The Lost Corsair (The Corsair Uprising Space Opera Series Book 4) Read online

  The Corsair Uprising #4:

  The Lost Corsair

  Collected Works of Trevor Schmidt

  The Corsair Uprising Space Opera Series:

  The Corsair Uprising #1: The Azure Key

  The Corsair Uprising #2: Nightstalkers

  The Corsair Uprising #3: Death Wish

  The Corsair Uprising #4: The Lost Corsair

  Collections:

  The Corsair Uprising Collection: Books #1-3

  Science Fiction Novels:

  Symbiote

  Memory Leak

  Short Fiction:

  The Chosen (A Novelette)

  Replica (A Short Story)

  (Replica is always free on Amazon, BN.com, and Smashwords)

  Nonfiction:

  Your Time: 10 Principles for Managing Time Before Time Manages You

  The Lost Corsair

  Trevor Schmidt

  United States of America

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and not intended to represent real people or places. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher.

  The Corsair Uprising #4: The Lost Corsair

  Copyright © 2016 by Trevor Schmidt

  Cover iStock Photo by –Asi-

  Contact the Author

  Website: Trevorschmidtauthor.com

  Facebook: facebook.com/trevorschmidtauthor

  Twitter: @TrevorSSchmidt

  Table of Contents

  Last time…

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  EPILOGUE

  Last time…

  Stranded in a distant part of the Milky Way Galaxy, Captain Liam Kidd, along with fellow humans Saturn Vera and Ju-Long Ma, fought to locate The Azure Key, the device responsible for thrusting them across space. They were not alone. Three alien species were teetering on the edge, ready to reignite a war that had been waged for more than a thousand years.

  The Ansarans, blue-skinned with heavily modified genomes, dominated the star system. Their cousins were the Dinari, a distant genetic relative with scaled skin and large yellow eyes which saw far more than their masters gave them credit. Finally, there were the Kraven, enormous in size and ferocity. Exiled from the common mother world for being too savage, the Kraven sought revenge.

  After suffering a devastating loss, what remains of the crew embarks on a dangerous mission of revenge which takes them across the Ansara System. What they find on the surface of a distant moon unlocks secrets from The Long War which were meant to remain buried. What really happened when the Corsair fleet disappeared? The answer spans both time and dimensions…

  THE LOST CORSAIR

  1

  Garuda Colony, Planet Garuda, 10,000 Light Years from Earth.

  The cool night breeze washed over Saturn Vera’s face, specks of coarse sand plinking off her tan skin and falling harmlessly down her form-fitting black garments. The shadows of the starport’s many ships hid her well in their embrace. Though Martian by birth, Saturn was firmly Argentinian by blood and her physique showed it. Her serious brown eyes conveyed a determined fire which wasn’t able to be suppressed. More than the attitude borne in her DNA, she was fueled by something even more unyielding; vengeance.

  Saturn’s fingers crawled down her thigh to the grip of her laser pistol, its sleek black coating reflecting just enough moonlight to be a concern. It wouldn’t bode well to be discovered now. Another chance might not come easily. She tightened the straps of her leather satchel over her shoulders and continued on.

  The Ansaran guards were out in force, their scaled blue skin and bulbous black eyes hidden beneath their sand-colored armor. Each stood a whole head taller than her and carried their weapons slung down in front of their chests as they passed in patrols of three. Even after Saturn’s one-time business partner Zega had taken control of the colony, the gangster had let the Ansarans remain to police the city on his behalf, with a few alterations to their normal patrols, naturally.

  Zega was as corrupt as they came, and had weaseled his way into the lives of every being in the colony, Dinari and Ansaran alike. The old Ansaran Guard had become his army, enacting Zega’s will on command. Why the notoriously proud Ansarans would stoop to doing Zega’s dirty work was beyond Saturn’s comprehension. One thing at a time, she thought. Her mission couldn’t wait.

  There were few hangars in Garuda’s starport. Instead, most ships remained exposed to the sometimes violent weather of the desert planet. Only about a quarter of the dual-rotor Ansaran craft were in good condition, the rest suffering from brutalized paint jobs and caked with sand that would be impossible to remove, even after thorough cleaning. Off to one edge of the strip stood three Dinari trade vessels, their shapes boxier than the Ansaran ships and basic in design. From experience, Saturn knew not to judge the Dinari ships by looks alone. She felt her stomach tighten and heartbeat quicken. Indeed, she knew well that there was far more to Dinari ships than a glance at the exterior could discern.

  Shifting her gaze to her left, she saw what she was after. The wide doors of the hangar were propped open. Within was a pile of wreckage, haphazardly arranged. Saturn recognized some of the components. It was what remained of the Earth mining vessel that had brought them through the wormhole. The rumors were true, the Ansarans had kept it close by after all.

  Saturn slunk through the shadows of each craft, waiting for an opportune time between patrols to stalk over to the next ship. The full moon was unfortunate, but Saturn was nevertheless able to traverse the starport to the open hangar bay. From her position near an Ansaran dual-rotor craft forty meters away, Saturn could see a solitary guard just beyond the hangar doors.

  At first, her hand clung to the grip of her laser pistol. After a moment, she reconsidered. The light from the laser would draw too much attention. Saturn reached a gloved hand into a pouch hanging from her russet belt and retrieved a coil of wire with a metal handle at either end. It might not be pretty, but it had to be done.

  Once the next patrol moved past, Saturn crept around to the side of the hangar and inched around toward the front door. Apart from the moon, the only other sources of light were the few orbs jostling with tiny Flicker Bugs, hanging near the ceiling of the expansive bays.

  Saturn poked her head around the edge of the wide doorframe, eyes quickly taking in the scene before pulling back abruptly. Only one guard, she thought. Saturn uncoiled the wire and held its handles in either hand. The Ansaran guard paced around the back end of the wreckage, occasionally inspecting what he found to be interesting. To him, a human ship must have seemed exceptionally strange.

  Using his boot, the guard kicked over a piece of metal, reading the red words emblazoned on the deep gray al
loy. Saturn clenched her teeth and steeled herself as she crept up behind him. It only took a second for her to find the break in his armor at the neck. She drove her knee into his lower back, pulling the wire down and cutting into his clavicles. Their difference in size made it difficult to force him to the ground, but she managed to do so with relative silence.

  When the guard finally stopped moving, she slipped the wire out of his wound and wiped the dark purple blood off on her pant leg before returning the wire to the pouch at her hip. She gripped the Ansaran under his armpits and dragged his lifeless body over the compacted sand and behind a nearby pillar. With any luck, he wouldn’t be found until morning. She wasn’t planning on sticking around too long anyway.

  Saturn moved around the side of the wreckage and approached the side airlock. She placed a hand around the thick metal door, which remained slightly ajar. Saturn put her weight into the door and it refused to give more than a few centimeters. It was never easy without power running to the airlock. She repositioned herself to have better leverage and was able to apply enough force to open the door and slip through.

  What little remained of the old mining craft’s interior was in rough shape. With only the sliver of light piercing the airlock, she couldn’t make out much. Saturn reached into one of the pouches on her hip and pulled out a small orb. She gripped the little ball so that the rays of light that protruded her fingers formed a guiding beam for her to follow. Even through her gloves she could feel the faint heat generated by the flutter of the Flicker Bugs inside it.

  A sense of nostalgia gripped her when she noticed the missing metal panel in the cargo bay. She approached it and peered through the hole into the ship’s sole bathroom. That had made for a few interesting experiences when her and her crewmates were on their way to the desert planet. Saturn frowned when an image of Liam Kidd entered her mind. She felt something in her chest tighten and her lungs deflate.

  “Keep it together Saturn,” she whispered to herself.

  Saturn positioned the orb’s light so it was illuminating the corridor leading to the cockpit. She maneuvered around a couple of cargo crates and ascended the few stairs to the bridge. Inside, a layer of dust obstructed her view of the outside through the cracked and broken windows. She added her free hand to the orb, letting a little less light seep through than before. The dust and cracks would do little to obstruct the orb-light from the view of the patrols.

  The console’s controls were crusted with sand and inert. It was no matter. She’d come prepared. Saturn knelt down between the pilots’ chairs and examined underneath the console. She holstered her orb and retrieved her knife from a holster attached to her ankle on the inside of her boot. Using the tip, she pried open a square compartment. After setting down the knife, a faint blue glow graced her fingertips as she pulled out the ship’s memory core. The outside of the cylinder was made from a clear composite that could withstand just about any damage the ship could conceivably take. She remembered some of the old folks called it a Black Box when she was growing up in the Colonies on Mars. They’d been clear for as long as she could remember, so the name never made much sense to her.

  Saturn loosened the straps of the satchel draped over her shoulders and untied the drawstrings. She reached inside and pulled out a battery pack, placing it carefully on top of the unresponsive console. Saturn licked her dried-out lips. The materials her crewmate Ju-Long had used to assemble the makeshift battery cell weren’t ideal. She wasn’t even sure if it would be compatible with the memory core. Ju-Long knew what he was doing, she assured herself.

  The cable’s seven-pronged connector fit into the side of the memory core snugly. She felt herself release a sigh as the core illuminated to a far brighter blue. Her eyes watched the core dance as hundreds, perhaps thousands of images began to appear, hovering several centimeters out from the object. Crew logs, ship manifests, and countless diagnostics scrolled around in a multi-layered ring around the cylinder. Saturn used both hands to manipulate the images to show the most recent data.

  “There you are,” Saturn said under her breath, expanding one of the images with a gesture of her right hand.

  Her lip quivered. Perhaps it was the chill in the air, she thought. She felt a thin stream of tears trickle down the left side of her nose and bunch up at the corner of her mouth, where she quickly wiped them away as though hiding them from a non-existent spectator. Saturn was a child of the Martian Colonies. Martians didn’t cry.

  The cool, collected face of her former captain stared back at her. His long, blond hair was the tangled mess it had always been, and the deep scar running down his right cheek appeared extra white through the bluish tint of the recording. Just so, if possible, his blue eyes appeared an even deeper hue. She extended her index finger and prodded the image. The hologram came to life and he began to speak.

  “This is Liam Kidd of Earth. It’s been two hours since we crossed through a wormhole to this distant part of the Milky Way Galaxy. Ju-Long and Saturn continue to make repairs to the ship while I use the scanners to try and find a habitable planet. The sensors were made to find precious metals and ores, but with a little modification, they could find life forms as well, supposing they’re carbon-based of course.”

  Liam stopped, his gaze lowering and a defeated look coming over his face. Looking on, Saturn couldn’t hold back any more tears. They cascaded now, collecting with the dust in the air and trailing down her face in a thick and salty brook of sobs.

  “Saturn and I have been through a lot together, but we always make it through. Sometimes I wonder when our luck will run out...”

  Liam wiped the sweat from his mouth with his right hand and looked into the camera. His arm fell back to his side. Something within him rejected his last sentiment.

  “Not here. Not now. We’ve come too far to die like this, stranded out in the middle of open space. We will make it back to the Sol System. We’ll make it home.”

  Liam’s image cut out in a fit of static and the cockpit was shrouded in silence. Saturn was scared to breathe. She knew if she took a breath of that musty air she would no longer be able to control the virulent current of her tears.

  “I’ve lost you,” Saturn struggled to say to the darkness.

  A flicker of light bounced off the back wall of the cockpit, a directed beam diffused by the grimy window. Hushed voices crowded the shadows. Saturn instinctively grasped the memory core and battery pack, slipping them carefully into her bag as though she were cradling a piece of herself. She slung the bag over her shoulder and drew her laser pistol, using the thin black fabric that covered her forearm to wipe away her remaining tears.

  The Ansarans moved quickly, but in their haste they lacked any real measure of stealth. Saturn found her way through the darkness to the cargo bay of the mining vessel. She pressed herself up against the side hull behind a large yellow crate, careful not to let any part of herself be exposed to the moonlight. Taking shallow breaths, she waited.

  2

  Stray orb-light hit the wall to Saturn’s left. She heard one of the guards thrust the heavy door aside with ease. He was followed into the cargo bay by two other guards, their heavy footsteps echoing off the metal hull and rumbling in Saturn’s ears.

  The leader spoke, his troubled voice muffled through his helmet which entirely covered his face, “The light came from the cockpit. Stand guard, I’ll check it out.”

  “Yes, sir,” the other two said in unison.

  While the leader ascended the stairs toward the cockpit, the two remaining guards began searching through the cargo bay. The beams from their orbs filled the room with light, but for the shadows that remained beyond the mag-sealed cargo containers. Saturn’s breathing thinned even further. She knew she couldn’t create a ruckus or getting out of the starport could pose a problem. Saturn returned her laser pistol to its holster at her hip. She’d have to make it quiet.

  Her hand moved carefully down her thigh to the blade lodged inside her high boots. She felt the familiar
creaking as she gripped the handle with her tight leather glove.

  “You ever seen the Captain this agitated?” The taller of the two guards asked the other one.

  Saturn peered around the crate and saw the shorter Ansaran soldier turn toward his partner and shrug. Short was a relative term. Both of the blue-skinned aliens had at least a full head of height on Saturn. Their bodies were covered by sand-colored armor which obstructed her view of their globular black eyes.

  “You’re new to this patrol,” the shorter of the two said, “Everyone knows the Captain was close to a promotion before that thug Zega took control. The way things are now, it’s better to follow the orders of a Dinari than walk the great streets of Rheyll Ansara to the afterlife. The Captain’s just doing his job the only way he knows how.”

  “It’s almost shift change and this is a fool’s errand. This place is a ghost colony.”

  The shorter soldier lifted a hand and pointed his long finger up at his subordinate’s tan face mask as a warning.

  “Don’t let the Captain hear you say that. You’ll get us both knocked down to sanitation duty. Or worse, street patrol. After what happened in Sector Seven I don’t want to take any chances with that human running around.”

  “But you agree, don’t you?”

  “Sometimes I think your whole generation was born with an entitlement complex. You are a member of the Ansaran Guard. It’s not your job to question. It’s your job to follow the will of our leaders.”

  “Even if that leader is a Dinari?”

  “There’s no denying it. He controls this colony now.”

  “We might not have the numbers, but we have the weapons, the augmentations. We could take it back.”

  “The Ansaran High Council’s instructions were clear; the Captain was in the chamber himself when it was given. Patience. The time will come. Remember the stories of the War of a Thousand Years? This battle is lost, but the war will live on always. Do not fear the night.”