The Rise of Earth Read Free

Yana at the port airlock, led by Grigsby, the Comet ’s warrant officer and the belowdecks boss. He was tying his white dreadlocks behind his head, brilliantly lit tattoos oscillating up and down his dark-brown arms.
    â€œMistress Hashoone on deck,” Grigsby barked, and the dozen crewers saluted.
    Yana nodded at them as Grigsby handed her two chrome musketoons. The weapons’ weight felt reassuring. They’d been in her family for generations, used by the ranking officer in countless boarding actions.
    â€œWe’re boarding a caravel,” Yana told the crewers as they checked their own carbines. “She was flying a Jovian flag but never transmitted the recognition code—tried tosay our sensor mast wasn’t receiving.”
    â€œHeard that tale before, Mistress Yana,” muttered Higgs.
    â€œSilence there,” Grigsby growled, his mouthful of chrome teeth gleaming.
    â€œTheir heading was Saturn,” Yana said.
    The tough, scarred men and women surrounding her went quiet. Most were veterans of the defeat at Saturn. They’d seen their fellow crewers die during the Comet ’s desperate flight through the planet’s rings, pursued by Thoadbone Mox and his fellow Ice Wolves. And they’d wanted revenge ever since.
    â€œWe’re playing this by the book, though,” Yana said. “I’m not dying because some accountant panics at his ship being boarded. We all want payback, but today that means taking a Saturnian cargo and ship and turning them into livres to spend in Port Town. You hear me?”
    â€œThree cheers for Mistress Yana!” yelled Dobbs, the Comet ’s pale master-at-arms, his ever-present cheroot dangling from his lips. The other crewers took up the cheer as Yana checked the power levels on her musketoons.
    â€œWe’re ready, Captain,” Yana said into her headset.
    â€œSo are we,” Diocletia replied. “You are green for boarding.”
    Yana nodded at Grigsby, who stepped forward with Dobbs and a crewer named Cartier, weapons raised. Klaxons wailed as the Comet ’s inner airlock door opened. Through a window in the outer door Yana could see the Lampos ’s own outer door was shut. A docking ring of tough but flexible rubber connected the two ships, sealing them against the vacuum of space.
    Carbine raised, Grigsby thumbed the control that opened the Comet ’s outer hatch. The temperature plummeted and gooseflesh rose on Yana’s forearms. The moisture in the docking ring froze into crazy zigzags of rime on the surface of the Lampos ’s hatch.
    â€œOpen her up, Mr. Grigsby,” Yana said, thumbing her musketoons’ safeties off.
    The Lampos ’s outer hatch screeched open, revealing the inner airlock door still shut. The Comets muttered angrily.
    â€œThis here captain’s a right hard horse,” Grigsby said.
    â€œTycho, patch me through to the caravel,” Yana said, shivering in the chilly lock while her brother opened the communications channel. “Captain? Are you going to open the starboard airlock, or are we going to burn through it?”
    The inner hatch grumbled upward, wind rippling the clothes of the Comets as the air in the two ships mingled. No one was waiting on the other side of the lock—ahead of them, a passageway led deeper into the caravel.
    They were halfway down the passageway when the first Lamposes appeared. They were big men in dark-blue coveralls, their belts crowded with tools. The Comets met them at the caravel’s belowdecks junction, where a ladderwell led upward. Yana peered down each passageway, then up the ladderwell. It should lead to the bridge, shethought, trying to remember the ship’s schematic. She wished she’d taken more time to study it.
    â€œHands up, you lot,” Grigsby growled at the caravel’s crewers, waving his carbine emphatically.
    The freighter’s crewers obeyed—slowly, smiling in an effort to be