Outbound Flight
Chapter 1
The light freighterBargain Hunter moved through space, silver-gray against the blackness, the light of the distant stars reflecting from its hull. Its running lights were muted, its navigational beacons quiet, its viewports for the most part as dark as the space around it.
Its drive gunning for all it was worth.
"Hang on!" Dubrak Qennto barked over the straining roar of the engines. "Here he comes again!"
Clenching his teeth firmly together to keep them from chattering, Jorj Car'das got a grip on his seat's armrest with one hand as he finished punching coordinates into the nav computer with the other. Just in time; theBargain Hunter jinked hard to the left as a pair of brilliant green blaster bolts burned past the bridge canopy. "Car'das?" Qennto called. "Snap it up, kid."
"I'm snapping, I'm snapping," Car'das called back, resisting the urge to point out that the outmoded nav equipment was Qennto's property, not his. As was the lack of diplomacy and common sense that had gotten them into this mess in the first place. "Can't we just talk to them?"
"Terrific idea," Qennto bit out. "Be sure to compliment Progga on his fairness and sound business sense. That always works on Hutts."
The last word was punctuated by another cluster of blaster shots, this group closer than the last. "Rak, the engines can't hold this speed forever," Maris Ferasi warned from the copilot's seat, her dark hair flashing with green highlights every time a shot went past.
"Doesn't have to be forever," Qennto said with a grunt. "Just till we have some numbers. Car'das?"
On Car'das's board a light winked on. "Ready," he called, punching the numbers over to the pilot's station. "It's not a very long jump, though-"
He was cut off by a screech from somewhere aft, and the flashing blaster bolts were replaced by flashing starlines as theBargain Hunter shot into hyperspace.
Car'das took a deep breath, let it out silently. "This isnot what I signed up for," he muttered to himself Barely six standard months after signing on with Qennto and Maris, this was already the second time they'd had to run for their lives from someone.
And this time it was aHutt they'd frizzled. Qennto, he thought darkly, had a genuine talent for picking his fights.
"You okay, Jorj?"
Car'das looked up, blinking away a drop of sweat that had somehow found its way into his eve. Maris was swiveled around in her chair, looking back at him with concern. "I'm fine," he said, wincing at the quavering in his voice.
"Of course he is," Qennto assured Maris as he also turned around to look at their junior crewer. "Those shots never even got close."
Car'das braced himself. "You know, Qennto, it may not be my place to say this-"
"It isn't; and don't," Qennto said gruffly, turning back to his board.
"Progga the Hutt isnot the sort of person you want mad at you," Car'das said anyway. "I mean, first there was that Rodian-"
"A word about shipboard etiquette, kid," Qennto cut in, turning just far enough to send a single eye's worth of glower at Car'das. "You don't argue with your captain. Not ever. Not unless you want this to be your firstand last tour with us."
"I'd settle for it not being the last tour of my life," Car'das muttered.
"What was that?"
Car'das grimaced. "Nothing."
"Don't let Progga worry you," Maris soothed. "He has a rotten temper, but he'll cool off "
"Before or after he racks the three of us and takes all the furs?" Car'das countered, eyeing the hyperdrive readings uneasily. That mauvine nullifier instability was definitely getting worse.
"Oh, Progga wouldn't have racked us," Qennto scoffed. "He'd have leftthat to Drixo when we had to tell her he'd snatched her cargo. Youdo have that next jump ready, right?"
"Working on it," Car'das said, checking the computer. "But the hyperdrive-"
"Heads up," Qennto interrupted. "We're coming out."
The starlines collapsed back into stars, and Car'das keyed for a full sensor scan.
And jerked as a salvo of blaster shots sizzled past the canopy.
Qennto barked a short expletive. "What thefrizz? "
"He followed us," Maris said, sounding stunned.
"And he's got the range," Qennto snarled as he threw theBargain Hunter into another series of stomach-twisting evasive maneuvers. "Car'das, get us out of here!"
"Trying," Car'das called back, fighting to read the computer displays as they bounced and wobbled in front of his eyes. There was no way it was going to calculate the next jump before even Qennto's luck ran out and the fuming Hutt back there finally connected.
But if Car'das couldn't find a place for them to go, maybe he could find all the places for themnot to go..
The sky directly ahead was full of stars, but there was plenty of empty black between them. Picking the biggest of the gaps, he punched the vector into the computer. "Try this one," he called, keying it to Qennto.
"What do you meantry? " Maris asked.
The freighter rocked as a pair of shots caught it squarely on the aft deflector. "Never mind," Qennto said before Car'das could answer. He punched the board, and once again the star-lines lanced out and faded into the blotchy hyperspace sky.
Maris exhaled in a huff. "That wastoo close."
"Okay, so maybe heis mad at us," Qennto conceded. "Now. Like Maris said, kid, what do you mean, try this one?"
"I didn't have time to calculate a proper jump," Car'das explained. "So I just aimed us into an empty spot with no stars."
Qennto swiveled around. "You mean an empty spot with novisible stars?" he asked ominously. "An empty spot with no collapsed stars, or pre-star dark masses, or something hidden behind dust clouds? That kind of empty spot?" He waved a hand toward the canopy. "Andout toward the Unknown Regions on top of it?"
"We don't have enough data in that direction for him to have done a proper calculation anyway," Maris said, coming unexpectedly to Car'das's defense.
"That's not the point," Qennto insisted.
"No, the point is that he got us away from Progga," Maris said. "I think that deserves at least a thank-you."
Qennto rolled his eyes. "Thankyou," he said. "Such thanks to be rescinded if and when we run through a star you didn't see, of course."