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  Starblazer

  Cosmic Outlaws #1

  Spencer Maxwell

  Copyright © 2019 by Spencer Maxwell

  Cover Design © 2019 by Erik J Anderson

  Edited by Sonya Bateman

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions email: [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read his work.

  Join Spencer’s Star Team and get a free copy of Ship Seeker, a Cosmic Outlaw prequel story!

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  To George Lucas

  One

  Ryze Starlo surveyed the darkness.

  With a measured blink of his eyes, he switched his HUD’s vision to infrared. He had been following the Thrathan for hours, first watching him pour drink after drink down his gullet in a cantina, then slinking behind him as the alien ducked into a trash-filled alleyway.

  Daxen Felia was a brash fellow with gray-green skin, four large eyes, and talons protruding from his long fingers. He was also a wanted murderer on five star systems. The planet they were on, Ypso, a vastly lawless place and a well-known harbor for fugitives, was not one of these systems.

  The red blob currently on Ryze’s visor paused and turned around. Ryze stopped, too. He reached for the blasrifle slung over his shoulder, gloved fingers curling around the butt of the weapon.

  It seemed Daxen Felia had run into a dead end.

  Ryze switched his wide-angle viewscreen back to normal.

  “Who are you?” Felia asked, his voice thick from the slarjuice he’d drowned himself in beforehand. He spoke Thrathan, a language Ryze wasn’t familiar with, though his helmet’s transmitters picked up the words and translated them into Common, but it didn’t matter. Whatever words came out of the piece of scum’s mouth weren’t worth listening to.

  “I’m the President of the Galaxy, and you’ve just won a free trip to a five-star resort on Planet You’re Screwed. Come a little closer to claim your prize.” Ryze grinned inside of his helmet.

  “You’ve been following me since I left the bar. You better watch yourself. Now, what the hell do you want?”

  Standing in front of the Thrathan, Ryze leveled his weapon. It was an SMD-321, illegal in most star systems, essentially a cannon you could hold comfortably with two hands, and it had a nickname almost as notorious as its blast. Throughout the galaxy, the 321 was known as a flayzer.

  “Oh, it’s going to be like that, huh?” Felia said. “You must not know me, pal. Ain’t nothing better than spilling some idiot’s blood.”

  “Spex, switch language to Thrathan for me, please,” Ryze said quietly.

  “Yes, sir,” the AI tethered to his ship a few miles away answered. Words blinked on in Ryze’s visor. Language: Thrathan. “You are now speaking Thrathan, Ryze.”

  “Thanks,” Ryze said, but it came out as “Dyli.” He looked back at his current target. “Daxen Felia, you are wanted in seven star systems. I’m sure you know there’s a pretty hefty price on your head. Well, I’m here to collect it. Hate to sound cliché, but we can do this the easy way or the hard way. F.Y.I, both ways kinda suck for you.”

  “Ah, you’re a bounty hunter. That’s even lower than me, friend. This about the church in Gruez or the bank job on Ilyum?”

  Ryze had known about both, of course; when a new target was acquired, he studied relentlessly, trying to get a better feel for how the scenario would play out. It was about the only studying he had done since leaving the academy twenty-odd years ago.

  Yes, he was a bounty hunter—not exactly an honorable job, but to say Ryze was lower than the Thrathan…

  He held back a laugh.

  Daxen Felia was one of the worst targets Ryze had come across during his eight years of hunting. The bank job on Ilyum was nothing compared to what Felia did on Gruez. The church was an act of terrorism in the simplest sense, an attack orchestrated based on religious beliefs. Daxen and his cronies, some of which Ryze had already hunted down and either killed or sent to the Grinder, had rigged the inside of the holy chapel with two dozen charges. They set them off during the most important Gruezian holiday of the year, when the church was packed with over a thousand people—adults and children both. There were no survivors. The death toll was bad, but what really got under Ryze’s skin was the fact that over two hundred young were obliterated, reduced to ashes. Their futures were taken from them, and all for what? Because Felia didn’t believe in the same gods the people of Gruez did?

  Ryze gripped the handle of his blasrifle tighter. “You’re wanted dead or alive, dickhead. It doesn’t matter which to me, ‘cause I get paid regardless.” This was a lie. It did matter to him. He wanted to obliterate Felia the way he had so senselessly obliterated a thousand Gruezians.

  “And if I tell you to shove it up your ass?” Felia said, a smile playing on his blubbery lips.

  “Then I’ll shove this,” Ryze pointed to his blaster, “up yours.”

  “All right, all right, I understand.” Felia stepped away from the wall marking the alley’s dead end. He put his hands out, waiting for the wrist binds. “I’ll come quietly then. It’s what I deserve, right? To do some time, to pay for my sins.” The Thrathan’s talons glittered in the light of the twin moons above.

  “Get on the ground,” Ryze said. “On your stomach.” He had seen this trick before. Hadn’t fallen for it then and wouldn’t fall for it now.

  Then, as expected, Felia didn’t do what Ryze asked. The Thrathan moved lightning-quick, plunging his hands beneath his heavy coat. Everything moved in slow-motion. The beginnings of a fight always did. It was only later, when Ryze would play it back in his mind, that it all seemed like a blur.

  Felia was quick, but Ryze was quicker.

  His flayzer hummed and crackled just as the vibrant metal of the Thrathan’s weapon flashed in the moonlight. The flayzer’s first burst of pale red light hit Felia in the hand holding what the Thrathans called a Spike, a disc with razor-sharp edges that exploded with metal daggers upon impact. The Spike disintegrated, spraying shrapnel into Felia’s side. Unlike Ryze, the Thrathan didn’t wear a heavy battle suit. Nothing there to protect his flesh but his own blubber. Felia cried out and began falling backward. Before he hit the ground, the second beamblast struck him in the chest, leaving a perfectly seared hole in its wake. The brick behind him was visible through it.

  Daxen Felia no longer breathed.

  Smoke rose from the end of Ryze’s flayzer, filtering up in front of his viewscreen. “Dead it is, then.”

  Ryze approached the alien. There was no blood from either shot. The beamblast had seared the flesh shut. No mess, Ryze liked it that way. But the shrapnel from the Spike…that was another story.

  It had punctured the alien’s right side and leg, causing him to leak blue-green blood all over the ground, spattering old papers and wet boxes.

  Spex talked through the communicator. “I take it I won’t need to set an extra ration aside for dinner this evening, sir?”

  Ryze had switched back to Common. “No, not tonight, Spex.”

  “Very good, sir. When should you be arriving?”

  “Soon.”

  “I’ll warm up the Starblazer for you.” The comm chirped as Spex went offline.

  Ryze had owned the Starblazer since before he turned to bounty hunting and mercenary work. When he was younger and a lot happier. A ghost had told him about it,
a ghost that became one of his best friends. This was after he left the Xovian army, after Xovia lost their futile war against the Celestial Dominion. All those dead Xovians…and all for nothing. Spex told him time and time again that Ryze was lucky to be alive, but was he? Living in a galaxy run by a madman and his mad soldiers?

  He got down on one knee and examined the dead Thrathan. A quick pat-down revealed the money-case latched on the alien’s belt. Ryze ripped it off and attempted to pry it open. It didn’t budge. Not even the strength of his battle armor’s gloves could do the job. He had seen one of these before, many years ago. They were big on Thrath, a place not exactly welcoming to humans. The only way to unlock it was by the owner’s fingerprint, or by a whole mess of ionic explosives.

  Rather than reach to the left and grab Felia’s attached hand, he looked down and saw half a finger, the talon shattered, lying in front of him.

  After wiping the blood away from the severed digit, he pressed it against the case. White light pulsed beneath the finger pad, and it opened with a pneumatic hiss.

  “Thanks, pal,” Ryze said.

  Inside was a stack of bills, amounting to about five thousand fragments. Five thousand frags wasn’t much to some, but here in this city, it would go a long way. Far enough to get you off-world and someplace that didn’t stink of the depraved.

  Ryze deposited the frags into one of the compartments on his armor’s belt. From the compartment next to it, he pulled out a small box. He pressed the red button on its side. The machine whined as it grew larger and the propulsion engines kicked on. The box was now a hover cart, a metal stretcher-like contraption big enough to protect and transport his bounty, a staple in the hunting game. At another push of a button, the cart rose and sealed the corpse from the world and any curious eyes. Guiding it, Ryze left.

  Out of the alley now, the bounty hunter rounded the corner, passing by the cantina. A few rogue aliens gave him dirty looks, but beneath their harsh eyes brewed fear. Ryze nodded in their direction. Not today, friends, you get to keep being scum a little longer. But maybe I’ll get you in the future.

  Ryze continued on.

  He passed hovers and hovels, men and women clad in dirty clothing, their faces starved and gaunt-looking.

  “Mister! Mister!” a voice called behind him.

  Ryze didn’t stop. The locals had a penchant for pickpocketing, and for pushing items not worth much more than the dirt beneath his boots.

  Eventually a boy caught up to him, and he tugged on Ryze’s arm. This made Ryze pause and clear his throat. “What do ya want, pipsqueak?”

  His voice was not kind, and this made the boy take a cautious step backward, his smooth face twisted in fear.

  Instantly, a pang of guilt settled right in the center of Ryze’s chest. The boy couldn’t have been much older than five Common years, maybe six, and here he was traveling the streets of Ypso in the dead of night.

  “Are you a…a soldier?” the boy began. He got asked this question often. It must’ve been the way he walked and carried himself. Or maybe it’s the flayzer and battle armor I’m always wearing.

  “Yeah,” he answered. “Or…I was.”

  Ryze took off his helmet and set it atop the hover cart. The night air cooled his skin, but the smell…the smell was horrible without his helmet filtering it away.

  “Is that why your face is all hurt?” the boy asked.

  Ryze nodded. Hurt, that was an interesting way of putting it. The scars beginning just above his left eyebrow and raking all the way down to his jawline didn’t hurt anymore. It had been nearly two decades since a wyrmwolf attacked him. The terrible claws, the hot pain, the blood—

  No. Ryze pushed the memory from his mind and focused on the boy. He had seen the kid through the HUD of his visor, but seeing him now, with his own eyes, damn near broke his heart. The boy was a walking stick. His hair was mottled and clumped, sores grew around his mouth and on his lips, and the visible skin of his arms was bruised and cut.

  “Have you been in a lot of battles?” the kid asked.

  “I’ve seen my fair share.”

  “That’s so cool! I want to be a soldier when I grow up! I want to fight the God-King and take his castle and move my mommy and brother into it! I’ll do it one day when I’m older and bigger, just watch me.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Ryze smiled gently.

  “Is it fun?”

  “Is what fun?”

  “Killing people.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Killing is never fun. Especially when you’re taking lives in the name of a useless cause like war. There’s no honor in that, kid. Trust me.”

  The boy wrinkled his brow. He pointed to the hover cart. “What’s in there?”

  “Supplies.” Was the lie convincing enough? Eh.

  “What kind of supplies? Food? Can I have some?” The boy’s eyes lit up.

  “Not food.” Unless you’re from Alzea VI…they’ll eat pretty much anything there, even Thrathan meat. Hell, some Thrathans eat Thrathan meat. The galaxy is a crazy place.

  The boy touched the metal casing near the latch. Ryze moved his hand away, and the boy clenched his jaw. He was determined to see what was in the case whether Ryze allowed him to or not.

  “Really, you don’t wanna see what’s in—” Ryze began, but a different voice cut him off.

  “Cord! Cord, there you are!” a woman shouted from an adjacent alley.

  Ryze turned to look at her. She was as thin as the boy and not much taller. She wore a robe, tattered and stained.

  “Hi, Momma! Look, I found a soldier!” the boy, Cord, said.

  Ryze waved.

  The woman wrapped her arms around the boy protectively and didn’t wave back. Instead, she offered Ryze an uneasy smile. He was used to that. When one saw a mercenary, especially one who hunted heads for frags, they tended to shrink away, retreat into their defensive shell. Though Ryze wouldn’t harm an innocent person, he knew the woman would never believe that. So it was better to keep his mouth shut.

  “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

  “You, too,” the woman replied, but she was looking at the hover cart. Unlike the boy, she knew what was in it. Anyone could figure it out based on its body-like shape.

  “Do you have a starship? Is it fast? Does it have cannons on it? Oh, oh, oh—can I hold your gun?” the boy sputtered.

  Before Ryze could even answer one of the questions, the boy’s mother said, “Leave the poor man alone, Cord. I’m sure he doesn’t want to be interrogated right now.” Her and the boy backed up a few steps. “It really is past your bedtime, mister, and if I catch you leaving the hut again, I’ll take away your racer.”

  “No, Momma! Not my racer!”

  “Then be a good boy, Cord, and mind your mother.”

  Ryze watched this exchange with great interest. The concept of family was beyond strange to a guy like him.

  “All right. Bye, soldier!” Cord shouted, waving as his mother guided him to face the other direction.

  “Wait,” Ryze said softly.

  The woman stopped and met Ryze’s eyes. The fear in hers was back, and worse than before. He wouldn’t admit it, but this scraped at his heart.

  Ryze reached slowly into the purse on his belt.

  “Please,” the mother said softly. “Please, just let my son—”

  From the purse, Ryze pulled out Felia’s frags. The woman’s eyes grew bigger, losing the fear, and she took another step back.

  “Whoa!” the boy said.

  “Here,” Ryze whispered, “take it and get off this rock.”

  The woman was hesitant. When she spoke, her voice was barely audible. “W-what? Why?”

  “I don’t know. Just take it, okay? Don’t show or tell anyone. Go to the East Market, there’s a vendor there on the south side who sells ship parts. His name is Strafe, he’s a Valeaian. Nice guy. He’ll give you a fair price if you just tell him Starlo sent you. And get the kid some food, will
ya? Something good and heavy.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would you do this for us?”

  Ryze had to think it over for a second. The truth was, he didn’t know. He could’ve used the extra frags, true, the ship needed fuel and supplies and he needed something hard to drink, but these people needed it more than him. Even though family was a strange concept to him, he knew Ypso was no place to raise one. If they got out while Cord was still young, they might have a chance. A chance at happiness. A chance at a fulfilling life.

  Ryze shook his head. “Just take it.”

  The woman did, and she began to cry. Then she did something Ryze didn’t expect or had been prepared for.

  She hugged him.

  Two

  His helmet back on, the young mother and her son gone, Ryze continued toward his ship. It wasn’t far now, and though he would’ve liked Spex to pilot it over to him instead, he couldn’t risk the exposure.

  Daxen Felia was a well-known target. Many people wanted him dead, and even more wanted to collect the price put on his head.

  But Ryze had been stealthy. In and out. The kill was quick and quiet. Two flayzer shots, a Spike explosion (not loud), and one weak, dying scream from a weak, dying creature.

  His comm chirped, slicing through the relative silence of the city’s outskirts. It was Spex.

  “That was very touching, sir. It reminded me of our first meeting on Tower.”

  “You saw that?”

  “I did indeed.”

  “What did I tell you about spying on me?”

  “I was worried,” Spex said, his tone changing to that of sarcasm—well, as close to sarcasm as an old AI like himself could get. “You’ve been gone too long and I didn’t want to be stuck in this ship forever. Forgive me, sir. It’s not like I tapped into your viewscreen as you were relieving yourself or, heaven forbid, copulating with a female.”