Joely Sue Burkhart

Week 1
Week 2

Eyes aching and his back a mass of knots, Rackman lowered the lights and stood up to stretch. His back and shoulders popped, and the mark on his face burned as fiercely as when the wolf first spit acid on him. At least the damned beast missed his eye.

Something rustled outside his door. A thud. He glanced at the clock. Too early for the shift to change. Silently, he edged over to the wall and drew his stunner. With his back pressed tight, he waited. Surviving–and escaping–the worst prison in the galaxy taught him never to ignore his instincts. Right now, his instincts screamed at him to dial the stunner up to kill.

No, enough killing. I’ve done enough killing for a dozen lifetimes.

His door swooshed open. Had he forgotten to lock it? He might have in the rush to read Hope’s last journal. Someone crept inside, a gun in hand. Rackman waited, barely breathing, as the intruder scanned the room.

Filling his lungs as quietly as possible, he let loose a shrill, piercing call that would have made Kermit fall into a dead faint. The sound still haunted Rackman’s nightmares, too.

The intruder flinched, covered his ears, and Rackman struck, hard, the butt of his gun to the back of the man’s neck. He went down in a heap.

Not taking any chances, Rackman crouched back against the wall. The door was still open. His knees ached, and his lungs screamed for loud, deep breathing, but he kept his body tight and silent, just in case the intruder had assistance.

“Frank.” The low whisper barely reached Rackman’s ears, but he knew the voice.

Son of a bitch. Briggs slipped into the doorway. He didn’t have the courage to play chicken with a massive, slow frigate, but he thought he could pull off a mutiny?

Rage tightened Rackman’s face, splitting the scar in a blaze of fire. Pushing away from the wall with the stunner aimed carefully at the bastard’s chest, he spoke. “Come get your murderous friend.”

“Captain.” Hesitating a moment, Briggs strode inside and bent down to check Frank’s pulse. “We didn’t violate your primary rule. His weapon was set to stun.”

“As was mine.” Rackman grimaced, his face twisted by that hateful scar. “Repeat to me our code on the Obsession, Briggs, the code I gave you when I hired you. Let me hear it from your traitorous lips.”

Swallowing nervously, Briggs replied, “The crew is family. The ship is our home. We kill only to protect the life of our family or our home.”

“Ah. And yet you come in the dead of night to eliminate your Captain, the father of this happy little family?”

“Not eliminate, Sir.” Briggs raised his chin, his eyes glinting in the low light. “We were merely going to incapacitate you.”

“Oh, well, that’s all. Mutiny.”

Briggs flinched. “You’re unfit to Captain this ship. You take outrageous risks, putting us up against a massive gun, taking considerable damage, for a few casks! A few thousand marks at most! The ship alone is worth ten times that, Captain.”

“You have no right to question me or my orders. None.” Rackman bit off the words, fury tightening his face even more. “I am owner and Captain of the Obsession. Since you object so strenuously to my leadership, you will disembark at the next port.”

“You listen to that Quag, that Bullfrog, making him first officer when he can’t even communicate with us. What did he get out of this insane strike? What hold does he have on you, Captain?”

Rackman slowly stroked a hand down the horrible scars on his face, forcing the other man to take a good, long look. “He saved the life of the Butcher of Fen-Ddai, even when I single-handedly killed thousands of his people. If I’d known what a racist you are, I would have kicked you out of my ship without an interview, let alone a position.”

“He’s a Frog. We defeated the Quags.”

“Did we?” Rackman shook his head. “You don’t understand your history very well, then.”

“Wait a minute.” Briggs searched his gaze, shock sagging his face. “If you’re the Butcher, then you– you–”

Rackman stepped closer, deliberately leering that warped smile. “I escaped from Im-Muir. With Kermit.”

“You’re worth–”

“Nothing.” Shame burned as fiercely as the scar on his cheek. He turned away, his gaze falling on the fragile journals, tattered with age and so priceless. Hope. She was all he had left. “Last I heard, my bounty is well over a million marks, but my life is worth nothing.”

Briggs launched at him, one arm going hard around his throat, the other grabbing his hand with the gun. Surprised, Rackman wheezed, trying to bring the gun up against the other man’s body.

“Suns, Captain, you’re a fool. I’ll gig the Frog and hand you over to the Republic. Then I’ll own a dozen shitty ships like this one. A whole fleet.”

Now he knew where Briggs found courage–in greed. Spots danced before Rackman’s eyes. His will to live was strong, thanks to Hope. He must find her.

He heeled the small depression on the inside leather on his right boot, once, twice, to fully arm his weapons. A small movement against the bottom and sides of his foot confirmed the razors and spikes in the sole deployed. He stomped straight down on Briggs’ foot, piercing through his boot with an inch-long barb.

Briggs howled but didn’t let go until Rackman used the heel blade to slice open his kneecap. He jerked the gun up hard into the man’s abdomen. “Why do you hate him so much?”

No answer, just a growled, frantic gasp of pain and anger.

Drawing a deep breath, Rackman searched the man’s face for some redeeming quality. No Quag hated as violently as this man who’d never even seen the atrocities of Fen-Ddai and the bloody work of the Butcher. Rackman carried the weight of countless deaths on his soul that dragged him closer to hell every day. Eliminating such hatred would lighten his load somewhat.

Rackman pulled the trigger.

The blast shoved Briggs back, stumbling, until he fell flat on the floor. A stun at such close range was a painful way to die. Gasping, twitching, it took him several minutes to finally stop breathing. While Rackman watched, silently, feeling every convulsion himself.

How could he face Hope with so much blood on his hands?

Despair weighed on him. Perhaps Kermit was right. No one knew more about Hope’s Haven. Nobody. Yet Rackman couldn’t find her. He didn’t even have one solid lead where her resting place might be. Even if he found her now, cryo would’ve failed after nearly one hundred years. Hope was dead.

Suns, Captain, you’re a fool.

His head jerked up. Of course, the suns!

Rackman dug through the stack and opened the first journal entry she wrote after landing on the barren wasteland they dubbed New Haven. He had most of Hope’s letters memorized, so it only took him a moment to pinpoint the full eclipse of the two suns hanging above New Haven, and then the next.

Twenty three days between eclipses. Exactly like–

Terrified yet giddy, he entered the search parameters into the computer. Which planets with two suns had a cycle of exactly twenty three days of full daylight and three of night?

Only one known planet. The planet he still dreamed of and woke screaming. The planet to which his return meant a sentence worse than death.

Im-Muir.