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“Yes, sir. Are you from the pleasure cruiser? I’ve got entire cows stored inside my ship. It would make a hell of a feast for your most important passengers. I take all forms of payment. You could charge it to your company. My cryo units have air hover. You can borrow some and deliver the meat right to your ship’s kitchen.”
A plan instantly formed. Fig was tired of life fucking him over, but the last straw had been Anna. She’d braved leaving Earth to have her one last adventure, and she’d been nice to him. Her words had given him hope that things could get better. Maybe she’d been right.
“Show me this cow.”
Chapter Two
The Present
Fig always experienced an adrenaline rush when he attacked a DJD Clone Corp transport with his shuttle and took out their engines. He hadn’t always been a thief. He’d become one after escaping from Clone World. It was the only way to survive. He’d grown quite skilled at space piracy.
DJD Clone Corp made a fortune selling living beings and made those clones dependent on needing specially designed plasma every three months. It was not only how they kept their creations enslaved but ensured a steady stream of profit. A clone’s body began to deteriorate and break down without those transfusions. Only legal owners of clones could purchase that plasma to keep their investments alive.
It was a bonus that Fig got to steal from an extremely wealthy human who’d made owning clones his business empire. Clone World had become one of the top vacation spots for other rich people. He held no sympathy for Rico Florigo. That’s also why he felt zero guilt about using Clone World funds to order what was on the transport he was currently targeting. That money was owed to him for all he’d previously endured. It wasn’t like clones were paid wages.
His mind switched to thoughts of Anna. She’d haunted him since her death. He’d finally met a human who’d seen him as a real person instead of something to fear or loathe. She hadn’t deserved to be murdered. It had spurred him into doing something drastic and dangerous.
Fig’s next thought was about how grateful he’d been after getting word that Blade was alive. His fellow clone had been forced to live with human criminals until he’d escaped the space pirates to rescue a human. Both were now safely living on the abandoned mining station with Big and his female, Gemma.
Fig docked with the transport he’d disabled the engines on and checked his weapons as he left the cockpit. Live guards wouldn’t be traveling on a lone ship, but sometimes there were automated defense systems to deal with.
He’d checked the manifest twice. The container he sought was listed as cargo. The difficult part had been waiting for it to ship from Earth. Patience wasn’t something Fig had much of. Every day had dragged on as he’d repeatedly waited for the shipment to leave Earth and be sent toward Clone World.
Fig shorted out the door to the transport’s cargo port and forced it open. An alarm blared inside as he drew his weapon. He inched inside, scanning for any signs of movement. There were none.
He glanced up at the ceiling. His mouth pressed into a grim line when he spotted the automated motion lasers. He fired at both, taking them out before they took shots at him.
He made one more sweep to make certain he’d destroyed any threats before he strode forward. He’d memorized the crate label number in case they were shipping plasma in the larger cryo units.
He found four that were the right size and shape. He read off the first label, but it wasn’t the one he sought. It turned out to be the third one. He smiled.
“Finally.”
He bent down and found the controls. It was tempting to rip it open to get to the contents, but he wanted to reach a safer location first. The transport ship’s computer pilot would be sending out a distress signal after being attacked. There weren’t any other ships in the vicinity, but this was one time he wasn’t willing to risk someone responding and him getting into a fight.
He turned on the mini hover jets, and the large unit lifted from the floor once he cut the straps. He grabbed the handle and pulled, leading it over to his own ship. He returned to the cargo hold of the transport. Fig needed to grab a few of the smaller units holding plasma. He wanted to stockpile as much as possible so he wouldn’t have to hit another transport for a long time.
The alarm on his wrist vibrated, and he cursed. The long-range sensors had picked up traffic. He didn’t take the time to hover the unit closest to him. Fig just hefted the heavy freezer unit and carried it back to his shuttle, thankful for his clone strength. He dumped it inside his hold but didn’t bother to close the other hatch. He sealed his side of the shuttle and ran toward the cockpit.
He detached from the transport as soon as his ass landed in the seat and took off fast. He didn’t care about the cargo he’d left behind being destroyed. He’d grabbed what mattered and enough extra clone plasma to make sure he wouldn’t need to steal more for at least a year.
Sensors showed another ship in the distance, but it was too small to be an authority cruiser. He quickly deduced that it was probably a privately owned shuttle carrying passengers to visit Clone World. It was a very popular human vacation destination spot.
The other option was it could be a pirate team. If so, they’d quickly realize he wasn’t some rich human tourist when they came across the destroyed supply transport. Not many humans bothered to attack them since they wouldn’t gain any profit. Clone plasma was deadly to humans, and no one wanted to buy it on the black market. Wealthy owners of clones couldn’t be sure it was the real stuff and didn’t want their expensive property dying.
He burned thrusters hard in case it was pirates coming after his shuttle, regardless of what they’d consider worthless cargo. There was no way he’d allow anyone to take what he’d stolen. Sensors suddenly showed the other ship again. Then it disappeared.
Figs cursed, knowing what the other ship was doing. The pilot wasn’t skilled enough to prevent his sensors from registering their presence. It just confirmed that it must be a pirate team. They were known to group together in larger numbers, forming gangs. Whoever was out there was probably hoping he’d lead them to other pirates they could steal from. It would give them an opportunity to kill the competition.
He changed course, using a patch of large floating asteroids to dodge between. Most sensible pilots would have avoided flying through them. Fig was counting on that to lose the pirate shuttle pursuing him. They’d have to fly around, and he'd be well hidden by the time they did.
After Fig cleared the field, he drove into a deep crater of a dead moon. It had a hidden cave large enough for him to park his shuttle inside. He’d never seen evidence that anyone else had ever found the hiding spot, and it was a regular place he used to lie low when he needed a new supply of plasma. It was close to the shipping lanes from Earth to Clone World.
He killed the engines and threw out the docking lines. They embedded deeply into the rock ceiling and floor, tethering his shuttle in place so it wouldn’t float out. He set an alarm to let him know if anything came within range again.
Fig knew he should wait it out in the cockpit to make certain he’d lost the other shuttle, but he felt impatient about opening the unit he’d stolen. He hesitated, though, his mind turning to paranoid thoughts. It was possible the shuttle that tried to follow him might not be a pirate team.
What if the finance department on Clone World has discovered the hidden account since we escaped? They’ll have figured out we originally used funds from it to help us escape. What if they were using that transport as bait to send a secret enforcement team to capture us?
