📘The Star Pirate's Folly | Epilogue
Far beyond the orbits of the Outer Planets, the Leith Belt awaits.
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Epilogue
Montez trailed a squad of armored HomeSec guards through the asteroid base’s crowded hallways, furious that Lieutenant Finch had taken the cryo pod from her. Smarmy bastard. She knew he’d take credit for the find, and probably her and Crane’s cut of the pay too. As head of Home Security, he could manipulate the logs to back up his claims and invalidate hers, say it was him or one of his subordinates who went out on the run and picked up the pod.
It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done it, and Montez had seen what happened to other salvagers who took issue with Finch’s greed—bruises and broken bones, demotions, even disappearances. His henchmen from HomeSec knew all the little corners of the base where the cameras couldn’t see, and just when they could get away with it.
Well this time she wasn’t going to let them.
She knew they’d have to wait before they could bring the cryo pod to Receiving since the next shift didn’t start for a little under half an hour. And in the meantime, they’d have to bring it to Temporary Holding—a low security storage area. Finch would probably leave the pod under guard until the next shift. That was her only chance.
“Crane, respond,” she said into her jawline mic.
“Eat me,” he replied in her earbud.
“Finch took our haul.”
“What!” Crane shouted. “Son of a bitch!”
“Armor up and meet me in Holding or we kiss our payday goodbye.”
“Knew I couldn’t trust your scrawny ass with all that by yourself.”
“We don’t have much time,” Montez pleaded.
Reluctantly, Crane asked, “What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know. But we can’t just let him steal it.”
“So what, we’re just gonna steal it back? From Finch? You crazy?”
“I’m pissed off. He’s been pulling this for months, ever since he made Lieutenant. You heard about Teller, about Gorski—and after what they did to Reynolds? Somebody’s gotta do something.” Montez surprised herself with the conviction she felt. She’d just seen too much of Finch abusing his power on her friends and coworkers and completely getting away with it.
“So let’s get Kasim in on this, bring it up with the Commissioner.”
“You think the Commissioner doesn’t already know? I talked to Teller and Gorski before we left, Crane. They already made an issue of it and the Commissioner obviously hasn’t done shit.” Her voice shook with anger. “Even after Reynolds. Even with all that evidence. Still nothing. We’ll never get ahead around here, Crane. I say we take the pod and sell it in the Core ourselves, cut out the middleman. We’d make enough off that to start something out there if we’re careful.”
“These are not the kind of people we want to piss off, Montez. If we go to the Core, they’ll find us. And that’s if we’re lucky enough to make it there.”
“I’ll do it myself if you’re scared.”
“Fear is natural when dealing with known killers,” Crane pointed out.
Without a solid counterpoint, Montez simply blurted out, “You coming or not? I just got to Holding. We don’t have long.”
“Montez, you—!” Crane growled with anger. “Yeah, I’m coming. But I ain’t happy.”
Montez pressed herself against the wall to let people slide past her and watched as all but one of the armored HomeSec troops split off from the cryo pod. They headed toward Receiving.
The lone remaining guard pushed the tarp-covered pod down the hall on floaters, shouting people out of the way as he went. Montez wished she’d had time to grab her pistol from Littlefoot, but she would have lost sight of the pod if she had gone back.
“Crane, you almost here?” she whispered.
“Just leaving the ship. How many?”
“Only one, the others left. He went inside. I’m following him.”
“I’ve got your gun,” Crane said. “Be careful.”
“No shit.”
“I mean it, Nita.”
Montez paused. “You don’t call me that anymore.”
“Yeah, well.” Embarrassed, Crane fumbled for a response. “You don’t—we shouldn’t talk about this now.”
“Just… get here.”
She could either wait for Crane to show up or follow the guard inside to see where he took the cryo pod. If she did follow, she risked getting into trouble without Crane there to back her up, but if she stayed behind she might lose track of the pod entirely. Torn, Montez watched as the most valuable haul she’d ever brought in disappeared around a corner.
Dismissing her reservations, Montez pursued the HomeSec guard further. She knew the layout of Temporary Holding, but only from working night-cycle shifts there before she trained as a pilot.
Things may have changed since then and she wasn’t sure where exactly the guard had gone. If he saw her he could probably guess what she was after, and without armor or a weapon of her own she couldn’t defend herself at all.
She continued down the wide hallway to Temporary Holding, where salvagers took their cargo to be cleared before sending it to Receiving. Several short-range gates inside airlocked storerooms connected Holding to other areas of the asteroid base, so it served as a hub for moving things all over the place.
Montez waited at the end of the hallway and peeked inside to see the guard pushing the floating pod toward a private storeroom. Once inside he’d be able to use a short-range gate to move it into Receiving when they were ready for it.
“Almost there,” Crane said in her ear. “You still got him?”
“I see him. He’s going into a private room.”
“Wait for me.”
“It’s gone if he goes in there.”
“Don’t follow him,” Crane warned.
“He’s getting away.”
“Montez. Stop. What exactly is your plan here? A shootout with security in the middle of Temp Holding is not going to end well for us.”
Montez clenched her fists. “That’s our payday.”
“It’s not worth dying over.”
“Well, I can’t live with this bullshit,” Montez snapped. Her voice shook with anger. “Aren’t you tired of scraping by? We go out into the belt afraid. We come back home afraid. I’m sick of it. It’s all I can feel anymore.”
A hot flush of rage spurred Montez to action. She entered Temporary Holding at a brisk walk and spotted the HomeSec guard at the entrance to a private room with the cryo pod at his back.
As the guard cranked the wheel on the door to the storeroom, Montez approached, crouched behind the pod, and glanced around to see if anyone was watching her. The few other people in Holding seemed too absorbed in their own business to notice her.
Careful not to shift the pod, Montez felt for the control panel on the base and opened its cover, exposing the switches beneath. She remembered the labels taped over some of them and touched what she thought was the switch to open the pod. The distraction might buy Crane time to get to her. Anything to keep the guard busy. But before she could flip the switch, the guard began to pull the cryo pod into the storeroom.
Without missing a beat, Montez darted forward into the doorway, reached underneath the pod, activated the switch, then scrambled to cover behind the wall outside. She stood up, leaning against the wall as she surveyed the area again. No one saw her as far as she could tell, and the guard still hadn’t shut the door. Montez spotted Crane searching for her as he entered Holding, fully armored and moving fast.
She gave a little half wave. “Here.”
“What now?” Crane asked.
“What’s he doing?”
“Looking at the pod. What did you do?”
“Come in after me. I’ll get him to turn his back,” Montez took a deep breath to steel her hammering heart. There would be no turning back from this. “We’ll have to kill him, you know. We’re on the run after this."
“Quiet and fast. Go.” No hesitation from Crane.
Montez rounded the corner and stepped inside the storeroom but made no effort to sneak in. The black-armored HomeSec guard frantically tried to close the seemingly-malfunctioning pod, but the cover kept rising.
“Wow, I’ve been wondering who was sleeping in there!” Montez said loudly.
The guard turned to her immediately. His modulated voice blasted from the suit’s speakers as he brought his rifle up. “The fuck are you doing? Get out of here.”
Feigning surprise, Montez put her hands up and backed into the nearest corner of the room. “Whoa, hey. Sorry, I wasn’t—don’t shoot!”
The guard kept his rifle trained on her, jerked its barrel to the doorway. “Out. You’re about two seconds from—”
A blur of dark metal rushed into the room and a laser from Crane’s pistol sizzled through the guard’s throat, silencing him. As he grabbed the falling guard with one arm, Crane pulled the door shut behind him with the gravity node on his other hand. The attack took only a moment.
The armored HomeSec guard drifted slowly to the ground with a muffled gurgle. Blood dripped from the wound, pooling beneath him. Montez wasted no time rerouting the short-range gate in the room to connect them with the hangar.
“They’ll be after us now,” Crane said. He went to close the cryo pod, but stopped when he saw the occupant. “Holy shit, Montez. You know who this is?”
“Gate’s opening. Let’s go.”
“We can’t go to the Core with this!”
Confused, Montez looked inside the cryo pod to see an unconscious man with tattoos all over his body—the markings seemed to cover every inch of him, even his bald head. She didn’t recognize him. Painfully aware of each squandered second, Montez shot him a look, shut the lid, and spread her hands in a frustrated hurry-up gesture.
“That’s Dreadstar!” Crane shook his head. “No wonder they wanted it so bad. It was never about the pod, it was about him… the richest pirate in the system. Maybe we could—”
“Bullshit. I’m not chasing after some old-ass pirate’s fairytale treasure, let’s get out of here. Stick to the plan.”
Crane pushed the sealed pod over to the gate as the circular opening thrummed to life, a green light on the doors indicating they were ready to slide open. “I trusted you enough to kill a man just now. A guard. You don’t come back from that.”
“We can’t—”
“This is him.”
“Even if it is, what makes you think he’d tell us where to find anything?”
“We don’t even need to wake him up. Just need to sell him to someone who thinks he’d talk. That’s worth a damn lot more than some pre-war people-freezer. Trust me, I know somebody.” Crane waved Montez over to the floating cryo pod. “Get underneath here. They could be waiting for us in the hangar, it’ll give you some cover.”
Crouched under the pod, Montez watched as the gate’s doors slid open to reveal the hangar on the other side. “Lead the way.”
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