Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker Read Free Page A

to hell in a hurry.
    A thought struck Hazel, and she looked back at Markee. "Captain, how about if we just dump everything? Throw the merchandise and body banks out the airlock and let it all burn up falling through Virimonde's atmosphere? No evidence, no proof."
    "Nice idea," said Markee. "And if that ship hadn't been a starcruiser, we might have got away with it. But with the kind of sensors they've got, they could identify every organ and tissue sample independently and read the maker's name on the body banks. Their sensors records would make damning evidence. So, we can't dump it, and we can't afford to be caught with it. Doesn't leave much room for maneuvering, does it?" He smiled briefly. "I suppose we could always eat the merchandise. How's your appetite, Hazel?"
    "Not as good as it was a moment ago. Basically, what you're saying is we're screwed if we do, and screwed if we don't I suppose surrender is out of the question?"
    Markee's smile came and went again. "There's enough evidence on this ship to hang us all. Slowly."
    "So what are we going to do?"
    "The one thing they won't expect. We'll fight. Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky."
    "And if we don't?"
    "Then at least we'll die quickly. Are the guns ready?"
    "Ready as they'll ever be. They haven't been checked, let alone fired, in ages."

    Hazel glared at the massive ship on the screens before her. Tears of anger and frustration burned in her eyes, but she wouldn't give in to them. Her luck had just turned bad one time too many, that was all. She pounded a fist on the arm of her chair. "What the hell is an Empire ship doing here anyway? We only made the decision to come here twelve hours ago! They couldn't have known about us."
    She didn't see Markee shrug, but she could hear it in his voice. "A lot can happen in twelve hours, especially when you've got enemies. Any number of people could have found out where we were heading and then sold the information to the Empire."
    "But who the hell would send a whole bloody starcruiser after small fry like us?"
    "Good question. Wish I had a good answer for you. Could he the Boneyard Boys, calling in an old favor to put the finishing touch to our destruction. It doesn't matter. Now suck it in, and stand ready with your disrupters. Hannah is currently telling the Empire ship that we're an ambulance craft on a mercy mission to a plague outbreak. She's feeding them all kinds of convincing details, but I didn't think they're buying it. Certainly they aren't going to buy it long enough for our engines to power up for a jump into hyperspace."
    Hazel's mouth was suddenly dry. "Captain, our two guns aren't worth spit against all theirs. There must be something else we can try."
    "Sorry, Hazel; nothing springs to mind. You know what they say: if you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined."
    Hazel waited, but Markee had nothing more to say. She concentrated on her fire controls. Both the Shard and the starcruiser had force screens that could withstand a hell of a lot of punishment, but they also used up a hell of a lot
    of energy, and the Shard's shields would go down long before the Imperial ship's did. It came to Hazel then that she was going to die out in the empty spaces of the Rim, far from home and family and honor. Just as she'd always known she would.
    On the Imperial starcruiser Darkwind, Captain John Silence sat at ease in his command chair, looking out over his efficiently murmuring bridge: every man at his station, every system running smoothly, just as it should be. The small craft on the main viewscreen seemed surprisingly insignificant to be taking up so much of his time and attention. Still, nothing that small was going to give him any trouble, and the prize money its capture would bring would be a welcome bonus. At least that way something good might come of this mission. He tried to push the thought aside, but it persisted. He had better things to do than waste time hunting down some poor bastard who probably didn't