Solar Storm (Galaxy Mavericks Book 5) Read online

  Smoke left her and studied her escape route.

  Out of the spaceport, there was a covered metal walkway to protect passengers somewhat from the elements. The rails and posts were too close together for him to get a shot, but once the walkway ended, there was a span of ten feet where he could make a clean kill.

  The box ship beeped and the travelers inside the spaceport began to line up. Smoke kept his sight locked on the woman as she walked onto the tarmac and followed the crowd under the covered walkway.

  Closer…

  Closer…

  Almost there. He rubbed his finger against the trigger…

  The woman exited the metal walkway…

  Smoke’s internal radio opened up and beeped.

  “You only get one shot,” a woman’a voice said. “If you miss, I’m leaving your ass on the roof.”

  “How many times have I told you to shut up?” Smoke asked.

  The woman again. Some military type. He couldn't remember her face. She was driving him crazy!

  He refocused. His target was clear into the tarmac.

  Grunting, Smoke dragged his optical sight and placed her in it.

  He fired.

  Screaming erupted all across the spaceport field.

  The target was lying on the tarmac.

  Had he hit her?

  Slowly, she stumbled upward. All around her, people scattered.

  The woman was breathing heavily.

  Smoke looked for blood.

  There was none. The woman felt her legs and her chest and sighed with relief.

  He had missed.

  The bullet was lodged into a post of the metal walkway.

  The woman looked at the metal post in shock, and then in a flash she glanced in Smoke’s direction.

  Smoke cursed and fired again, but she was too fast.

  She dove into the safety of the metal bridge. Smoke saw a glint of steel near the woman’s waist. A handcoil.

  Smoke fired again.

  And then he heard a zipping sound.

  A coilshot.

  Damn it. She was firing at him.

  Smoke fired his rifle twice.

  CRACK! CRACK!

  Zzzt! Zzzt! Zzzt!

  More screams and yelling spread across the spaceport field.

  A supersonic noise shook the service hangar roof. Nearby, the box ship turned on its thrusters and drowned out the screaming and stampeding. The ship began to move.

  Then a zipping sound distracted Smoke again.

  Zzzt! Zzzt! Zzzt!

  Smoke cried out and winced. He dropped his rifle and rolled backward.

  His hands went to his head.

  Pain.

  Sharp pain.

  There was blood on his hands. Specks of blood.

  He felt the skin near his temple.

  His cybernetic implant.

  God, his implant!

  How did the bitch hit him from so far away?

  The bullet had grazed his implant. He fell on his back, fingering the shattered orb.

  Hazy words spread across his visor.

  System malfunctioning. Shutting down.

  “No,” Smoke said, tapping his other implant. “Turn back on!”

  His visor shut down.

  He could only rely on his normal vision now. The woman was impossibly far away.

  He reached for his rifle, but it was too far away.

  His radio opened up again, but the voice crackled.

  “You okay down there?” the voice asked.

  Smoke screamed again.

  And then the supersonic sound grew louder.

  Smoke looked over just as the box ship collided with the service hangar. He covered his hands and yelled again as the roof collapsed.

  He fell long and hard.

  10

  His head was full of fog.

  Fire.

  Gunshots.

  He was lying on his back again.

  Near the river.

  Shooting.

  At rafts filled with people.

  His target was there again.

  Why was he shooting at her? He couldn't figure it out.

  No matter what he tried, he couldn't hit her!

  She drifted downriver, bobbing up and down in a red life vest. Before he could shoot at her again, the river took her out of range.

  His head rang. He didn't know where he was. He couldn't concentrate.

  Where was he?

  Where was he in time?

  Everything seemed to flow backward…

  HE WAS IN CHAINS.

  Tied to a wall.

  In a glass tube.

  On a spaceship traveling through hyperspace.

  Smoke blinked several times. A rush of oxygen funneled into the tube from above.

  A man stood in front of him. He wore a gray suit with a gold chain and he had shoulder-length hair.

  He knew the man.

  The sight of the man gave him comfort. Like a father, but not quite.

  But he couldn't immediately recall the man’s name.

  “How are his vitals?” the man asked. His voice was muddled through the glass.

  “Normal, Mr. Tavigorsky,” someone said.

  That was his name.

  Tavigorsky.

  Milo…Tavigorsky.

  Another man stepped out of the shadows. He wore white. Smoke couldn't place the man’s face.

  “I want that one,” the man in white said, pointing at Smoke.

  Tavigorsky shook his head.

  “No. Not this one.”

  The man in white erupted in a burst of anger and said something Smoke couldn't hear.

  “He's not ready yet, Mr. McAllister,” Tavigorsky said. “We’re months away from a viable test.”

  “Call me Dorian. And are you telling me that you wasted my company’s money? Should I tell my auntie that we need to cancel our contract?”

  “Your money hasn't gone to waste,” Tavigorsky said. “Quite the opposite.”

  “It's called proof of concept,” Dorian said. “But clearly you don't give a rat’s ass about sound business principles.”

  “Proof of concept?” Tavigorsky asked.

  “You can't aim for perfection,” Dorian said. “Scientists just don't get it. Sometimes you have to release your baby into the wild, and hope that it survives.”

  “That's awfully cruel, isn't it?” Tavigorsky asked.

  Dorian harrumphed. “Business is cruel, Milo.”

  Smoke realized the heavy weight of the chains on his body. His chest heaved up and down.

  “His story is magnificent, you know,” Dorian said.

  Smoke didn't know his story, but he desperately wanted to know. Dorian’s and Tavigorsky’s lips suddenly moved in slow motion and his voice slowed down.

  “Imagine a…being murdered by a…” Dorian said.

  “His radiation burns were the worst the doctors had ever seen,” Tavigorsky said. “He should have died.”

  “Didn't he spend a bunch of years in therapy?” Dorian asked.

  “Before the cybernetic implants, yeah. Skin was so badly burned his organs shut down. We replaced them, of course.”

  Smoke couldn't make sense of what the men were saying. They carried on. He noticed a female soldier in battle armor among them as well. God, she'd looked familiar. Like he'd seen her before, but in the future.

  “Well, let’s have a drink for dear-old Smoke,” Dorian said.

  He raised his fist as if it were a glass of alcohol.

  “To Smoke,” he said, locking eyes with Smoke. “And to extermination.”

  A metal arm inside the tube unscrewed the cybernetic implants on Smoke’s temple and it connected to his circuits.

  An image beamed across his visor.

  The woman.

  “Kill her,” a mechanical voice said. “Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Enemy. Enemy of the federation. Kill her.”

  “Kill,” Smoke said.

  He hated the woman on sight.

  “No m
ercy,” the mechanical voice said. “You must make us proud. Or you will be scrapped. Do you want to be scrapped?”

  “No,” Smoke said. The words came out almost against his will.

  “Show us you mean it.”

  Smoke screamed and pulled against the chains.

  The chains loosened and he fell onto the ground.

  His skin was drenched with sweat. Slowly, he looked up at Dorian. He growled, then punched the glass.

  Dorian jumped back.

  “My God,” Dorian said under his breath.

  “You asked for extermination,” Tavigorsky said. “You're going to get it.”

  Smoke’s visor streamed more images of the woman across it and he roared.

  “Are you ready?” the voice asked.

  “I'm ready,” Smoke said.

  “You will soon be in the presence of innocents,” the voice said. “Save your aggression.”

  Smoke felt calmness surging through his body. The rage was gone. He was no longer angry. He stood upright.

  As the glass lifted, he walked out of the tube.

  Tavigorsky smiled.

  “Proceed to the airlock for your mission,” he said.

  Smoke obeyed, and even though he’d never seen the ship’s airlock before, he knew where to go.

  11

  Smoke crouched in shadows in an abandoned warehouse.

  There was trash all over the cement floor and his visor told him where to step.

  He carried a rifle.

  Something sprung out of the shadows—he didn't think, he just aimed—

  CRACK!

  The gun recoiled in his hands, gunsmoke rose from the barrel of his rifle.

  Two yards away, a cardboard target in the shape of a human toppled over, shot dead between the eyes.

  Confirming the kill, Smoke rolled behind a pillar and put his back to it.

  Whatever he shot…it wasn't his target.

  He switched his visor into night mode and he scanned the warehouse. Among the piles of trash, a rat scurried toward a sewer grate in the middle of the floor. All across the warehouse, it was dark, and he didn't detect any heat signatures.

  He needed to find the target.

  His mark.

  He crouched and maneuvered through the darkness.

  Another sound.

  He turned and shot.

  Another cardboard man fell over.

  Smoke moved faster now through the darkness.

  He approached a steel door in the distance.

  The door was warm. His visor showed a faint orange signature.

  He approached the door at an angle with his rifle aimed at it. Quietly. Carefully.

  He was inches from the door now.

  He readjusted his rifle.

  He scanned the door.

  There was no door handle.

  How was he supposed to deal with a door that had no door handle?

  He squinted and looked at it closer.

  It had had a handle, but it had been removed.

  He searched his utility belt with one hand, grabbed a four-clawed grenade. It had four legs with a green touchscreen in the middle. He tapped the screen and a countdown began in Roman numerals.

  V…

  IV…

  Smoke stuck the grenade on the door and magnets in the claws attached to the steel.

  Then he ran.

  III…

  II

  The metal claws propelled themselves, detaching from the door, leaving a circular canister that stuck out from the door like a telescope.

  Then—BOOM!

  The canister exploded in a blast of fire.

  Smoke’s ears rang.

  The door was still intact, but crumpled.

  The metal claws crawled across the ground like a spider and jumped up. They latched onto the door again, and the claws turned into blades, and they sawed through the remaining contact points where the door met the frame. The steel door fell with a clang.

  Smoke approached the door.

  He had no idea what he'd find.

  When he reached the edge of the doorframe, he spied the inside of a lavish vault. Gold bars were stacked toward the ceiling.

  His eyes widened.

  He remembered something.

  Gold. A gold box. A tiny box, half the size of a palm. In someone’s hands.

  Soft hands. A woman. She was smiling. The moonlight eclipsed her face.

  A restaurant.

  They were in a restaurant.

  She laughed and Smoke felt himself laughing in his mind—hearty, light.

  Was it his voice? It was so hearty and light. But it rang in his head and he didn’t know who else it could have been.

  The woman gasped as she opened the cardboard box and picked up something inside. Something small. Something shiny. Then she looked up at him, her shadowed face dark in the light of the moon.

  Then—

  CRACK! CRACK! Rat-a-tat-tat!

  Rubber bullets bounced off his armor.

  An alarm sounded and lights in the warehouse flicked on.

  Tavigorsky stepped out of the room. A group of scientists watched from a slanted window above. Smoke looked around and realized the entire warehouse was just a stage.

  “You failed,” Tavigorsky said.

  Smoke hung his head. He dropped to his knees and his entire body locked up.

  “His reflexes were on target at half a second,” a scientist said into a microphone from the window above. He was holding a stopwatch. “Shots fired within ninety-ninety percent accuracy. The product’s reflexes were lower than expected. Almost human-like.”

  Tavigorsky frowned.

  “Do you hear that?” he asked.

  Smoke could not respond. His eyes focused on the floor and he couldn’t move them.

  “I didn’t create you to be an android, but I did create you to be faster and better than a goddamned human!” he yelled.

  He kicked Smoke in the chest. Smoke felt it, but it didn’t hurt.

  “Scan his memory,” Tavigorsky said. “I want to find out what the hell he was thinking and why he didn’t blow the target away the moment that door opened.”

  Tavigorsky pointed into the vault. Just beyond the piles of gold was the target. A cardboard cutout of a sneering hot dog in combat boots with two skinny arms. It wore a black beret and held two pistols.

  “I put the most ridiculous target I could think of out here so it would be easy for you to see,” Tavigorsky said. “How the hell could you miss it? But instead, you focused on the gold. I told you, you’re not human anymore!”

  Tavigorsky ripped off Smoke’s cybernetic implant and he hooked up a black clamp to it. A light at the end the of the clamp glowed as it transmitted data upstairs.

  “We found a chemical imbalance milliseconds before termination,” the scientist above said. “Looks like the sight of the gold may have triggered some kind of memory.”

  Tavigorsky bent down and took Smoke by the chin and lifted his eyes up to meet his.

  “Memories, eh?”

  Smoke said nothing.

  “Were you rich in your past life or something?”

  Smoke shook his head.

  “Do you have a stash of gold bars back on your old planet that you want to tell me about? We could all use some extra money. You’re sure as hell not going to need it.”

  Smoke shook his head again.

  “Good. When you’re here, you think of nothing else other than killing. You aren’t human. So stop trying to act like one. Repeat after me: I’m not human.”

  “I’m…not human,” Smoke said.

  “I’m not human,” Tavigorsky said. “Again!”

  “I’m not human.”

  “I’m an animal,” Tavigorsky said, grinning.

  “I’m an animal,” Smoke said.

  “Very good.”

  The scientist upstairs cleared his throat. “Sir, based on what we see on the memory graph, we recommend increasing the dosage of…to block any ghost neurons from
firing.”

  “Good. I agree with increasing the dosage of…to stop this from happening again. Stand up, Smoke.”

  Smoke stood. Tavigorsky took out the metal clamp and replaced his cybernetic implant.

  “Let’s adjust his visor. I don’t like the way it sits currently.”

  Then Tavigorsky patted him on the back.

  “This wasn’t a bad field test. You did the best job you could.”

  Tavigorsky motioned to the window above. “Shut him down.”

  Smoke fell to the ground. His vision turned off and he could hear only voices against a screen of black.

  “I don’t have any more time tonight. I’ve got to attend the Galaxy Ball.”

  “Sorry about your luck, sir,” the scientist above said.

  “Quite all right. We may have a buyer for this piece of organic scrap metal. Load him onto the ship.”

  12

  Smoke swallowed a hard, bitter pill. It moved down his throat slowly and painfully.

  Tavigorsky held up a glass of water to his lips and he drank.

  He was tied to a bed. They were in a small gray room with a window. There was nothing in the room except the bed and a monitoring machine. The curtain was closed over the window but Smoke spotted stars outside, and a ringed planet.

  The colony base. Where everything happened. Where he became what he was.

  Smoke wished he could be outside. To see something more than gray walls.

  He swallowed again, forcing the bitter pill further down his throat.

  “That should stop the memories,” Tavigorsky said. “Those terrible, terrible memories.”

  Smoke’s heart was racing. He didn’t know why. His hands trembled. Thick chains secured him to the bed and rubbed against his skin.

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” Tavigorsky said. “Memories are not welcome in this line of work. Any time you sense one, you need to let me know so I can eradicate it. When you don’t, there will be consequences, you understand?”

  Tavigorsky smacked Smoke on the forehead.

  “I said, do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Smoke said.

  Tavigorsky pressed a button near the window. A steel door closed over the glass, blocking out all starlight.

  “I should have known something as simple as a window would trigger a memory,” Tavigorsky said. “There’ll be no more of that. Your field tests begin soon and I can’t have you thinking about anything other than your mission. Are you grateful for the fact that we saved you?”