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  Kestrel Run

  Future House Publishing

  Cover image copyright: stock.adobe.com. Used under license.

  Text © 2019 Future House Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of Future House Publishing at [email protected].

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

  ISBN: 978-1-944452-94-0 (paperback)

  Cover illustration by Brad Duke

  Developmental editing by Matea Borget and Scott Ferrell

  Substantive editing by Tayah Nelson, Stephanie Cullen, and Scott Ferrell

  Copy editing by Sara Ansted and Scott Ferrell

  Proofreading by Erin Searle

  Interior design by Ahnasariah Larsen

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  Contents

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  Chapter 1: How Low Can You Go?

  Chapter 2: Press the Red Button in Case of Emergency

  Chapter 3: Steroid Asteroids

  Chapter 4: A Dead Man, a Witch, and a Wormhole

  Chapter 5: Nebula Nightmare

  Chapter 6: Stuff that Goes Bump in a Nebula

  Chapter 7: A Fear-Maddening Discovery

  Chapter 8: The Source of Doom

  Chapter 9: Warm-Blooded Marsupials and Cold-Blooded Creatures

  Chapter 10: Take the Money and Run

  Chapter 11: Like Rats to a Plague

  Chapter 12: An Unlikely Ally

  Chapter 13: No Win Without Defeat

  Chapter 14: Goodnight Worms

  Chapter 15: Old Friends

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  About the Author

  Chapter 1: How Low Can You Go?

  Phaser Madsen adjusted the blaster so that it hung a little lower from his hip.

  “What are you doing?” Bash asked.

  “Just making sure I’m ready,” Phaser said.

  “If you put that thing any lower, I’m going to buy you a boot holster for it.”

  “What are you talking about? It’s perfect. See?” Phaser drew the weapon and had it ready to fire in a flash, though he had to admit he had to lean a little to get his fingers around the grip. Still, he couldn’t deny how great it looked strapped against his thigh as he admired himself in the pneumatic pan-directional transit pod’s shiny metal door.

  “Put that thing away before you blow your toe off,” Bash growled, his long ears twitching with amusement.

  Phaser heeded the advice. The Azinsian-built Class-Q blaster wasn’t the most powerful in the galaxy, but it was more than capable of removing a digit or two. It also had a notoriously light trigger, which made the accident a real possibility.

  After a moment with only the hum of the pod between them, Bash asked, “You’re really not going to take the job?”

  “We’ve been over this,” Phaser said, pulling the holster just a tiny bit up so he could reach the blaster easier.

  “We don’t even know what he wants yet. It could be a really good run for us,” Bash said.

  Phaser shrugged. “Knowing Gorm, it’s probably something that ends with us dining on prison food and bunking with a big cellmate who doesn’t like sharing.”

  Bash’s furry face twitched with irritation, but he didn’t say anything.

  “This is just a courtesy call,” Phaser added. “We’ll listen to what he has to say, politely decline, and get out of there as quick as we can.”

  The pod glided to a stop and the door hissed open. They stepped off the transport and onto Outpost 5G9—the height of underworld havens. The tiny, rocky planet on which 5G9 sat had been originally scouted by the Cooperative nearly four decades ago. Their intent was to build a new training base, but like many Cooperative projects, 5G9 was forgotten about. That left the door open for others to step in and claim it.

  Torgorn, an old guard crime lord, had begun construction on the planet almost as soon as he found it unclaimed in the Cooperative’s database. He had even registered it as an official waypoint in space travel with the Cooperative, who designated it 5G9. Of course, the outpost was just a front for his many smuggling endeavors. As his crime empire grew, Torgorn formed alliances with other crime lords. They had moved to 5G9 and it became the underbelly of the galaxy right under the Cooperative’s nose.

  Unlike the docking bay, which smelled of burnt electronics, grease, and body odor, the interior reeked of ill-gotten gains. Everything was top of the line—luxury sleeping quarters, a massive cantina, and access to every vice imaginable.

  Phaser pointed towards a bar that overlooked the colosseum of holograms around the amphitheater of private tables. “That’s where Gorm said he’d be waiting.”

  “The Cantina of Clapping Corpses?” Bash read off the blinding sign hanging from the building. “Classy.”

  “Don’t let the morbid name fool you, Bash. There’s more credits in there than we could make in two lifetimes.” Phaser fidgeted with his side holster again.

  Bash raised an eyebrow. “Getting nervous, eh?”

  “I think you’d better hang back. Just in case things go to hell in a handbasket and we need a quick way out. Think you can manage?”

  Bash smirked and nodded. “What’s the matter? Scared your personality won’t be enough to charm the pants off old Gorm?”

  Phaser rolled his eyes as they made their way past two bouncers posted outside the bar. One of them glanced at Phaser’s sidearm, but ignored it. Phaser frowned at the dismissal of his sidearm and pushed open the thick metal door for Bash.

  Phaser made his way to the bar, while Bash cut a beeline for a rowdy game of Centauri Hold’em going on in a back corner of the establishment. He was never at a loss for company in establishments such as this. Most had never encountered a creature like Bash, one intelligent enough to play cards. Of course, Bash enjoyed the game a little too much, but Phaser knew he didn’t have to worry. The Metatherian would keep an ear up for trouble.

  The cantina was full of the usual assortment of degenerates and criminals, from crime lords looking for their next deal to the lowly miscreant trying to make a few credits. Phaser did what any smart man would do. He kept his head down, avoiding eye contact. He had a job to attend to and didn’t need any outside interference. Halfway to the bar, he caught a motion of color out of the corner of his eye. Phaser paused and glanced to the right, quickly scanning the crowd.

  Frowning, he dropped his eyes again and continued toward the bar. It must have been his imagination. Still, he couldn’t shake the creepy crawlies that had slithered up his spine and made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

  Phaser reached the bar and slid in between conjoined twins and a big man who had his temporal lobes pierced. The modifications were said to help stabilize creative thought. The only effect Phaser thought it had was making the person unable to form coherent sentences. He tapped the counter to get the female bartender’s attention. When she turned, Phaser was met with striking, glow-in-the-dark purple irises. She had matching lightning bolt tattoos under both her eyes. He’d seen a pattern like that before, but where?

  He glanced at his reflection in the surface of the counter and checked his breath in his palm. He shrugged off his earlier creeped out feeling and pictured himself as John Wayne meeting Angie Dickinson in Rio Bravo.

  He muttered to himself, “Here goes,” and turned back towards the woman. “Hey, beautiful eyes, I’ll take a pint of Gatling Grog.”

  The big man with pierced lobes cracked his knuckles and took a step closer to Phaser so that his hairy navel actually lapped up onto the bar and touched Phaser’s hand. “Back off,” he growled through his many chins. “That’s my wife.”

  Phaser removed his hand from under the man’s sweaty navel and stepped backward slowly, surprised he understood what the man said. He glanced at the piercings. Were they real? “Just making conversation, buddy.”

  “You think you’re funny, huh? I’m not your bud-duh-dy.”

  The stutter made Phaser glance at the piercings again. Maybe they were real.

  The man grabbed Phaser by the collar with a meaty hand and pulled him right up on his belly. “What are you looking at? You like the work I’ve had done?” He pointed up at the holes in his head with a curved dagger. Beads of electricit
y sparked up and down the blade.

  Even though the bouncer had shown no concern for Phaser’s blaster, he knew pulling it would be a huge mistake. In that kind of crowd, nobody would blink an eye at a blade. Blasters, however, tended to produce more blasters. Instead, he inched his hand towards the man’s drink sitting on the bar.

  The fat man continued. “I’d be happy to help you out if you’d like some holes similar to mine. After all, I did ‘em muh-muh-myself.”

  Phaser feigned a thoughtful expression and took a sip from the man’s drink. “Hmm, very tempting. Very, very tempting. I’ll have to admit, though, I think I like my skull in its current condition, so I’m going to have to pass.”

  Phaser threw the drink into the man’s face. He grabbed and twisted the wrist clutching the dagger. The sparking blade contacted the man’s wet belly, and the electrical current spread across his body. There was a sharp crack and the force of the electrical discharge knocked him backward over the bar. He landed hard on his back and wheezed, wisps of smoke rising from his stomach hair.

  The bar’s unsavory patrons had momentarily gone silent, but went back to their conversations as though nothing had happened.

  Phaser turned his back on the bar. Mistake. He felt a tiny barrel press into his side and a set of long fingers grip his arm with surprising strength.

  A woman’s voice hissed into his ear, “Your little stunt just gained you more attention than Gorm would like.” There was a click. A needle pierced his side and emptied its contents into his bloodstream.

  Whatever it was, it hit Phaser like a ton of bricks. He stumbled backward and looked up from the arms of his assailant.

  “Humans sure can’t hold their drink, huh?” she asked the crowd.

  Before fading into darkness, a bright pair of eyes stared down above him. Purple eyes, swirling into darkness.

  ***

  The thudding pulse of new age electronica music filled Phaser’s ears. His head throbbed with the beat, dragging him back to consciousness.

  “Voids, I hate this new age garbage. Play something with a soul, would ya?” he muttered.

  With a grunt, he rolled to push himself into an upright position, but what he thought was the floor disappeared from underneath him. He fell a few feet and landed with a hard thump. He blinked away the haze that threatened to pull him into unconsciousness and stared up at a bar above him.

  Loud laughter and whistles filled the room. Phaser turned his head to find himself in a different bar than he remembered. The room was full of mercs with lightning bolt tattoos under their eyes. The fall must have rattled something loose in his brain, because realization hit him. He’d seen those tattoos on Cooperative wanted posters when he’d been caught making a stolen diamond run outside Jupiter. The lightning bolt was an ancient symbol worn by the Doodmaak clan of witches, the deadliest mercenaries this side of Bloondog 5.

  Things had just gotten a lot more precarious.

  Phaser’s hand strayed instinctively to the holster at his hip, but it was empty. Things just went from precarious to oh crap.

  Two shirtless hulks stepped forward and dragged him to his feet.

  “Thank you, ladies, cyborgs, and not-so-gentlemen,” Phaser said groggily and took a bow, nearly falling over in the process.

  A glass bottle shattered on the floor. The laughter died out as all eyes turned to a skinny man standing on the luminescent bar. He fiddled with another bottle before smashing it to the floor as well—just to make sure he had everybody’s attention.

  He wore a black mask that resembled a bird with a beak full of sharp teeth and a three-piece suit of all white leather and black studs. His hands were adorned with many rings of white gold and red sapphires. He gave the bottom of his coat a tug and jumped down from the bar. The man stepped towards Phaser, breaking into a slow applause. No one else joined in. Glass crunched ominously under the masked man’s boots.

  “Always on display, Madsen.” The man’s voice came from an electronic box in the bird’s beak that gave it an electronic buzz. “Always a showman.”

  “Look who’s talking,” Phaser said. “You preen more than a Dorkellian peacock.”

  The girl with the purple eyes darted forward and put a hand on the masked man’s shoulder. “Back off, mercenary. You may be the one who lured him here, but we’re under strict orders to deliver Phaser Madsen unspoiled to Gorm. You must not touch him.”

  “Those are your orders, aren’t they?” Without taking his eyes from Phaser, he reached up and removed the mask. The face underneath looked like a sallow-skinned version of John Travolta on Saturday Night Fever and he had the hair of a silver fox. “It’s a good thing that I’m Gorm. I should probably introduce myself to our guests, don’t you think, Madsen?” His teeth dazzled an unnatural shade of white when he smiled.

  The collection of Doodmaak witches stared dumbfounded at the small man. Surely a man of Gorm’s reputation would be larger in stature. Wouldn’t he?

  Gorm turned from Phaser and dipped a bow much more graceful than Phaser’s. “I present to you, Gorm: gentleman of not-so-gentlemen, as you say, Madsen.”

  The woman narrowed her purple eyes to slits at Gorm and began to protest. “This is not what we agreed upon, you have no right to defy—”

  “Shut up!” Gorm snapped, his slick demeanor turning dark in an instant. “You may complain later if you are dissatisfied by the proceedings this evening. But may I remind you that while you are here, you answer to me alone.” Bits of spittle flew from his mouth as he spoke.

  To her credit, the purple-eyed girl didn’t flinch.

  A grin spread over Gorm’s face and he swept a stray hair behind his ear, the outburst gone as quickly as it had appeared. “Madsen, you rogue, it’s good to see you. I was a little concerned you wouldn’t make it here in one piece, what with that nasty business of the gentleman with all those holes in his head. Unfortunate. Most unfortunate indeed. Here I was thinking of inviting my good friend Phaser Madsen to a clandestine sort of meeting—one of those open-ended invitations—and I assumed that he would be capable of comprehending the need to blend in with the usual rabble here.” Gorm slapped Phaser on the back jovially. “Most unfortunate that you couldn’t even follow such simple instructions, because now I’m going to have to kill you just to keep my good name. But that’s why they call it the Cantina of Clapping Corpses now, isn’t it? Why don’t you take another bow, Madsen? Applause always did suit you. We will clap for you when we drop your body down the incinerator.”

  Phaser smiled. “And making a grand entrance always did suit you, Gorm. Quit bluffing. You can’t kill me. You need me, or I wouldn’t still be breathing. So cut the crap, and I’ll hear your little proposal. No promises, though. I’m a pretty busy guy.”

  Phaser hoped his bravado would keep Gorm talking until he could think of a play. Despite telling Bash he was going to turn down Gorm’s offer, he desperately needed money to pay off the Fox and would accept the job if the price was right. But he hadn’t bargained on a room full of Doodmaak mercenaries. That made declining the job offer infinitely more difficult.

  Speaking of Bash, where was that overgrown kangaroo? Phaser regretted letting the Metatherian join in on a game of Centauri Hold’em. He was probably elbow-deep in his pouch, digging for credits to gamble away.

  Gorm twirled a ring around his finger before waving his hand at a chair off to the right. One of the burly mercenaries standing beside Phaser jumped to retrieve it. He placed it behind Phaser.

  “Have a seat, Madsen,” Gorm said. “You look a little unsteady.”

  “Thanks for your concern, but I’d rather stand.” In all honesty, Phaser would rather sit because his head still felt like it was fully of jelly. He didn’t want to show any weakness in front of Gorm, though.

  Turned out, he didn’t have a choice. A mercenary kicked his feet out from under him and he landed hard on his tailbone. A jolt of pain shot up his spine, but he managed to keep the pain from his face.

  “Let’s chat, shall we?” Gorm said, taking a seat himself.

  “Actually, I was thinking I could go for a drink right about now.” He turned to the purple-eyed girl. “Am I right?”