Cutlass Sharpened (2 page)

Chapter 1

Earth year 3217

Renee checked her equipment one last time,
making sure she had everything for any unforeseen circumstance and
snorted at the thought. “Unforeseen means unforeseen. Just do what
you can with what you got. Just like papa taught.” She mentally did
a fourth check, just in event the first three times overlooked
something. Being the medic was the hardest job, not that she
complained. Everyone else did it… for other reasons.

The door to her cabin hissed open and in
walked a voluptuous blue eyed blonde wearing a skin-tight flight
suit that left little to the imagination. Little meaning the slit
in her sex was also conformed to. The youthful looking woman rolled
her eyes finding Renee bent over her medic box. “Again? Really? How
many times must you do it? Doesn’t the synthetic matrix
automatically refill your solutions if you use so much as a drop of
anything?”

Renee stuck her tongue out rather childishly
though she was already thirty years old and didn’t look a day over
eighteen. “So what? Papa always says safe over sorry,
Stephanie.”

“
Ha.” Stephanie sighed
dramatically and shook her head. “Can’t fault that logic. Steven
had to leave his fighter behind because one of the faulty sensors
in his jet didn’t alert him to replace a coil of some kind. I guess
I’ll let it slide since our lives are in your hands.”

“
Poor Steven.” Renee grinned
as she picked up her compact surgical and medicine box and hung it
on a clamp made on the lower back of her suit and holstered her
injector at her right thigh. “He won’t get to blow something up for
once in his life.”

“
You sure there is no cure
for insanity? Seriously, I’ve never met anyone who likes
destruction more than him.” Wondered Stephanie as she fell in
beside Renee out in the ship’s hall, heading for the launch
pads.

“
Nice try. It’s what makes
Hunters so needed nowadays. You need a little insanity to keep from
being bored.” Changing the topic. “So how is Jessica?”

“
Mad.” Stephanie lightly
laughed. “She wants to go with us so bad, but she’s not a heavy
worlder like us. Hopefully the captain’s latest mission he’s sent
us on will be just the score we need to get her the modifications
to survive heavy planets without her heart giving out or bones
breaking under the strain.”

“
Bones I can knit back
together. Heart failure on the planet we’re going to… not so ideal.
5 G. At least you know she’ll keep an eye on us.”

“
Yeah. That’s why I love
her.” Stephanie said wistfully.

In their internal ear-coms, or coms for
short, came a soft feminine voice. “I sure as hell can’t trust
these other morons to keep an eye on everyone. Renee, you just be
sure you bring her back to me in one piece… or in enough of one
that can be fixed.”

“
Hey, play nice.” Stephanie
sounded hurt, but didn’t mean it. “Babe, what have surface scans
turned up?”

“
Nada.” Jessica let known.
“No sign of any form of civilization activity. Not even on deep
ground penetrating radar… the air won’t kill you right away and
I’ve not found any Beasts so far… but too much interference in the
sandstorms. I think the captain brought us to another of his wild
pipedreams that won’t earn us a single credit.” Her heavy sigh
relayed over the coms and Renee smiled to Stephanie who also
sighed. “What good are pirates if we can’t ever score some loot to
live in luxury.”

“
You could always go back to
mining asteroids.” Stephanie reminded.

“
I’m good!” Jessica said
hurriedly. Then all three busted out in giggles. When it calmed the
woman in their ear said “Everyone is prepped and ready. Waiting on
you.”

“
Sparky too?” Renee
asked.

“
Like that overgrown lizard
goes
anywhere
without you.” Jessica said, dripping with sarcasm. “You know
he would with your connection. Why bother asking me?”

“
It breaks up the time
walking in silence when your wife doesn’t know the meaning to Girl
Talk.”

“
Ain’t that the truth. I’d
swear she was a guy if not for her amazing
attributes
. If she’s not reading she’s
got her nose so far up an artifact
I
get jealous.” She said it in a very sexual
reference.

Stephanie shrugged, not willing to rise to
the bait.

Mostly it was Renee and Jessica enjoying the
latest gossip or otherwise just simply talking. Sometimes Stephanie
would talk about one of her favorite artifacts, mostly it made it
difficult to roll one’s eyes in front of her when she spoke with
such passion.

Talking ate up the thirty minutes it took to
reach the docking bay. Only emergency docking was nearest Renee’s
medical wing for obvious reason. Normal decks were on the opposite
side of the ship. Where they went was a private deck where three
high-speed precision fighters and one large shuttle stayed.

Three Hunters stood nearest Renee’s private
shuttle. Stone, Deegen and Steven were rather large men overall,
born and trained on a heavy planet environment that excelled on
breeding the finest Hunters. Physique alone would strike fear into
most men and give women the itch to see if they were scratch
worthy. Add their size to their beat up armor to show their lives
and women either would swoon or faint. And they were far from
brainless brutes. They were like inseparable brothers.

Stone Callicko had the skin color of onyx and
carried two hatchets big enough to decapitate in one swing.
Slightly pointed ears allowed for great animalistic hearing, like
most of his brethren. At a hundred and ninety eight centimeters the
proportions to the blades were ideal, matching. Stone led the other
two Hunters on the ship, being largest and most fearsome made it
so.

Like Stone, Dorgen Castor stood an
intimidating hundred and ninety two centimeters. A chakram hung
from either hip and a whip wrapped around his thick torso. Chakram
were round rings to be thrown. The blade-rings were deadly and even
more vicious in close quarters.

Last of the Hunters was Steven Metts at a
hundred and ninety centimeters with a spear just as tall and a ball
and chain flail hung on a hip. Unlike the first two tall dark
skinned men, Steven had a bronze tan.

Their armor may have seen better days, but as
Hunters, they fought Beasts and were given top of the line armor
not even military men and women could get their hands on cheaply.
The armor would be near identical, but battles had a way to make
them unique to the wearer. Hunters had normally short lives due
only to occupation. Supplying them with the ability to fight longer
was a small price to pay.

Stone’s piercing gaze snapped at the first
sign of movement and locked onto the approaching women across the
large and mostly empty wooden flight deck. Hunters never snapped to
attention like military. They lazed, relaxed. They also didn’t see
rank, only strength. Lounging conserved energy they didn’t need to
waste on frivolous moving. Renee couldn’t help smiling as the three
stopped their brotherly banter.

It was Steven’s rather normal man’s voice who
broke the silence “Even in this age women still hold to their own
time.”

Renee smirked, loving to bust balls more than
anyone. “Remind me that next time I suddenly find myself
absentminded trying to numb your pain and instead accidently
chemically castrate you.”

Stone and Deegen laughed
loudly, doubled over at Steven’s sudden loss of color and how he
reached down instinctively to hold
them
safe and secure from the fiery
redhead.

“
She is one Beast none of us
can best.” Said Deegen, fingering his large circular blades. The
man’s long dreadlocks did little to hide his mirth.

“
To take her down would be
the achievement above S-Rank and would let you retire a legend
above Vanishing Claw himself.” Stone chuckled before bringing
fingers to his lips to let loose a piercing whistle and moments
after the sound died out flew a falcon which perched himself on his
shoulder pauldron. “Enough of this. We’ve a job to do. We aren’t
getting paid to sit around here bantering.”

“
We don’t get paid at all.”
Reminded Steven after clearing his throat.

“
Sure we do. Adventure is
our price
and
payment rolled into one. If we do good we get better toys.”
Commented Deegen, slapping his friend’s back.

“
Steven, you fly the ladies
down while Deegen and I run escort.” Stone decided while brushing
his gloved hand over his companion’s feathery breast.

“
Damn coil.” Angrily mumbled
the spear toting man who stepped inside the sailed shuttle with
wings. There was a hiss followed by “Damn lizard… OW!” He yelped.
“Bite my ass again and I’ll roast your carcass over a roaring
fire.” Another hiss and yelp from the man.

“
I better go. Sparky’s
liable to eat him this time.” Grinned Renee as the other two men
chuckled over to their fighters. Fighters were smaller than her
shuttle, close to half its size actually, but much more heavily
armed and maneuverable.

Stephanie hid a giggle following her friend
inside and closed the exterior airlock hatch then the interior one
before taking a seat in the cockpit beside Steven who was turning
the ship’s engines on.

Renee went to the cargo hold
where her companion’s arrow shaped head withdrew his long neck
back. She could have easily been bitten in half, but he’d never
hurt her. Never intentionally. Renee, even after ten years was
struck by his emerald beauty. His kind was actually named Drakes in
reference to old Earth’s myth of dragons. The difference is they
have two sets of wings that allow for fast flying as well as
hovering in one place without making barely a sound despite their
size. And they
can’t
spit fire or any other vile substance. They did have the
ability to glow if threatened as a display and intentionally to
shed light in dark areas. Sparky’s kind though were discovered
several centuries ago and weren’t pets. Not by a long shot. What
separated them from lesser creatures is their minds. They had other
ways to speak and were highly intelligent. Drakes tended to imprint
with someone of like tendencies and Renee had been blessed to gain
Sparky’s companionship. Besides looking ferocious, and right deadly
with claw-like talons and sharp curved teeth, Drakes were quite
compassionate and liked making bonds over galactic
exploration.

They also have a different means of
communication.

Sparky curled up his ten and a half meter
long body and calmed as Renee pat and scratched the softer scales
under his jaw just the way he loved and rumbled with his vibrant
brown speckled eyes closed.

Renee turned her head to the window on the
left when the ship’s portside dock lifted to reveal the vastness of
space. Deegen was settling into his fighter and closing the cockpit
shield, not afraid of being sucked out into the uncaring vacuum of
space since any openings of the ship were automatically sealed by
the starship’s shielding system. A few layers of artificial psionic
photons separated the void from the ship’s atmosphere. Sparky’s
snout gently tapped her shoulder to gain attention and she said
“Sorry for hogging the view.”

“
All is well.”
Sparky told her telepathically and they shared the
window just as the shuttle lifted gently off the platform and shot
through the barrier. Deegen was keeping pace a half kilometer away,
rotating his ship around a few times like a spinning top to make
sure nothing dangerous was near. Renee knew Stone would be doing
similar on the starboard side.

But Renee was busy taking in the vastness of
stars filling her view of the universe. She loved to sit and look
out and wonder what new and exciting marvels awaited. Red, blue,
yellow, white, and brown stars dotted the blackness in a soothing
way that sent her heart aflutter after all three decade of life and
she hoped it would never stop happening. She sensed Sparky
experience the same soothing thing.

The scene in the window changed as Steven
turned the shuttle towards the barren red planet they came to. An
uncharted planet her father had again taken them to. Number three
hundred and seventeen by Renee’s latest count. Less than ten had
turned up anything interesting and she certainly didn’t expect this
planet to hold any significant riches either, but her father was
one man not to deny anything. Being the Pirate King of Andromeda
carried much weight behind his demands.

Artificial gravity gradually increased to the
levels of the planet’s surface and dampeners made for a smooth
ride. The window instantly darkened as this system’s single blue
star came across the edge so as to not blind the occupants.

Not even a shudder shook the shuttle during
the red hot reentry to the desert planet. As soon as atmospheric
friction lessened and the ship’s invisible shields lowered Renee
heard up front Stone on the ship’s coms rather than in her ear. “So
what are we looking for this time, Mrs. Merann?”

“
Captain Dorgen said to do a
more accurate surface scan. Our radar will give us clearer reads of
this world’s makeup closer than the main ship. I’m looking for
anything unnatural.” Stephanie clarified.

“
Don’t have to look far.
He’s right next to you.”

“
Oh Ha. Ha.” Steven said
dryly.