Fringe Station (Fringe Series Book 2) Read online

  Fringe Station

  Book 2 in the Fringe Series

  Rachel Aukes

  The Fringe Series

  Fringe Runner

  Fringe Station

  Copyright 2016 Rachel Aukes

  Cover Design by EJR Digital Art

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

  Kindle Edition: October 2016

  Edited by Stephanie Riva, RivaReading.com and Laurel Kriegler, Kriegler Editing Services

  Contents

  Also by Rachel Aukes

  About

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  The Collective

  Glossary of Terms

  Also by Rachel Aukes

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Contact

  Also by Rachel Aukes

  The Fringe Series

  Fringe Runner

  Fringe Station

  The Deadland Saga

  100 Days in Deadland

  Deadland’s Harvest

  Deadland Rising

  Short Stories in the Deadland World

  Fat Zombie

  At Hell’s Gates

  Colliding Worlds Trilogy

  Collision

  Implosion

  Explosion

  About

  The fast-paced sequel to Fringe Runner!

  The three torrent leaders—Captain Aramis Reyne, Critch, and Commandant Gabriela Heid—have quelled Myr’s plans to take over the Collective. All three captains suffered heart-wrenching sacrifices, and things haven’t gone exactly as planned.

  Alluvia, a puppet under Mason’s shadow, hasn’t taken action like the three captains had hoped. Instead, the two citizen planets—Alluvia and Myr—remain allies. The Collective’s leaders held an emergency Parliament session and released a public statement that the three captains are criminals trying to pull the Collective apart. Corps General Michel Ausyar has been granted absolute authority over the Collective Unified Forces to subdue the fringe unrest.

  Ausyar and the CUF armada has put the colonies in a chokehold, restricting all actions and resources. Forced to run and hide, the three captains devise a reckless plan for building a torrent army. With enemies coming at them from every angle, they soon realize that no one, not even the fringe, wants them to succeed.

  Chapter One

  Supply Run

  The Gryphon settled into position facing the Honorless, the most infamous pirate ship in the Collective.

  Throttle powered down the navigational engines. “We’re locked in and ready to play.”

  “Good work,” Reyne said. He couldn’t get a visual on Critch’s ship—it was painted in a light-absorbing black and had no external lights on—but he knew the deadly craft stood fewer than fifty clicks off his bow.

  He pulled up the scalar grid on his panel. The Honorless’ position was clearly marked by the largest blip. The Gryphon was a small blip directly across from it. Behind each of them, a line of seven ships branched outward—Critch’s entire pirate fleet, known as the specters. Sixteen red blips in all formed a deadly funnel for anyone who made the mistake of entering it.

  Reyne tapped each of the sixteen blips on his panel to manually mark each one’s current position with a yellow halo.

  The specters’ private message channel lit up, and he read a broadcast from Critch:

  Honorless: All ships are indicated in position. Hold position until tango passes you, then lock on to assigned coordinates. Tango will be on grid in five. Go silent NOW.

  “It’s time. Power down all external lights,” Reyne ordered.

  “Powering down now.”

  As she took care of the hull, he dimmed his instrument panel and the lights on the bridge. Throttle’s pale white skin reflected the glow from her bright panel, while his dark skin and clothes blended into his black panel.

  He turned off the ship’s transponder and his craft’s blip disappeared from the grid. One by one, the other fifteen red blips disappeared, leaving only the yellow circles he’d marked to indicate each ship’s location.

  He grabbed the comm and broadcast to the remaining two crew members on board. “Heads up. We’re holding in position. The party starts in fifteen and should reach our doorstep in eighty minutes, so be ready. Sixx, wrap up whatever you’re working on and make your way to the bridge. Comm silence for everyone from here on out.”

  Barely two minutes had passed before Throttle gave a drawn-out sigh. “I hate waiting.”

  Sixx stepped onto the bridge, chuckling. “That’s because you were born without a milligram of patience. Remember that time you cut off a CUF patrol ship because you got tired of waiting for them to launch from Ice Port’s docks?”

  She rolled her eyes. “In my defense, he was flying like a ninety-year old grandpa. Plus, I was coming down with the flu and was feeling fidgety.”

  Sixx smiled as he strapped himself into his seat. “Fidgety? Sure, that must’ve been it.”

  “Run system checks, Throttle,” Reyne said. “That should keep you busy for a couple more minutes at least.”

  “Already ran them.”

  “Run them again.”

  “Throttle’s right,” Sixx said. “Waiting sucks. We could all use some action.”

  “Be careful what you ask for.” Reyne glanced over his shoulder. “Why don’t you run weapons checks?”

  “Already did, boss.”

  Reyne shot him a wry look.

  Sixx held up his hands. “I know, I know. Run them again.”

  With his crew busy, Reyne found his attention drawn to the grid displayed on his panel, the only reminder that sixteen pirate ships waited, about to spring the biggest trap ever laid in the history of the fringe. Where most pirates were loners and outcasts, the specters were famed as the only organized pirate fleet. What no one outside that pirate fleet knew was that the specters only wore the guise of pirates to accumulate resources and wealth for what they truly were…

  Torrents.

  The Gryphon—a small and agile gunship left over from the Uprising—was the first non-pirate ship to become part of the torrent fleet, but it wasn’t the last. The next ship added to the fleet—the fleet’s ace card—sat not far from the Gryphon and Honorless, but no one could see it even if they tried. Unlike the other ships in the fleet, that one had stealth capabilities. Not only could it run silently, but it could also run invisibly. Without the newest addition to the fleet, Reyne wouldn’t even have considered trapping a CUF ship.

  “Surprise,” Throttle said. “All systems checks ran clean. Again.”

  “No kidding,” Sixx added. “All weapons checks ran clean. Again.”

  Reyne didn’t respond. Instead, he leaned forward to better see his panel. A red blip had appeared on the edge of the grid near the wide opening of the funnel, where the two smallest ships in Critch’s fleet waited more than a thousand clicks out from each other. “Looks like we’re about to find out if our mousetrap will work. Throttle, throw the shields up and cycle the na
v engines.”

  “Shields are up. Cycling engines now,” she confirmed.

  “Good,” Reyne said. “Sixx, open the gun bays and power up the guns.”

  “How about the cannon?”

  He considered it for a moment. “Better power it up to be safe.”

  Sixx clapped his hands together. “Finally.”

  Reyne spun his seat around and pointed at the other man. “Remember, the cannon is a last resort. You don’t fire it unless we have no other option. The last thing we want to do is blow up our payload.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I got it.”

  “They haven’t changed course or speed,” Throttle said. “So far, so good.”

  The CUF ship about to enter the funnel was limping back to the main fleet at sub-speed. Unknown to the crew on board, its jump engines had failed courtesy of sabotage by a low-level fringe conscript who’d been more than happy to help out the torrent cause…for a price, of course.

  Reyne watched the large blip as it approached their trap. It had taken over a month to prepare for this mission, and they had no backup plan if they failed. The risks involved had given Reyne heartburn every night for the past week. Worse, not sleeping well made his joints ache worse, and he found he was going through twice as many painkillers as usual.

  He watched the blip fly between the first two yellow circles without changing course. As it progressed between the second pair, his confidence grew and he found himself breathing easier. “They’re coming straight in. Won’t be much longer before their comms are jammed.”

  Jamming tech was highly illegal, and a favorite trick of pirates since it was undetectable until a ship tried to make or receive a transmission. Crews often thought their systems were malfunctioning, and by the time they figured out they were being attacked, the pirates had latched on to their ship.

  The Gryphon was the only ship in the torrent fleet not yet upgraded with jamming tech, but the Honorless was close enough to cover the full narrow end of the funnel trap. As the CUF ship moved into the funnel, the ships farthest out began to close in behind it, shutting off retreat routes and ensuring it remained jammed from all directions.

  Jamming tech, however, had two problems. One problem was that it sucked power and could drain a ship’s reserves in no time flat. The other problem was that it was short-range. The entire fleet needed to use jamming comms, hitting the supply ship simultaneously from every direction, with the hope that by working together it would be enough to block the incoming ship’s transmissions.

  The Matador was part of the Collective Unified Forces’ largest class of supply ships. It was massive, large enough to hold three warships within its storage tanks. The CUF ship would be on its own against the torrent fleet, but was in no way an underdog. The Matador outgunned them all…with the exception of their ace card.

  If the Matador got any transmissions through, the torrent fleet ran the risk of facing a battle they could never win. While all the torrent ships had their own guns, they would do little damage against a warship, let alone the multiple warships Corps General Ausyar would send if he found out where the torrents were. Ausyar had been scouring the Collective for Reyne and Critch for the past year. The leader of the CUF had voiced, on all the Collective news channels his vow to take down the torrents, and he’d been doing his best to track them down since then. After a year of running and hiding, the torrents were finally ready to make their next move.

  As their target moved deeper into the funnel, Reyne looked out the view panel to get a visual on their target. It didn’t take long. The huge round gray ship cut through space like a fat Alluvian bass through water. He gulped at the sight of the beast approaching them.

  A flicker in the black drew his gaze. The largest ship in the torrent fleet—the Arcadia—blinked into view.

  “What are they doing out of stealth?” Reyne asked. “The fleet’s not in place yet.”

  The Matador slowed. Reyne suspected they were trying to communicate with what they believed to be another CUF ship, only to discover that their comms weren’t working.

  Warnings flashed across his panel, indicating their target had figured out the threat far more quickly than most and was responding by powering up its shields and opening its weapon systems.

  “Looks like they’re realized it’s the Arcadia and not one of theirs,” Reyne announced. “Prepare for evasive maneuvers.”

  The Arcadia fired a warning shot across the Matador’s bow, and the CUF ship responded by firing dozens of photon shots in all directions.

  Throttle banked the ship hard in time to miss a blinding shot.

  “It looks like they’ve located all of us.”

  “Fire back?” Sixx asked.

  “Not yet,” Reyne said. “We don’t want to rile them up too much.”

  “They’re already shooting at us. How much more riled up can they get?”

  The Matador fired again. This time, Throttle pulled up and snap-rolled the Gryphon. The force of the blast sent a shudder through the hull.

  “I lost gun Five,” Sixx announced.

  “Nav engine two isn’t responding,” Throttle added.

  Sixx looked up. “On the bright side, if they’d used cannons, we’d be dead already.”

  A rotating red beacon below the Arcadia alerted Reyne. “It’s safe to say we’re switching to Plan B.”

  While the Matador was bigger, the Arcadia was a warship, carrying many times more the armament and weaponry as the supply ship. One of those weapons was an EMP engine. There was no visible sign of the weapon being fired—EMPs were invisible to the human eye—but the results couldn’t be missed. Lights across the ship’s hull went dark as though someone flipped a switch.

  For an interminable minute, the Matador faced the Arcadia in a deadly staring contest to see who would blink first.

  Throttle broke the silence. “We’re lucky that ship doesn’t have an EMP shield.”

  Reyne grimaced. “Unfortunately, there’s a reason Plan B wasn’t Plan A. If we can secure the Matador’s crew, that ship is still going to be out of commission until we can recycle the electrical systems. Bringing a ship that size back online could take several hours.”

  Throttle shrugged. “Since they didn’t get off any distress calls before we hit them, we shouldn’t have anything to worry about. We should have it up and running and be long gone before the CUF sends a search-and-rescue patrol.”

  “I know, but I don’t like being stuck on its flight path longer than we have to.”

  Three transport ships emerged from the Arcadia’s docking bays and headed over to the surrounded supply ship. “Phase Two is on,” Reyne announced. “Let’s hope the CUF crew surrenders peacefully instead of doing something stupid.”

  “I bet there's plenty of adrenaline-laced terror buzzing through that crew right about now,” Sixx said.

  Reyne nodded, and worried for the teams docking on the Matador. He’d served as a chaser when he was conscripted into the CUF, and had been on more than his share of missions like this, where a little mistake could result in disaster. The Arcadia had its cannons leveled at the supply ship, and he hoped the threat would be enough for the CUF crew to know they’d been beaten and to surrender peacefully. Unfortunately, asking them to surrender wasn’t easy when comms were being jammed.

  Anxiety caused his joints to ache. He didn’t move, not until four long minutes later, when the Matador’s outer lights flashed the all clear in Morse code.

  Reyne relaxed. “Light us up, Throttle.” He tapped his comm. “The Matador is down, and the Arcadia is now securing the crew. You okay back there, Boden?”

  “Got nailed in the shin by a wrench.”

  Throttle’s eyes widened. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. The ship got a bit rattled, and I’m showing some minor damage to the hull and photon gun five.”

  “Can we still make jump speed if we need to?”

  “We don’t have the juice to make jump speed,” Throttle interrupted, and Reyne
silenced her by holding up his hand.

  “Yes. I’m showing no loss of integrity to the jump shields or to the engines, but the aft nav engine system needs recycled. The earliest we could jump is fifteen minutes.”

  “Throttle will recycle the system up here.”

  A second later, Reyne’s message channel lit up. He opened it to find a broadcast from Critch:

  Honorless: Tango is reported secure. Maintain jams until tango is visually verified. Report status on this data channel.

  Reyne typed a response. By the time he finished, other responses had already begun to light up the screen.

  Lady Lilith: No damage.

  Nighthawk: Engine running hot. Running scans. Will check back if need help.

  Gryphon: Rattled from blast echo. Recycling nav engines.

  Winter Wind: Damage to both nav engines and jump shield is down. We can limp around but need to dock for repairs.

  Arcadia: Winter Wind, dock at bay Seven.

  Winter Wind: Arcadia, wilco.

  Scorpia: No damage.

  Maelstrom: No damage. That was one hell of a show.

  Mustang Run: Suffered hull breach. We’ve patched it for now, but it’s not going to hold. We need to dock immediately.

  Honorless: Scorpia, shadow Mustang in case she needs to move crew.

  Scorpia: Mustang, on our way.

  Arcadia: Mustang Run, proceed to docking bay Six.

  Night Velvet: No damage.

  Mustang Run: Arcadia, negative. Need a tow. NOW.

  Delilah: No damage.

  Scorpia: Mustang, prepare for tow hooks. Coming up alongside now.

  Ocelot: No damage, though Roq needs to change his pants.

  SkyE Rider: No damage. Ginger Grey lost her comms and primary systems, but we have visual Morse confirmation that she’s otherwise in good shape.

  Crazy’s Coral: No damage worth reporting.

  Blue Jay: No damage. Thirsty for juice.