Page 62 of Star Claimed Omega
She was a cosmic asterism, a sun whose heat and light were constant, luminous, and inevitable.
The kind of woman who, if he ever made his, he never would let go of.
‘What’s with the dredgers parked all at once in the loading docks? I count six, no, seven, nine,hell, thrice the amount at any time.’
Santi stood at the helm of the Signet dreadnought, its curved bridge aglow in blue nav radiance and soft-spectrum HUD projections.
The starscape spilled before him, the flotilla’s scattered ships and pleasure crafts bobbing like sleek sea birds across the black.
It should’ve been a quiet shift, but Santi’s gut was roiling.
He leaned forward, boots planted, eyes narrowing at the cluster of signals ghosting in from the bow. ‘Miral,’ he said, voice clipped. ‘You there?’
The AI shimmered into the air beside him, her hologram stately and serene. ‘Naam, XO?’
‘The dredgers, I see too many of them.’
Miral tilted her head. ‘The weekly ice loads have been delayed. The reservoirs on Varkus-4 froze. They’re playing catch-up now.’
‘Why do we have so many of them docked at once?’
‘It’s to help unload as fast as we can. The dock master requested the higher-than-usual traffic so we’d get through the backlog.’
Santi exhaled through his nose, one hand sliding across the helm’s interface. ‘Of course he did.’
The quiet didn’t last.
From the corner of his eye, he caught movement in the overhead ventilation shafts.
A shimmer. A glint.
‘Brace,’ he managed to warn his crew just as the ceiling erupted.
Hands went to their weapons, and bodies surged from seats as panels overhead crashed down.
Masked figures dropped in from above in a hissing, twisting tangle of ropes, repellers, and boots, hitting the metal floor with surgical precision, rifles raised, stun batons gleaming.
‘Bridge breach!’ Santi bellowed as the enemy’s first flash-bang went off.
White light seared his eyeballs with a thunderous crack. The scent of ion dust filled the air.
Santi pivoted, half blind and seeing stars.
He ducked a charging assailant and countered with a vicious roundhouse that cracked against the attacker’s neck.
The man dropped like a beached fish, flapping as he fell.
Yet still more came.
Screams sounded, klaxons echoed. Security panels sparked. The nav-board flickered red.
His fellow strong guard waded into the fray.
Kaal first, shouldering two down with a war cry.
Zev’s rifle snapped precise shots.
Mak rolled and flanked, moving close to the ground and fast. Boaz tore a control conduit from the wall and used it as a bludgeon.
