The Renegade Star Series: Books 1-3 (Renegade Star Box Set) Read online

  J. N. Chaney

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  Renegade Star Copyright © 2017 by Variant Publications

  Book design and layout copyright © 2017 by JN Chaney

  This novel 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, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from JN Chaney.

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  1st Edition

  BOOKS BY J.N. CHANEY

  The Variant Saga:

  The Amber Project

  Transient Echoes

  Hope Everlasting

  The Vernal Memory

  Renegade Star Series:

  Renegade Star

  Renegade Atlas

  Renegade Moon

  Renegade Lost (January 2018)

  Renegade Fleet (February 2018)

  Renegade Empire (March 2018)

  Standalone Books:

  Their Solitary Way

  The Other Side of Nowhere

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  RENEGADE STAR

  For Sarah -

  how lucky that I should live

  at this moment

  on this planet

  in this galaxy

  and, despite the odds,

  meet and love a girl like you.

  ONE

  “I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!” screamed William Emmerson as he ordered his security personnel to fire in my direction.

  “Good luck with that!” I returned, running as fast as my feet would carry me.

  I tore through the woods outside the Emmerson Estate, having just stolen an object worth two hundred thousand galactic credits—a small metal orb about the size of my fist.

  A merchant named Fitz, one of Emmerson’s rivals, hired me to deliver this junk for a reasonable price. I didn’t really give a shit about their feud, but the pay was good and I needed the work.

  “Stop him!” shouted Emmerson. “Someone stop that bastard!”

  I could hear the dogs barking far behind me as I neared the clearing. If Emmerson thought a couple of mutts and some hired goons would be enough to slow me down, he had another thing coming.

  “Excuse me, sir,” said a voice in my ear. It was Sigmond, my ship’s A.I. unit. “I see you’re being chased. Shall I drop the cloak and prepare for departure?”

  Another energy blast went flying by my head, throwing a shower of splintered tree bark and oxidized sap into my face. I gripped my pistol and swung around, spotting the guard between branches and undergrowth. I waited for a clean shot, then squeezed the trigger and fired, sending the bullet straight into the man’s leg, dropping him to the ground.

  “That’d be great, Siggy,” I said, breaking through the tree line and into the open field. “Try to make this quick, pal, unless you wanna be homeless.”

  “Perish the thought, sir.”

  The Renegade Star rippled as it phased into visibility right in the middle of the valley. Several more security personnel came running after me, emerging from the forest, setting their sights on me and firing.

  I burst forward, shredding grass with the heel of my boot. Several shots fired in the distance, whizzing by so close they rang in my ear.

  “Hurry!” shouted Emmerson, joining his rent-a-thugs. He continued with a garbled, unintelligible slew of insults.

  Meant for me, I assumed.

  I turned and aimed as I ran, shooting as accurately as one could expect, given the situation. This managed to startle the other men, forcing them to take cover.

  Four dogs entered the field, racing after me, snapping their jaws as they ran. Within a few short seconds, they were already halfway across the glade.

  “Get us out of here,” I said as I finally reached the ship. “Raise the lift!”

  The dogs were closing behind me. I could hear the anticipation of the kill in their labored breaths as they gained ground.

  The cargo bay gate began to rise, and I leapt into it, sliding along the floor with my pistol trained out the narrowing airlock.

  The animals tried to jump in after me but fell short. They leapt and snarled, showing their teeth as the half-closed gate continued to raise.

  Several blasts struck the side of my ship. “Fuck you!” I heard Emmerson shout.

  The Renegade Star lifted from the ground. I held the railing, watching through the closing cargo bay as nearly two dozen armed guards and their master aimed their rifles at me and fired.

  More shots peppered our hull, but I knew we could take it. This ship was built to withstand a hit from a quad cannon, so a little handheld firepower wouldn’t do much except scrape the paint.

  As the airlock sealed and daylight was replaced by the cruising floods, we accelerated. For a brief moment, I felt the pressure, until the stabilizers kicked in and it was smooth sailing.

  At about this time, we entered the stratosphere. From Emmerson’s point of view, we were already gone.

  I ran up the stairs and made my way to the cockpit, where I took my seat and strapped in. On the dash, an old bobblehead of Foxy Stardust, a cartoon character, was still bouncing from the earlier turbulence. She had a white helmet with a neon blue visor and a pink spacesuit.

  “Raising the cloak,” said Sigmond, right as we entered the stratosphere.

  No doubt, Emmerson was fuming over what I’d done, although it wouldn’t matter soon. After I delivered this trinket to Fitz, all the blame would shift to him. If there was any revenge to be had, Fitz would bear the cost of it, not me. That was how it usually went for people in my line of work. We did the job, but the client was always the one who shouldered the blame.

  My name is Jace Hughes and I was a Renegade. A hired gun. I’d been known to smuggle, steal, loot, and even kill, should the need arise, and I’d keep on doing it until I was dead.

  It was the life I’d chosen, and I had no regrets.

  * * *

  “What the hell is this?” I asked, staring at the blinking red light on the dash.

  “That would be the warning light, sir,” remarked Sigmond.

  “Since when do we have a warning light?” I asked. “And how do I make it stop?”

  The light went dead as soon as I finished. “Apologies, sir. It seems our sudden arrival triggered it. The sensors were overwhelmed.”

  “Oh,” I said, turning back toward the glass and the current battlefield. Over four hundred ships across two fleets were currently fighting it out, blasting themselves to pieces. I couldn’t say why this was happening. That’s not why I was here.

  We were flying above Galdion, an isolated planet on the edge of the galaxy, having just broken through the thermosp
here on our way out. I’d arrived in pursuit of an item of interest, dropped here specifically for me to pick up and deliver. Had I known I’d be leaving through a war-zone, I might have arrived at a later time.

  “Do any of them see us?” I asked, referring to our cloaked vessel.

  “Not yet,” answered Sigmond.

  “How soon can we jump?” I asked, bringing up the star map.

  “Approximately forty-five seconds," responded Sigmond. "Longer if we die.”

  “Funny as always, Siggy.” I punched in the coordinates for Taurus Station, our next destination and my current home of record.

  “Thank you, sir,” said the AI. “I really do aim to please.”

  The ship jerked sideways, and I gripped my chair. “The hell!” I barked.

  “Shields are holding,” remarked Sigmond, an unimpressed tone in his voice. Normally, AIs weren’t outfitted with personalities, but I made it a point to request one when I had Siggy commissioned. If I was going to spend weeks at a time inside this ship, it wouldn’t be with a monotone, talk-me-to-sleep artificial intelligence. “Neither side has spotted us yet, thankfully, and the cloak is holding. Both enemy shots were targeted at other ships.”

  Some distance from the planet, several Master Class Cruisers lay waiting. It would be difficult to leave this area without being spotted, even with the cloak. The smaller fighters won’t be able to detect us, I thought. But those Cruisers might. “We’ll have to show ourselves soon right before we make the slip. Think we’ll have enough time?”

  “I believe so, sir,” said Sigmond. “Though, I may have to return fire, should they spot us.”

  “Let’s try to avoid a firefight, Siggy. The last thing I need is another warrant.”

  “Perhaps next time you won’t bring us to such a dangerous location,” said Sigmond.

  “I will if I want to eat,” I told him. “Or would you rather we not get paid?”

  “There must be easier lines of work,” said Sigmond.

  “Easier ain’t always better, Siggy,” I said with a grin. “I’ll take the Renegades over sitting behind a desk any day of the week, thank you very much.”

  Another blast rocked the ship, this time from the rear, and the attacking vessel passed by overhead. It was a strike class Arnesian raider. “Are we ready yet?” I asked.

  “Incoming slip in twelve seconds,” said the A.I.

  I watched the two fleets duke it out, ships exploding across the battlefield like fireworks, leaving fields of floating debris in their wake. In a matter of hours, the entire orbit of this planet would fill with wreckage. Dozens of salvage crews were likely already standing by, eager to resell the parts to the open market, possibly to the very organizations involved in this fight. Ships would be rebuilt, pilots trained, and the cycle would continue. Before I joined the Renegades, I might’ve been there with them, waiting for my scraps.

  Not anymore. Now I had a more active profession. Sure, it was dangerous, and I’d probably get myself killed before I turned fifty, but I’d rather die from a blaster than boredom.

  “Dropping the cloak and initiating slip,” announced Sigmond.

  I gripped the manual controls for the quad cannons. “Let’s do it.”

  The screen showed the cloak dropping, leaving us vulnerable to detection. “Readying slip,” indicated Sigmond. “Six seconds until activation.”

  I nodded. “That should be quick enough to—”

  Before I could finish, two Arnesian raiders broke formation, turning toward us. “We’re being scanned,” said Sigmond. “They are readying weapons.”

  I let out a quick sigh. “Can’t say I didn’t try.”

  I aimed the digital reticule at the first ship, squeezing the trigger once the computer had the lock. The quad cannon sprayed a series of rapid shots at the enemy vessel, punching a six-meter hole straight through its cockpit, obliterating the pilot and setting the ship to drift like a dead fish in a calm lake.

  Immediately, I turned my attention to the second, firing another wave. To my surprise, one of the shots tore through the center of its hull, splitting it apart instantly and igniting its core. The propulsion engine reacted the only way it knew how—by exploding.

  The ship shattered into countless pieces of unsalvageable dust, scattering towards the planet.

  The rest of my shots continued, unabated, into the darkness of space. A few fell to the planet’s surface, followed by the debris from the destroyed ships, most of which would disintegrate before it could touch the ground. My shots, however, would continue until they hit something. Part of me wondered if any of them would strike Emmerson’s plantation, but I wouldn’t stick around to find out.

  I had shit to do.

  “Initializing slip,” said Sigmond, and suddenly the entire battlefield vanished.

  I watched as we entered the slip tunnel, the buried dimension that doubles as an express lane. Most of slipspace was still largely unexplored, but at some point, we figured out how to use it to transport ourselves across vast distances. Traveling through it wasn’t instantaneous, by any means, although it was certainly faster than using normal space. Instead of taking centuries to travel from one-star system to another, you only had to wait a few hours, maybe days or weeks, depending on how far apart the systems were.

  Right now, I was looking at six standard hours, give or take a few minutes. That gave me time to nap and take a piss, maybe snag a sandwich. “Siggy, let me know before we’re out. I need to be alert when we get there.”

  I leaned back in my chair, observing the passing lights along the slip tunnel. I had no idea what they were, and I didn’t care to learn. I wasn’t a scientist, and I liked the mystery.

  I reached down beside my foot and touched the package, a metal crate, tightly secured with a coded lock. I’d risked my life to track down, retrieve, and deliver this thing.

  Whatever it was, I didn’t want to know. Being a Renegade meant doing whatever the job required. It meant shutting up and getting paid.

  Outside of that, nothing else mattered.

  TWO

  “Ten thousand credits,” said Fitz, pressing his thumb to the pad. “Now, give me the orb.”

  “Here you go,” I said, tossing it to him.

  He caught it with both his hands, right in the flab of his gut. I watched him marvel at it, studying the detailed designs engraved in the metal. “Marvelous.”

  “Glad you approve,” I said.

  “Oh, yes. This is great!” he smiled. “That shithead Emmerson must be so pissed right now. I hope he’s ripping his hair out. Did you see his face when you took it? How angry was he?”

  “It was hard to tell with all the gunfire.”

  “I bet he killed one of his men after you left. He does that sometimes,” Fitz said, laughing.

  “You got any other jobs for me?” I asked.

  “More?” asked Fitz. “No, nothing else right now. Maybe in a few more weeks. Things are slow these days, you know?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Why you asking? You feeling an itch in the old trigger finger?”

  Dammit. I could’ve used another job. “I’ve got some debts I have to square.”

  “That’s too bad,” said Fitz, grinning. “You ought to make better life choices.”

  “Says the guy who hired me,” I remarked, ignoring his sarcasm.

  He gave me a cheeky smile. “Maybe so. Say, you wanna know what you stole?” He lifted the orb in front of me.

  “Not particularly,” I said.

  He chuckled before tossing it behind him. “Well, it’s nothing, really. I just heard it was Emmerson’s favorite toy. He collects old shit and pretends it’s treasure. He thinks it makes him sophisticated or something.”

  The orb rolled along the floor, stopping when it hit the base of his chair.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “When he finds out I have it, he’ll be so furious. I hope he tries to come after me. Did I tell you what he did to me?”

  “He st
ole your territory,” I said, hoping to avoid what he was about to tell me.

  No such luck.

  “He did more than that! I was the only dealer in X-92 fuel for three systems until he showed up. I had a monopoly on over thirty high-demand items. Emmerson comes around and starts undercutting me on every bid. Can you believe that? He’s got no idea who he’s messing with. I’m going to—”

  I turned away and started to leave. “See ya later, Fitz. Good talking to you.”

  “W-Where are you going?”

  “I’ve gotta be somewhere. Call me if you get another job.”

  He swallowed, recomposing himself with a large grin. “Maybe I’ll have you steal the rest of his collection next time. I’ll be in touch!”

  “So long, Fitz,” I said, leaving his foyer. You crazy bastard.

  When I was outside, near my ship, I tapped the com in my ear. “Siggy, how’s my money looking?”

  “Ten thousand credits have been transferred from multiple shell accounts into yours,” said Sigmond.