Solar Storm (Galaxy Mavericks Book 5) Read online

  SOLAR STORM

  GALAXY MAVERICKS, BOOK 5 (SMOKE)

  MICHAEL LA RONN

  Copyright 2017 © Michael La Ronn. All rights reserved. Published by Ursabrand Media.

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, dialogue, and incidents described in this publication are fictional or entirely coincidental.

  No part of this novel may be reproduced or reprinted without permission of the publisher. Please address inquiries to [email protected].

  Cover designed by Yocla Designs (www.yocladesigns.com)

  Editing by Donna Rich

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  SCIENTIFIC DISCLAIMER

  I cannot guarantee that any of the following in this series are accurate:

  Physics

  Astronomy

  Chemistry

  Algebra

  Geology

  Quantum Mechanics…

  OK, pretty much every area of science probably got bastardized in some way while I wrote this book. Any and all errors were made lovingly for your reading enjoyment.

  1

  Smoke pushed a thick piece of sheet metal off his stomach.

  Somewhere, something was burning. He tasted the fire in his mouth. Thick char.

  He was lying on the ground. A concrete slab floor. His head pounded.

  He was in an airplane hangar.

  It was burning.

  Half of the roof was gone, exposing trees and a blue sky filled with helicopters. Their whirring was so loud he couldn't think.

  He tried to step forward, but he tripped over a metal beam that lay on the ground.

  He landed face-first.

  The metal beam—it had been in the roof. And he had been on the roof just a few minutes ago. Before it collapsed. Before he was swallowed into metal and dust and debris.

  His arm felt light. He groaned.

  He was missing something.

  His rifle.

  Damn.

  He needed his rifle.

  He peered through the rising dust, choking, looking for any sign of it.

  None.

  It was gone.

  He pulled himself up and pushed through the rubble. Outside, police sirens blared louder and louder.

  He had to get out.

  He tapped the visor that covered his eyes. It flashed orange, and zeroes and ones streamed across his vision before fading into nothing.

  He brought his fingers up to the side of his head, just below the temple, where the visor ended. His cybernetic implant was still there, a glowing red half-orb that was smooth and warm to the touch. He pushed it in, and he felt a clicking inside his skull.

  Nothing happened.

  Click.

  Nothing.

  Click. Click.

  Nothing.

  He felt the other side of his head, where the other implant should have been.

  His fingers dipped into a hole filled with wires and circuits.

  The other implant was gone.

  Without it, he wouldn't be able to use his programming. No heat maps or GPS.

  He cursed, dropped to the floor, feeling around in the dust and metal.

  A sharp edge of something tore the skin on his arm. He didn't feel it, but looked down to see skin peeling away from circuit, steel, and bone.

  The room was enveloped in smoke and heat. He had to get out.

  Searching for the implant was useless.

  He broke into a run, climbing over the rubble.

  A spotlight swept over the hangar, and he dove under a rafter to avoid it.

  The light moved up and down and across the hangar, across the rubble, across the fire, across the darkness.

  It was looking for him.

  He moved faster this time, like a shadow, running and climbing his way through the hangar.

  A gust of wind blew. He saw a jagged opening leading outside to the tarmac.

  Tarmac.

  He remembered now.

  He had been perched on the roof.

  He had been shooting.

  At his target.

  But she got away.

  There was chaos. So much screaming.

  And then it all went fuzzy.

  He gripped his head as he ran for the opening.

  Just a little further….

  His boots cracked against glass and concrete.

  The light outside grew brighter than the fire inside.

  He broke out, into the balmy jungle air.

  But then his eyes focused and he slid to a stop.

  “Freeze!” a voice shouted.

  Two dozen policemen surrounded him, their guns aimed at him.

  All around, the spaceport tarmac was covered with commotion. A box-shaped spaceship lay overturned against the side of the hangar, on fire. A fire truck sprayed water on it. The flames jumped into the sky, coloring the trees orange and yellow.

  The policemen did not look happy to see him.

  He put his hands up.

  Someone forced him to the ground and slapped handcuffs around his wrists.

  A burly policewoman pulled him up.

  “Whoever the hell you are, you're under arrest for the murder of at least twenty people and disturbance of the peace.”

  As the woman pulled him up and ushered him to the police car parked on the tarmac, Smoke’s head swam as he tried to figure out just what the hell had happened.

  2

  GALPOL Special Agent Ryan Miller stood at the edge of the Coppice Southwest Regional spaceport tarmac, watching the chaos. The service hangar was on fire, throwing up huge columns of smoke into the sky. Paramedics tended to victims lying on the ground in their own blood. Ambulances raced back and forth across the tarmac. News helicopters circled the palm trees, swinging back and forth over the rainforest. A group of around three dozen innocent people were quarantined in the spaceport, looking out of the tall windows at the police cars and fire trucks with fear and curiosity.

  He dug his hands in his trench coat pockets and whistled.

  What a mess.

  His eyes still burned with sleep and he desperately needed a diet soda right now. He’d been on call to worse planets, and GALPOL could have picked a more dangerous territory for him, but something about this jungle planet made him wish someone else had been in the rotation.

  Someone stepped next to him.

  “You’re gonna be up all night with this one, Miller.”

  Lieutenant Laura Fisher folded her arms, her blue and silver uniform glowing against the fiery night.

  “I figured that,” Miller said, tipping his fedora to her. “I can’t go to sleep for more than three hours without somebody in this freaking galaxy calling me.”

  “I wouldn’t have called unless I needed you,” Fisher said.

  Miller yawned. “What do we got?”

  “The biggest attack on Rah Galaxy soil by a domestic terrorist, for starters.”

  “Great.”

  “Where do you want me to start?” Fisher asked.

  “How about we start with the killer?” Miller said, looking at Fisher. She was watching a police car. Someone was inside, but he couldn’t tell who.

  “Please tell me you found the killer,” Miller said.

  “We found him,” Fisher said.

  “Then maybe I won’t be here all night,” Miller said.

  “I wouldn’t bet on it,” Fisher said. “Right now we have more questions than we have answers.”

  “Why?” Miller
asked. “You got your man. Galaxy Court’ll prosecute him, we’ll all pat ourselves on the back, pretend that this galaxy isn’t broken and ride off into the sunset together. Case closed. What else you got for me, Fisher?”

  Fisher motioned for him to follow.

  They stopped near a silver casing lying on the tarmac.

  Fisher crouched down and pulled a pen out of her chest pocket. She pointed to it.

  “Ever seen this kind before?” she asked.

  Ryan crouched down with her, squinting in the firelight.

  “Definitely a rifle casing,” Miller said. “Coil type. But no, I haven't seen this type before.”

  He cursed.

  “Dammit, Fisher, you weren’t kidding about me being up all night, were you?” Miller asked. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and took a photo.

  “We’ve got about twenty of them scattered across the tarmac. The rest are inside the bodies of the victims. But we’ve never seen bullets like this. That's an automatic GALPOL referral per the protocol. You know, because of all the weapons manufacturers that have been running rampant lately.”

  Miller tapped a flashlight button on his camera app and illuminated the casing. It was silver, smooth, and as long as his pointer finger.

  “Doesn’t match the profile of most guns we’ve seen,” Fisher said.

  “I’ll have to run it through our database,” Miller said. “Could be anything, from anywhere.”

  “That’s why we’re deferring this to you guys,” Fisher said.

  “I want all of the casings when you’re done,” Miller said, standing. “That'll help Ballistics.”

  In the distance, the police car began to drive off.

  “Where’s it headed?” Miller asked.

  “Southwest Station,” Fisher said.

  “Good,” Miller said. “Reserve an interrogation room for me. I want first crack at this bastard.”

  3

  Smoke stared ahead emotionlessly as the police booked him.

  The Southwest Station was a large metal pod with a parking lot full of police cars. It looked like an afterthought in the middle of the rainforest.

  The moon was shrouded with clouds, and a gentle rain fell from the navy sky.

  The police car hauling him pulled to a stop at a side door and two policemen took him out, handling him roughly.

  Smoke felt the rain in his hair and on his skin, and he wondered if this might be the last time he ever experienced rain.

  This was, to his knowledge, the first time he had experienced rain since….

  His head hurt. He couldn't think. The doors slammed to the police station and his concentration jumped to the two men who were guiding him.

  In a holding room with white walls, the police patted him down again and emptied his pockets. Two silver keys, loose change, and four silver bullets. They took his visor and stared in awe at his cybernetic implants.

  They threw the items on a table in the corner of the room in a clatter of noise.

  Glancing quickly at the contents, Smoke knew he was in trouble. Not that he wasn’t already going to jail. But bullets in his pocket…that was a bad place for them. Seemed like a good idea at the time when he stuffed them in there.

  “What’s your name?” one of the policemen asked.

  Smoke did not respond.

  “You’re going to have to cooperate,” the policeman said. “We’ve read your rights. You know what they are.”

  Smoke ignored him, staring at the wall.

  “What’s your name?” the policeman asked again.

  Nothing.

  “Do you understand what kind of trouble you’re in?”

  The policeman gathered the contents and put them into a large white envelope. He handed Smoke a pen and told him to sign his name.

  Smoke refused.

  “You’re not going to tell us anything, are you?” the policeman asked.

  Smoke nodded.

  “Are you waiting on a lawyer, then?”

  Smoke shook his head.

  “Don't make this hard on yourself,” the officer said. “You're going to get a fair trial despite what you've done. Talking’s not going to help or hurt you at this point.”

  Smoke nodded.

  “Fine,” the policeman said. “We’ll get your picture and then you can talk to the mean guys.”

  Smoke did not change his facial expression as they took his photo. The bright flash blinded him temporarily. As his eyes focused again, the policemen took him and ushered him toward the interrogation room.

  4

  Miller studied Smoke through a one-way mirror as the police brought him into the interview room and latched his hands to the table.

  The room was small and white, with a table and two chairs.

  Ryan gasped at the sight of Smoke.

  The man was tall. Very tall. Ripped. His arms were double the size of a normal man’s. He had white hair, like an albino, gray eyes that seemed as if they would vanish at any moment, and red pupils. The handkerchief around his neck was red and dusty.

  And his skin. It was burned. Badly. It looked as if someone had grafted it back onto his face—it was a ghastly pink and orange and brown.

  “No idea who he is,” Lieutenant Fisher said. “He's not answering any questions.”

  “So he's one of those guys, eh?” Miller asked.

  Smoke sat at the table quietly. He sat upright, and he didn't move. If he didn't blink, Miller would have mistaken him for a statue.

  “What did you find on him?” he asked.

  “Two keys, some change, and a bunch of bullets.”

  “Same ones?”

  “From what we can tell, yeah. He also wore some sort of visor—”

  “Like an accountant?”

  “No, like a robot.”

  “Jesus.”

  “We would hook into it, but we had to run it by you first,” Fisher said.

  “Leave it alone for now.”

  Miller sighed.

  “So he's not giving his name, I hear,” he said. “What about fingerprints?”

  “That's the problem,” Fisher said, referring to a tablet. Smoke’s face was on the screen in a dossier, but all of the data fields were blank.

  “We can't do prints,” Fisher said. “He must have been some sort of burn victim. His prints are so weird we can't even be sure they're anybody’s.”

  Fisher showed him ten fingerprints. They were black and charred, and Miller could barely make out the lines.

  Miller pulled out his phone and dialed.

  A woman answered on the other end.

  “Hi, Ryan.”

  “Hey, Beatrice,” he said, “I've got some prints for you to look at.”

  He cupped the mic on the phone and gave Fisher an email address. Fisher quickly complied and sent a copy of the prints to Beatrice.

  “Take a look and call me back, will you?” Miller asked.

  “Okay.”

  He hung up.

  “What do you think?” Fisher asked.

  Miller stared at Smoke. Still, the man sat emotionless.

  “The bastard really does look like a robot right now, doesn't he?” Miller asked. “Looks like those mentally disturbed guys who shoot someone and then sit on the sidewalk and read a Bible until we nab him.”

  “No Bible for this one,” Fisher said. “He's lucky he didn't burn in the fire. Would have escaped if he could.”

  Miller’s phone rang.

  “Hey, Bea.”

  “No matches, Ryan. I did a three-galaxy search and there's nothing in any of our known databases. No wonder the local police were stumped.”

  “All right. Oh, hey, they found some sort of visor on the guy. They think it might have a cyber interface.”

  Miller cocked his head to hold the phone, and he squinted through the glass at Smoke.

  He noticed something on the man’s head.

  Just next to the temple.

  Miller squinted closer.

  “You're looking at the
hole in his head?” Fisher whispered. “We can't explain that, either.”

  “Shit,” Miller said. “This guy is a robot.”

  “I'm sorry?” Bea asked.

  “Bea, get me the closest engineer. I need someone here immediately.”

  “We've got someone on Coppice on the northern continent. They can be there in an hour.”

  “Make it forty-five minutes if you can.”

  He hung up. And cursed.

  “What's wrong?” Fisher asked. “Aren't you going to talk to he guy?”

  “I don't like interrogating brick walls,” Miller said.

  He turned to Fisher. “Besides, he's not a guy.”

  “Then what is he, a woman?” Fisher asked.

  “No,” Miller said, tapping the glass with his knuckle, “Looks like we've got a cyborg on our hands.”

  5

  An hour passed.

  For Smoke, it felt like four.

  He stared at the one-way mirror on the wall.

  He knew someone was watching his every move. He knew he was being recorded.

  So he stared at nothing, hardly moving.

  His arms were heavy. So heavy. The metal alloy in his bones made itself known, and he wished he could break free of the latches that held him.

  But they were reinforced steel.

  He was in real trouble now.

  No escape plan.

  No way to improvise.

  What should he have done?

  Right about now, if they extinguished the fire at the hangar, the would be finding his rifle. And they would tie his prints to it. Then he wouldn't stand a chance.

  Jail for life.

  Maybe even the death penalty.

  Death didn't scare him so much as the fact that he couldn't remember anything. Seemed like just a few hours ago his brain was working. He had a purpose. He knew what he was doing. His finger on the trigger of the rifle felt right.

  But he didn't know why.

  Now, he was just aimless, with a murder charge on his name.

  His wrists twitched under the latches. He wanted to feel anger, but he couldn't.

  Who should he have been angry at?

  He knew there was someone he should have directed his anger at, but every time he tried to think back, his head pounded until he stopped thinking about it. Then the pain stopped, as if it were never there.