The Smuggler's Radiant (Renegades Book 2) Read online

  Watching Earthers move around the red planet was an actual hobby to some. The newer an Earther was, the more delight they took in the lower gravity of Mars. There were whole sports, hobbies and events built around Earther tourists, though it was nothing compared to the games that were common to the lighter weight Martians.

  Even now, after so many years living on the ‘red planet,’ Anders still had a lightness of step Rhona almost envied.

  ‘Bloody tourists,’ her father said. Anders acted like a buffer, forcing the crowd to move around him and protecting his family.

  ‘You got any last-minute purchases?’ her mum asked.

  Rhona eyed the tourist shops. ‘Nothing I can’t buy upstairs.’ The prices were ridiculous, with a tourist tax added onto every dollar.

  They walked across the grand concourse, staying together. At one point, the shops to one side disappeared, a balcony taking its place. Rhona could see the train platforms below. The train station and the shopping centre were built against the canyon wall with the port above carved directly into the wall of Valles Marineris, high above the city.

  After several minutes of fighting against the crowds, they finally arrived at the lift bank. Rhona saw her dad hit the call button. A moment later, the doors opened, and they stepped inside.

  Valles Marineris was a mile deep in some places with Persephone nestled deep on the canyon floor. Each story of the dock was three times the height of a normal floor to allow for the ships. They waited patiently for the meandering lift to make its way to level fourteen, where the family ship was docked.

  ‘Oh, fucking hell. Hurry up lift,’ her dad growled.

  Finally, when the doors opened, the family stepped into the rushing crowds.

  Here was another shopping promenade for those who were refuelling but didn’t have clearance to visit the city of Persephone or the planet of Mars itself. More crowds milled and browsed the wares of the various shops.

  Anders put his arm around Amy. Amy caught hold of Michael’s hand, and Anders pulled Rhona under his other arm. In this way, they stayed together as they pushed through the crowds, visiting several shops and picking up last-minute supplies.

  Finally, they arrived to find Audrey Hepburn in her usual berth.

  It was a week since they’d last seen the family ship. They landed from a four-month job to Saturn’s moons and spent the last few days preparing, cleaning and stocking the house. As much as they hated leaving the black, it simply wasn’t safe to give birth there. It was also a McKinnon family tradition to have their children on Mars and had been for over a hundred and fifty years.

  The arse of the ship was butted up against the airlock. Only one of the family or Port Authority could open it. Through the glass, the vessel was exposed to the Martian atmosphere. The airlock led directly to the ship’s hold, and a large silicone seal was vacuumed to the hull to help maintain pressure. There was a massive drop door that would slam down in the event the air pressure became compromised.

  Through the thick glass walls, Rhona could see Audrey Hepburn balanced on two huge legs. This would be her ship for the next two years. Audrey Hepburn wasn’t a big ship. It was basically a two-bed house with its own contained atmosphere and the ability to fly through space. The hold made up over a third of the ship overall. The living space was made up of a central family room with an adjacent kitchen: a family scrub room and two bedrooms. The bridge, the engine room and the hold made up the rest of the ship. Even Medbay was a small corner of the family room. All of it was wrapped in an orange and blue shell, the colours of the Martian flag.

  Whenever they came into dock somewhere, people would comment that their ship was a wreck. That may be. It was old, and the orange could easily have been rust. It had seen three successive generations of McKinnons and Stinars into space. With care and love, it would be around for a while to come yet. Rhona loved this ship fiercely and couldn’t keep the grin from stretching her face. It was all hers.

  In the private bay, in front of the airlock, stood dozens of boxes and crates. They were magnetically fastened to the floors upon which they stood. Rhona looked at her dad for his cue, but he shook his head and gestured to her. Rhona smiled, excitement welling up in her. She was the one in charge now.

  ‘Right, you dirty scabs, let’s get this stuff loaded,’ she said with a laugh.

  Her dad let out a bark of laughter. Her mum rolled her eyes while Michael just nodded.

  Rhona suppressed a sigh. It was going to be a long three months.

  An hour later, Rhona and her father were placing crates inside the hold. Despite the slight chill to the air, Rhona was sweating through her clothes. Her father had given up the ghost and taken off his top within ten minutes of them starting. She looked around the cargo bay. They were almost done, though not as soon as she would have liked. Beyond the hold, standing in nearly the same spot they’d been in when they arrived, Michael stood talking to her mother while she was trying to haul the crate up over her belly.

  ‘Michael, don’t let Mum pick that up… Mum, for crying out loud, what are you doing? Act like a pregnant woman!’

  Amy Stinar rolled her eyes. ‘I’m only pregnant, not bloody dying.’

  ‘No, but bloody Michael will be if he doesn’t get on with it,’ Anders said with a deep growl.

  Michael gestured for Amy to drop the crate and took it from her. He carried it awkwardly onto the ship, a wry grin on his face.

  ‘Sorry. I’m getting excited about the baby,’ Michael said.

  Anders smiled. ‘Me too, but I’m working.’

  Michael nodded and glanced at Rhona, a sly grin on his face. Rhona rolled her eyes. Appealing to Anders’ fatherhood was the perfect way of getting out of anything. Rhona should know; she’d been doing it for twenty-seven years.

  A few minutes later, everything was loaded onto the ship. Rhona looked around and realised this was it, she was off into the black as Captain. It was the first time. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be the last.

  She took a deep breath. Then joined her family back in the dock so that they could say their goodbyes.

  Her mother already had tears in her eyes. Rhona was taken aback; she’d rarely seen her mother upset and had never seen her cry. She stepped into her mum’s open arms and took in a long, involuntary breath.

  ‘Pregnancy hormones,’ Amy said, holding Rhona tight to her. They stood there for a long time until Rhona withdrew and took a good look at her mother. Amy was nineteen when she married twenty-three-year-old Anders and gave birth to Rhona less than a year later. She still looked good for her forty-seven years with a delicate, wide-eyed beauty that Rhona inherited. It was a fact for which Rhona was grateful every day, mostly because she didn’t have the rough features of her father.

  Amy put her hands to Rhona’s face. A hard look entered her eyes. ‘Michael gives you any trouble, you have my permission to kick his arse.’

  ‘As though I need your permission. I’m the captain.’ Her eyes widened maniacally when she said captain, and her mother laughed.

  Rhona looked down at her mother’s belly, placing a gentle hand on the bump that would soon be her little brother.

  ‘Mum is evicting you in about a month.’ Rhona bit the inside of her mouth trying to ignore the emotion that bubbled up inside her. ‘You be good until I get back, or I’ll go all big sister on your arse.’

  She looked back up to find her mum smiling at her. They gave each other a kiss and another hug before Rhona made way for Michael to say his goodbyes.

  Rhona turned to her dad.

  ‘I couldn’t be fucking prouder of you if I tried,’ he said as she approached him.

  ‘Stop swearing, you idiot,’ she said as her dad pulled her into his arms.

  ‘You’re going to do great,’ he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. ‘And no matter what happens out there, I’m proud of you.’

  Rhona bit her lip. She grew up on Audrey Hepburn with them and occasionally in the house in Hermes. This would be the first time she was
separated from them for more than a few nights. She knew others thought it odd. Trading families were tight and listened to their matriarchs and patriarchs. Being awarded a new shipping licence was rare, and so for those who loved the life, it was a life of extended families, on small ships, for months at a time. They were often criticised by politicians and the media as being insular, and that opinion radiated out to the populations of Earth, Mars, the belt and various inhabited moons. But to a trading family, this was life, and it was a life Rhona lived for.

  Michael shook Anders’ hand and turned to look at Rhona. ‘Ready when you are, Captain,’ he said. His face was deadly serious.

  Rhona couldn’t seem to form words and was barely holding back tears. She swallowed and pulled herself together. She was Rhona Stinar. Daughter of Amy and Anders. They were an old Martian family. Community leaders. Traders. More than that, she was the captain of the trading vessel Audrey Hepburn. She would not cry.

  ‘Right,’ she said. She was surprised by how strong her voice sounded. ‘Let’s get going then.’

  She hugged her parents one more time, then walked into the ship’s hold, listening to Michael’s footsteps following her up the ramp.

  She stopped when she was next to the control panel and waved at her parents.

  ‘Good luck, darling.’ Her mother was grinning, pride and fear warring for dominance on her face.

  ‘See you in three months, love,’ her father said.

  ‘Love you.’ She smiled at them. Her grin widened when they returned the sentiment.

  Rhona hit the control panel and the dark-orange ramp of the ship blocked the sight of her parents from view.

  Taking a deep breath, Rhona switched to ship mode; the state of mind that meant she was already running through a checklist in her head. She had a lot of jobs she had to do, many of them jobs she usually left to her mum or dad.

  She turned to Michael. His face showed his nerves.

  Michael McKinnon was nothing like her mother. Amy, like Rhona, grew up on Audrey Hepburn. By the time Michael came, Rhona’s grandparents, Peter and Rose McKinnon had already retired and passed the ship onto Amy and her family. It showed in his height, he was the tallest of them all by almost half a foot. He was much slimmer than Anders, his muscles having only been exposed to the lesser gravity of Mars. Space and the higher Earth-normal gravity of the ship would be hard on him for the next three months.

  More importantly, he did not have that fearlessness which was necessary when growing up in the black. There was always something: engine failures, parts issues, people refusing to pay their bills. There was a prevalent risk of dying out in space. Sometimes an engine failure would send a ship spiralling off and take out the radio. Traders had to watch each other on their scopes to make sure they were safe. Violence was a way of life for some of those so far from Earth and Mars that civilisation became a foggy rumour. Rhona still remembered standing in a warehouse on Europa with her mum and dad when she was twelve. They were delivering crates of goods to people who turned out to be criminals who refused to pay. They were lucky to get away alive and blacklisted the client that sent them. Though the worst, by far, was facing the alien slaver raids.

  The slaver raids started after the first failed alien invasion three hundred years ago. Several times a year an alien vessel appeared near to Earth’s or Mars’s atmosphere and scooped up any ships nearby. Several different ships were identified from the news feeds. The worst was the one the news dubbed The Mace due to it looking like the medieval weapon. Traders were the worst hit as they were so often in the black. It hurt every time because they were a close community. Rhona had an extended family of hundreds across the system, a lot of whom had small super adobe houses in Hermes. When one or more of these ships was taken, it meant another family was gone. Another family stolen to live a life of slavery lightyears from home.

  Michael never lived that life. This would be his first journey into the black.

  Rhona slipped into the captain’s chair and started the engine’s wake-up sequence. Beside her, Michael ricocheted into the seat next to hers, bumping off of almost every surface around him. There was a wide-eyed, startled expression on his face. Rhona knew he didn’t care about going into space. He’d spent the last few years training to be a doctor. Michael was the type to have his whole future mapped out, including the girl he planned to marry waiting at Persephone University. Rhona had spoken to Anise a few times. She was a writer, and Michael often bragged about how brilliant she was.

  Michael planned on spending his summer with Anise while they hunted for an apartment. He wanted to live in Persephone itself, rather than taking some of the spare land in Hermes and building a little house, which would be far cheaper. Then Rhona’s mum got pregnant. Amy and Anders weren’t like Rhona’s grandparents. They planned on dying in the black, but the little boy was on his way and this was a family business, so Michael agreed to give up his summer for the sake of the family.

  Now all she had to do was get him to pull his weight. No time like the present, Rhona thought. She turned to look at her uncle. ‘I really appreciate you doing this Michael.’

  ‘Of course. Anything for the family.’

  ‘I know you’re my uncle, but I need you to understand that I’m the captain. This will be a long three months if I have to fight you for my command.’

  ‘Rhona,’ Michael started. He held out his hand between them, an indication for her to stop talking. ‘For a start, you’re three years older than me. You used to babysit for me. So, I’m already used to having you in charge of me. Second, I have no idea what I’m doing out here. I’m relying on you to get me through it. As far as I’m concerned, you are the captain, and your word is law. Exactly as it should be.’

  That had been easier than she expected. ‘Great. I appreciate that. My first law as Captain is milk with two sugars.’

  Michael stared at her for a moment, then grinned. ‘Yes, Captain.’ He stood and banged his head off the ceiling getting up.

  ‘Careful, dummy. It’s tight in here. And put it in a travel mug. Things are about to get rough,’

  With practised hands, Rhona went through her pre-launch sequence. It took twenty minutes to start and warm up the engines. Another ten to confirm her course. Another fifteen to get confirmation from Port Authority that it was okay for her to leave. Forty-five minutes after their little chat, and with a quickly cooling cuppa at her side, Rhona steered the ship into the still darkening butterscotch and blue sky of Mars.

  The sun’s slow descent was nearing its end. For these few minutes, Martians got an idea of what the sky looked like from Earth as the blue faded to navy.

  Rhona glanced at it. It was pretty; it was Mars. Like many of her fellow Martians, she wouldn’t trade butterscotch for blue for all the ships in the Sol system. Less so, would she trade the black for Mars.

  She watched the darkening sky as they ascended; when the ship was high enough that she could see the curve of the red planet falling away, it finally gave way to the black.

  She took a deep breath and giggled. Audrey Hepburn glided out of the atmosphere and into space.

  The radio crackled to life. Rhona grinned in anticipation of smack talk about to go down before the dulcet tones of Dalgleish‘s Scottish brogue echoed through the radio. ‘Watch out, ginger’s about.’

  ‘Is that little Rhona?’ Abe Miller’s soft Alabama voice called across the comm.

  ‘Rhona,’ Emma, Dalgleish’s Canadian wife called. ‘How’s your mom?’

  ‘Pissing and moaning as though she’s giving birth to the baby Jesus.’ Rhona grinned into a comm.

  ‘She’s giving birth to a Stinar,’ Dalgleish said. ‘Satan’s child is more likely than the reincarnated Christ, isn’t it?’

  ‘Hey, I’m a Stinar,’ Rhona said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Dalgleish said.

  ‘Piss off, you Earther.’ Rhona looked at Michael. Her shoulders were shaking from the laughter that she somehow managed to keep silent. Michael was shaking h
is head and laughing with her.

  ‘Better than being a Martian. Or a ginger,’ she added after a moment’s contemplation.

  ‘I’m going to tell my mum you said that.’ Rhona grumbled.

  Please don’t,’ Dalgleish pleaded.

  ‘Too late.’ She shook her head. ‘Anyway, red hair, red planet. It was fate.’

  ‘That wasn’t fate.’ Dalgleish laughed. ‘That was just what us Earthers told you to get rid of all the gingers.’

  ‘Somebody should have probably told you that the president is ginger then.’ Rhona smirked.

  ‘Don’t look at me. I didn’t vote for her.’

  ‘You’re going to be in so much trouble next time I speak to my mum.’

  ‘Ah, come on, don’t be like… Oh, fuck.’ Dalgleish ’s voice turned from humorous to full-on panic.

  The ship jumped in from nowhere. But that’s what coming in from lightspeed meant.

  Immediately, the chattering increased. But instead of the playful banter of a few moments ago, there were screams and pleas to the Martian port control to send help.

  Michael looked out of the viewscreen and looked at Rhona. ‘What is that?’

  Rhona looked at the humungous ship in front of her. The Mace was several hundred metres long, the front shaped like a mace with spiked ridges that reflected the light from engines of the trader's ships as they scrambled to get away. The long, sleek back hinged open into a colossal launch platform upon which stood dozens of ships. Almost as soon as it opened, they lifted off.

  ‘That,’ Rhona said through heavy breathing, ‘is an alien slave ship.’

  ‘Rhona, get us out of here,’ Michael whispered.

  Captivated, Rhona stared at them, horrified by the ships swarming towards them.

  ‘Rhona.’

  Rhona looked at her uncle. His blue irises were surrounded by the whites of his eyes. Sweat broke out over his brow and upper lip, and he was holding his body so tight that she could see him visibly shaking. Seeing the fear on his suddenly pale face somehow helped her manage her own.