the starboard side.

  “What the hell's going on, Xavix?” I said. “We're taking a pounding.”

  “The weapon turrets on the Star Queen are more advanced than what we usually encounter,” he said, not even fazed by the beating the Umbra was taking. “Their firing solutions are cycling through much faster and they seem to be tracking us far easier.”

  “Wonderful,” I said. “They've gotten new tech.”

  “Two thousand meters,” Theron said, his voice growing tighter by the second.

  “Missiles locked,” Xavix said. “They're closing in quickly, Gemma.”

  “Evasive maneuvers,” I said. “And when they get close enough, deploy the decoys.”

  “I would suggest holding on tightly to something,” Xavix said.

  I gripped the arms of my chair like my life depended on it – and it very well may have. My stomach lurched horribly as the Umbra dipped and swooped, tilted precariously to the right, and then soared straight up, taking us nearly vertical. Xavix was pulling out all the stops – and it was going to make me puke all over the place if he didn't stop it soon.

  As he turned the ship and dove straight down, there were three loud thumping noises from the bottom of the ship.

  “Decoys away, Gemma.”

  “Switch view screen to aft,” I said.

  I watched the view screen as Xavix changed it, giving us a view of the rear of the ship. The missiles were closing in, but the bright lights of our decoys shot away from us in different directions. I pumped my fist when the first two missiles peeled off and chased the decoys. A moment later, there were flashes of bright light as the missiles hit their marks.

  I would have felt good about that, but there was still a third missile bearing down on us.

  “Missile locked and closing,” Xavix said.

  “Yeah, I can see that, thanks,” I snapped, my voice as tight with tension as Theron's.

  “Can you deploy another decoy?” I asked.

  “At this range, it will not work, Gemma.”

  I had only seconds to think. We needed to do something because, as well armored as the Umbra was now, a missile would still likely blow a hole in us large enough to drive a dock loader into.

  “Xavix, take us back into the asteroid belt,” I said. “Maybe you can get it to hit a rock instead of us.”

  “Gemma, at this speed, I would not – ”

  “Do it,” I snapped.

  Xavix immediately began maneuvering the ship, swooping and dipping as he cut us around the free-floating rocks. Theron was green around the gills and sat hunched over, his eyes squeezed shut, gripping the arms of his chair maybe even tighter than I was.

  My stomach in knots, I watched the missile behind us, matching Xavix's movements, sliding by rock after rock, gradually closing the distance. My heart racing and the adrenaline flowing, I looked at the monitor before me – the one that gave me a view in front of us. Up ahead, I saw an asteroid that was about four times the size of the Umbra drifting lazily along. It was rough and jagged, with large stone protrusions sticking out everywhere – and an idea popped into my head.

  “Xavix, skim the surface of that asteroid,” I said. “Get the ship as close to it as you can without wrecking us.”

  Without hesitating and perhaps knowing what I was hoping for, Xavix dove straight toward the surface of the asteroid. He nimbly maneuvered us around large stone outcroppings. Pieces of the asteroid banged against the hull of the ship, making me cringe. I shuddered to think what the exterior of my ship was going to look like if we survived this fight.

  My stomach lurched and I felt like I was going to throw up when Xavix dove sharply – and quite unexpectedly – to the right. On the view screen though, the missile that had been trailing us, hit an outcropping on the asteroid and exploded in a flash of light, sending rock fragments hurtling out into deep space.

  I took a deep breath and fought back wave of nausea before I spoke. “Excellent work, Xavix,” I said, my voice shaking just a bit. “You did it.”

  “Yeah, good job, buddy,” Theron said, looking like he was barely keeping his food down. “Could you just, you know, give me a little warning before you do something like that next time?”

  The ship dipped sharply again, making my still somewhat queasy stomach leap back up into my throat. Theron put his hand over his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut, turning a shade of green not commonly found in nature. Xavix looked over at Theron, and if I didn't know better, my droid was having a little fun at his co-pilot's expense.

  Xavix has always been a bit of a smartass like that.

  “Front view again, please,” I said and Xavix immediately switched the view screen to give me a look at what was ahead of us.

  While we'd been running from its missiles, the Star Queen had been trying to make its escape and they'd opened up a gap between them and us. Which meant that if we were going to complete our mission and take those bastards out, we were going to have to get on it real quick like.

  The only problem was the surprise new weapons tech they had on board. It was proving to be a little more troublesome than I would have liked. Taking out the Star Queen wasn't going to be as simple or easy as some of our past victories.

  “We need to catch up with that ship,” I said.

  “Yeah, and get ourselves blown into a million little pieces,” Theron said. “Good idea.”

  “We can't let those weapons get to Thysis,” I said.

  “We get
close to that ship again and they'll launch more missiles at us,” he said. “We barely got away from the first barrage.”

  “We all knew we were running a risk being out here,” I said.

  Theron turned in his seat and looked at me evenly. “Is it really even about the weapons?” he asked. “Or is it about wanting to stick it to Boygan?”

  Annoyance surged within me. This was my ship. My mission. He didn't have to be here. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm myself. I wasn't mad at Theron. I was pissed at Boygan. After months of being out there running guerrilla raids on his ships and businesses, I was no closer to getting my hands on that slippery son of a bitch. The only thing I had was to hurt him where ever I could – and that meant destroying his business. Depriving him of a livelihood. Bleeding him until he surfaced.

  My feeling was that if I cut deep enough into his profits, he'd eventually stick his head out of whatever hole he was hiding in to take a shot at me. And when he did stick his head out, I was going to be there to cut it off.

  “Xavix,” I said, ignoring Theron completely. “Can you get us close to the Queen without being detected?”

  My trusty companion punched a couple of buttons on his console, consulted his monitor, and looked at me.

  “The asteroids have enough magnetic energy that if we navigate through the belt, it should create enough interference on the radar to prevent the Star Queen from gaining a lock on us,” he said. “It will not make us invisible, of course, but they will not be able to get a firm fix on us through the asteroids.”

  I sighed and leaned back in my seat. “About the best we're going to get,” I said. “Punch it. We have some ground to cover.”

  Theron groaned as the ship lurched forward and Xavix maneuvered through the asteroid field. Smaller and more maneuverable, the Umbra was making up ground quickly. We just needed to get in range to deploy our weapon.

  “What's the range, Theron?” I asked.

  He consulted his monitor. “Four thousand meters and closing.”

  A large rock banged off the hull, making the ship shudder, reminding me that Xavix was good, but he wasn't perfect. Up ahead of us, the Star Queen's guns started to flash and tracer rounds cut through the darkness of space. But, they were firing blind. It actually seemed like they were firing at everything but us.