Chapter 88: Prologue

Captain Dash Anderton ducked away from the open hatch of the escape pod as an energy shot ripped through the air centimeters from his face.

The projectile struck the interior of the pod, showering the three occupants with sizzling metal shards. The impact left their ears buzzing while acrid smoke stung their noses.

Huddled against the hatch frame, Dash again tried to access the ship’s hub with his PD. The response flashed across the overlay projected into his vision: Your Personal Device does not have permissions to access the Stardancer hub. Please contact the hub administrator for assistance. He tried not to laugh at the fact that the new system admin, whoever that may be, was one of his five mutinous crewmembers. And shooting all of them wasn’t an option—not with only three shots remaining in Betsy, his beloved sidearm.

Hands clutched his shoulders from behind. Wesley Martjan Dennenberg, the young blond-haired Human medtech, clung to Dash like an infant simian. Across from them, Gaiusoritus Saiporus Talus—or Gaius to his crew—tapped the panel, and was denied access once again. The Slyvarkian pilot swore. Wearing only underwear, his lean, green, and hairless body shivered in the slight chill of the pod. With their PDs locked out of the ship hub, manual controls were the only option. Unless they could get the hatch closed, they were trapped aboard their own ship.

And most likely dead.

“It’s over, Dash! Surrender now, and there’s still a chance you live,” Henrik, the forever-surly chief engineer, shouted from somewhere within the Stardancer’s cavernous cargo bay. A few scattered empty cargo containers provided optimal firing angles for the four ops crewmembers. They held the numeric and tactical advantage despite the fact that Betsy’s punch could drop any of them with one shot.

“This is all my fault, Captain. I’m so sorry,” Wesley said, his voice wavering.

“Now’s not the time to worry about that,” Dash said, looking to Gaius.

The pilot shook his head, his heavily gelled hair not shifting a millimeter from its precision styling. His angular face beneath was heavy with desperation. “I can try to bypass it manually.” 

“Do it. I’ll buy us time.” Gaius broke out his multitool while Dash called out into the bay, “I see your new captain sent you down here to do the dirty work.”

“Someone needs to control the ship, and we don’t need help handling you,” Henrik growled back. The chief engineer—or chief complainer as Dash thought of him—was the most senior of the operations crew. His above-average skill set and occasional technical brilliance was offset by his near-constant griping, maddening stubbornness, and general sourpuss demeanor. Dash had teetered between replacing or placating him over the past few cycles. It was painfully obvious to Dash that he’d made the wrong decision in pursuing the latter.

“Seeing as you had me dead to rights in the galley, you’re doing a wonderful job so far.”

Dash knew they hadn’t boosted far from the cargo processing station Praxum Depot. The shipping hub of the Atan star system, the Depot was the lifeline for the myriad of stations and the few planet-based operations. But its primary role was supplying one of the fastest-growing orbital habitats in the Scutum-Centaurus arm of the Milky Way galaxy—Praxa Prime. Both the habitat and station held a sizable SecForce division—the premier interstellar security conglomerate. SecForce patrol frigates could catch up to the Stardancer in no time—if Gaius could manage to get a signal out. “We’re sitting in an escape pod, about to blast out of here. Once we send an SOS, SecForce will have you locked up in the brig before the workday is over.”

“Don’t kid yourself. You’re not sending anything,” Brock said. The hulking technician didn’t even need a weapon to take out Dash. He spent his off time exercising with rigged-up spare parts. His physique served him equally well in tying down containers and scuffles in rowdy pubs.

“You got your profit share. We’ve got work lined up. Things are getting better,” Dash said, trying another angle. “Why do this now?”

“Because you’ll screw it up again. Like you always do,” Henrik said.

Wesley whispered, “Don’t listen to him, Captain. That’s not true.”

“Hurt feelings are the least of my concerns right now,” Dash answered quietly. Then he spoke louder. “I know what your opinion is, Henrik. Why don’t you shut up for a minute and let someone else talk?”

“Sorry, Dash. I’m too old for messing around. Need a consistent performer running the show,” Rosalie said from the bay. The gray-haired senior technician held an almost mother-like influence over the ops crew—if their mother could drink them under the table. Her baby face and petite frame belied the experience her age suggested. Of all the people to go along with a mutiny, Dash wouldn’t have guessed her.

“I support the mutiny, though I want you to know, I feel conflicted about it,” Draug said from the opposite side. With its tough skin and stumpy frame, the thick-bodied Ghupto reminded Dash of a species of large trunked herbivore he’d seen on an entertainment vid. The Ghupto still breathed heavily through its snout from the pursuit through the ship. The only non-Human of the bunch, Dash knew Henrik had manipulated the dopey bipedal sentient into participating.

As if reading Dash’s thoughts, Wesley said, “Draug, you don’t have to listen to them.”

“I do, actually,” Draug said with an embarrassed pause. “They didn’t give me a gun.”

Dash cursed under his breath. The one mutineer on the fence, and it didn’t even have a weapon.

“Aren’t you going to ask me?” Brock asked, sounding genuinely insulted.

“No, of course not,” Dash said. “If Henrik is supporting this mutiny, then his little puppet would be right there to go along with it.” He spun away from the open hatch as another shot struck the pod’s interior.

“I make my own decisions!” Brock said.

“Knock it off! This is our ship now. Don’t wreck it,” Henrik snapped. “You lost, Dash. Accept it.”

“We promise not to hurt anyone,” Draug added.

“Even if I believed that, I don’t see how being dumped on a backwater planet is any better than dying,” Dash said.

“Because you’d still be alive!” Henrik said. “Consider yourself lucky that the majority of us voted to keep you that way.”

“That means at least one person voted to kill you,” Gaius whispered.

Dash frowned, then called out, “How about option three, where I throw all of you out an airlock?”

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“Spacing an old lady isn’t very nice, Captain,” Rosalie said.

“Neither is mutiny, Rosalie.”

Gaius leaned back as a spark of electricity zapped the tip of his multitool. His solemn gaze fell upon Dash. “It’s no good. I used everything in my bag of tricks.”

“So that’s it? We have to surrender now?” Wesley said.

“Not yet.” Dash held up Betsy. “We’re not defenseless. This buys us time to think of something.”

Low voices carried across the cargo bay. “I told you, I have it under control,” Henrik said to someone. 

“It’s obvious you don’t. It should’ve been over with already.”

“It’s not my fault. The lift—”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses.”

Dash heard footsteps as someone moved closer. “You sure you want to be in charge of these clowns?” he called out to the newcomer, his first mate.

“You have ten seconds to come out of there, or be buried alive.” A deep hum sounded within the bay as the overhead crane drove along its tracks. It stopped over one of the pallets, and the head lowered to the deck. The giant clawlike gripper closed around the pallet and lifted it a few centimeters off the deck. Then the crane started toward the escape pod.

The shadow of the approaching pallet glided along the deck, through the hatch, and into the pod. A twisted part of Dash’s mind laughed maniacally at the thought of being buried alive in a spaceship. His own damn ship. Both Gaius and Wesley looked to him, their faces masks of despair. “Stop!” Dash shouted over the noise. A second later, the crane halted. “You win. Just promise me you won’t hurt Wesley or Gaius.”

“I won’t. I’ll have that sidearm now.”

Gaius slumped against the bulkhead, his submission made more pitiful by his lack of clothing. “Sorry, Cap.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Dash said. “You tried. We all did.”

Wesley clutched Dash’s arm, his eyes brimming with moisture. “Thank you, Captain. For everything.”

Dash nodded, and Wesley released him. He turned Betsy over in his hands. She’d saved his butt many times before and bore the scars of battle. He unclipped his holster, placed her inside, then slid it out into the cargo bay. Hands up, he stepped through the hatch and around the pallet. 

The ops crew emerged from cover, weapons aimed at him—Brock, sweaty and bulging with a wicked smile, Rosalie with a solemn stare, Draug with the Ghupto equivalent of a pout, and finally Henrik, with the hint of a devilish grin on his face. Despite all the arguments they’d had, Dash couldn’t believe the man had the guts to go through with it. Which was why, Dash realized, he was on the losing end of a mutiny.

Dash walked slowly across the deck. The thump of each footstep hung in the still air. He stopped in front of his mutinous crew. They exchanged looks of glee among themselves, like their favorite rumbleball team had just won a match.

Their leader stood behind them. Her olive skin and short dark hair lent the possibility that she could be the captain’s daughter, and not the mutineer that she was. She stepped forward, bringing to light the bruising on her slim face. “Captain Anderton,” she said with a flat voice.

“First Mate Milia,” he answered, eyeing her superficial injuries. “Don’t tell me this is all because of the brawl. And the credit charge. I told you I’m going to pay that back.”

Milia’s deep brown eyes—so dark they were almost black—shone with indignation. “Do you think I’m that shallow?”

Henrik stabbed a finger at Dash like he wanted to spear the captain through the heart. “This has been a long time coming for you, and you know it.”

Dash faced his chief engineer. “Fuck you, Henrik.”

Milia snapped a slender hand in front of the chief engineer before he could respond. The man grimaced, then blew out a hot breath like a releasing pressure relief valve and backed away.

Dash met her hostile stare. “And what do you think’s going to come for you if you do this?”

“I wouldn’t worry about that. You won’t be around to find out either way.”

Dash shifted his gaze to each of the mutineers. “In that case, just so it’s official, you’re all fired.”

“Fair enough,” Milia said. The newly crowned captain of the Stardancer aimed her pistol at him. “And just so it’s official, Captain Anderton, I’m hereby formally relieving you of command.”

Dash dropped his eyes to the barrel pointed at his chest. He heard the belligerent objections of Gaius and Wesley as Milia cocked her head to the side and squeezed the trigger. 

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