The hardest thing about striking back against Serrano was picking a plan that everyone was comfortable with. Most of the hardened criminals had gone with Serrano, leaving those behind that weren’t exactly up to snuff in fighting capacity. Almost all of them were willing to look up to Alex as the leader of their band of rebels, but that also meant that he had to figure out a plan that played to their strengths.

“Garrison, do we have a map of the ship present?” asked Alex. “I want to see the entire layout down to the last storage locker. We know Serrano controls the bridge and security but that leaves us a lot of room to operate if we know which areas are open for operations.”

Garrison used his own P-com to enter the instructions and quite suddenly, a full hologram of the Racine appeared before them in viewable fashion, showing every last cabin.

“Perfect,” said Alex as he examined the map. He quickly found the bridge and security, being on the inner portion of the Racine in the part that wasn’t modular. “This is the nerve center of Serrano’s gang. As long as they have control of the bridge as well as most of the arms, they have complete control of the ship. They won’t need to venture out to make patrols as they won’t be expecting any of you to offer any resistance.”

“And they’ll be expecting that both Alex and I are already detained,” added Rick.

“Right, but not for long, which is why we need to strike quickly,” said Alex. “How far away are we from Vesta at the current moment?”

“Right at the forty-eight hour mark,” said Garrison. “Two more days and we’re there.”

“That’s also a window of opportunity for us because in case anything goes wrong, we’re going to want the ship as close to the planet as possible,” said Alex. “Those escape pods have a limited range and if they get set off while we’re still in deep space, they’re never going to make it.”

“So how do we attempt to strike back?” asked Sam. “How do we fight people with guns when we don’t have any?”

“Guns they can’t use,” said Garrison. “They have to rely on muscle and intimidation, but they also have that in spades over us.”

“But what they don’t have is numbers,” said Alex. “Garrison, do we have a way of determining all the men that are with Serrano? I want an exact count as well as headshots.”

Once again, Garrison punched in the request in his P-com and pictures of different men started to float up against the ship’s schismatics. In all, pictures of eighteen men appeared, with two pictures going to the top of the hierarchy.

“Serrano and Lido,” muttered Alex as he viewed the entire hierarchy. “Only eighteen men and two stations to keep manned, so roughly nine apiece. However, if they’re smart, they’ll set a limited patrol around those core areas of the ship that they have to keep under control. It’ll be just enough to spot trouble long before it develops.”

“Like a patrol around the engine room or food storage?” asked Sam.

“Exactly,” replied Alex. “My feeling is that these patrols will only be a few men or so but that’s where we have the advantage in stealth. If we can pick off a few men doing the patrols before we make our assault, that’s less we have to deal with. It will only work on two or three groups tops before they figure out what happens but it’s our best way of evening the scales. And if we’re lucky, we’ll have a chance to arm ourselves from the fallen men.”

“So if we can get in position down here, we might be able to stumble into the first patrol,” said Garrison, pointing out a section near the engine room. “There’s a path down there I know that has very poor lighting. If they are patrolling that section, we’ll be able to set an ambush.”

“What are we waiting for then?” asked Alex.

*****

Alex assembled a small group of twenty volunteers, mostly men whose companions had been stolen from them and who were keen to get them back. Most of them had ended up in prison for lesser charges, as was illustrated by a conversation Rick and Sam had as they moved.

“Sam, don’t take this the wrong way but you’re not exactly the most intimidating guy,” said Rick as they headed into the interior of the ship. “I can’t picture you being in prison before this program.”

Sam hung his head low. “That’s because I’ve never killed anyone or stole anything. Well, apart from money. They got me for tax fraud. I made a ton of money through my businesses but understated my earnings. Well, the government found out about it and here I am. I only volunteered for the program because I would have been killed otherwise. I was seconds away from becoming someone’s bitch and I was determined to never let that happen.”

“I guess I don’t blame you then,” said Rick. “It seems like most of the men with us aren’t the hardened killers that Serrano has. I guess that’s both a good and a bad thing.”

“I’d like to think it’s a good thing,” interrupted Garrison. “It’s not hard to tell who the real criminals were in this program, men like Serrano or Lido who would never change. I almost hated to see those men get companions, knowing what those women would go through. But that’s the program unfortunately. Vesta didn’t exactly get the cream of the crop like the other, better known space colonies.”

“If we do our jobs right, those women will have a second chance,” said Alex. “Especially the ones that were stolen. Come on, it looks like we’re almost there.”

The men moved slowly through the ship, using their P-coms to temporarily disable any security feeds that would have otherwise captured their movements. They came to the portion of the ship that housed the maintenance room for the two dark matter reactors that powered the Racine. Overall, it was a tiny portion of the overall ship, with the reactors extending all the way to the stern of the vessel where the exhaust came from three funnels per reactor.

“This is it,” said Alex, gesturing for all of them to hide in the shadows. “We’ve been lucky enough not to run into any of Serrano’s men on the journey here but that doesn’t mean they’re not out here. Everyone will have to stay hidden and stay quiet. When we get company, follow my lead.”

“Hopefully that’s not too long from now,” grumbled Rick as he slid against the darkened wall.

It was there that they waited. They waited for over an hour, each man scarcely moving a muscle. For Alex, it was another memory of the Orbital Wars, when his battalion would set an ambush for another rival baron. Those days had been filled with Machiavellian violence that wasn’t for the faint of heart.

In a way, it was a reminder of the kind of weapon he’d been forged into.

One entirely without fear.

He was the first to hear the footsteps along the corridor that passed in front of the hidden room. Judging by the way their boots echoed off the floor, there were two of them, and they were moving too slowly to be that alert. They were also chattering as they walked, no doubt to pass the time.

It soon became obvious that men on the patrol thought that no one else on the ship was a threat to them.

“Great, big titties! Huge ones—the kind that you can just shove your face in and shake from side to side,” said one of the patrols once they got into earshot.

“That big, eh? You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“No fuckin’ way would I do that. You should have seen this bitch. Best and biggest titties I’ve ever seen. The only problem was her snatch which was looser than all hell. Biggest fuckin’ tragedy in the world to have titties that big and a worn-out snatch but what else is a guy to do?”

“Knowing you, you still fucked her, didn’t you, Mitch?”

“Fuckin’ right I fucked her!” growled the one called Mitch. “But I was so pissed when I got in that nasty pussy that I smacked her up a little. Fuckin’ bitch deserved it.”

Alex waited until the two men were just within their sight before giving the signal.

Suddenly, he snapped into action, followed by Rick and another man, Hitchens, who was the next most capable. Alex pounced on the one called Mitch before he knew what happened, taking his face between his two giant hands and twisting, snapping the man’s spinal cord. Mitch was dead before he even knew what happened and his patrol partner followed him shortly after.

“Pull their bodies over there,” said Alex, gesturing to the darkened hall they’d emerged from. “And take everything on them that we can use, especially any weapons.”

A quick search of their bodies revealed two of the pulse pistols that Serrano had stolen. Alex took one for himself while giving the second to Rick. They also found a knife, a little bit of food, and two P-coms.

“That was almost too easy,” said Garrison once the two men were hidden in one of the storage rooms off the hallway.

“The first ones always are,” said Alex. “It’s what happens when the rest of them figure out that their friends are gone that makes it interesting. The big question now is will we get another patrol or will we get Serrano’s whole gang next time around?”

“If we get their whole gang, we’re not going to last long,” warned Sam. “I know we have the pistols and everything but that’s not going to stop them, especially since we can’t use them inside the ship.”

“Even still, it’s better odds than we had before,” replied Alex. “Let’s just hope our luck continues to hold.”

That was good enough for the men and they resumed their places in the shadows. Alex crouched in a spot near Rick, the two men the closest to the adjacent corridor that was being patrolled.

“Ever wish we would have just stayed on Earth?” asked Rick, grinning at him in the process. “Sometimes I think prison life would have been a whole lot different. Probably more peaceful.”

“Peaceful but boring,” replied Alex. “And I’ll take any chance I could get to get outside of those four metal walls.”

Rick twirled his finger around. “Kind of ironic you’ve been inside these walls for nearly a year. At least if we can make it to Vesta, we’ll have found some kind of freedom.”

“I’ll take this over prison any day,” said Alex. “I know that . . . I deserved to be in there for what I did. But it was a price I was always going to pay.”

“Alex,” growled Rick. “We’ve been through this. What you did was justified and you know it. Hell, I’m glad to have gone in for something like that. Sophie would have been happy.”

“Liar,” said Alex, grinning. “Sophie would have been pissed making conjugal visits all the time.”

Rick shook his head. “That’s something I don’t need to think about regarding my sister, thanks. In my head, she’ll always be sixteen and a virgin for the rest of her life.”

Alex gave him a funny look. “She told me she lost her virginity at fifteen.”

Rick closed his eyes and shook his head. “Can we move on from this please?”

Alex started to chuckle, but it quickly died in his throat when they heard the telltale sounds of footsteps once more. Alex gave the signal to the rest of the men as they went on high alert, waiting for their prey to get closer. These two men were also chattering to themselves as they walked, and Alex was hopeful that they’d be able to strike again and pick off two more of Serrano’s men before the final confrontation.

At least these men seemed to be paying attention. They walked with clear and purposeful footsteps, and Alex got the impression they wouldn’t be as easy to take down as the others.

Right as they crossed the threshold, Alex flashed the signal to Rick and Hitchens. Repeating the same movements from earlier, Alex leapt from his hiding spot.

He leapt only to find the other man was waiting for him. The man’s fist connected with Alex’s jaw, and he swung hard enough to knock Alex straight to the ground. His head started to spin due to the intensity of the blow, but judging by the sounds of surprise from Rick and Hitchens, they ran into the same problem.

Rubbing his jaw, Alex looked up at the two men who now had their pistols trained on them. Just from behind them, another figure emerged from further down the hallway.

It was Grant Lido.

“Time to settle this once and for all, Hawthorne,” he growled, once more cracking his knuckles.