Jupiter Kinkaid must steal the most dangerous weapon in known space or spend the rest of his life in prison. For Jupiter and his crew of misfits to succeed, they’ll have to defeat terrifying aliens, ruthless bounty hunters, a mega-rich psychopath and the entire might of the galactic military.
This star spanning tale is filled with non-stop action and side-splitting laughs. If you’re looking for a good time then jump on board with Jupiter, Brill, Stu and Johnny Six. They aren’t guarding the galaxy. They’re just trying to get out of it alive.
This book is like Guardians of the Galaxy or a funnier Star Wars.
Jupiter Kinkaid must steal the most dangerous weapon in known space or spend the rest of his life in prison. For Jupiter and his crew of misfits to succeed, they’ll have to defeat terrifying aliens, ruthless bounty hunters, a mega-rich psychopath and the entire might of the galactic military.
This star spanning tale is filled with non-stop action and side-splitting laughs. If you’re looking for a good time then jump on board with Jupiter, Brill, Stu and Johnny Six. They aren’t guarding the galaxy. They’re just trying to get out of it alive.
This book is like Guardians of the Galaxy or a funnier Star Wars.
CHAPTER ONE
In thirty-seven seconds they were all going to die. Jupiter Kinkaid had to think of something fast. The engine was gone and the Lightflyer was falling toward the burning sun below. They would reach the point of no return in, now, thirty-three seconds.
Jupiter’s two passengers were from an avian race called Frigits. They were humanoid but with flightless wings and feathered skin. They were squawking in terror as the seething red ball grew closer and closer. “Skeet, skeet, skeet.”
The sound was nearly deafening in the tiny cockpit and made it hard to think. “Helmets on,” Jupiter barked. They fumbled to comply. This had the double benefit of distracting them from their fear and muffling the squawks. Jupiter pulled his sidearm from its holster. He set the beam as narrow as possible and pointed it at the hull. His other hand locked his own helmet in place. He pulled the trigger. He and his passengers winced at the sudden flash of light. A long, thin beam pierced the ship’s skin. Instantly the atmosphere was sucked from the cockpit into the vacuum of space. The air escaping through the small hole was the equivalent of a microthruster. This wouldn’t be enough to save them but it’d give him a little time to think of something that could.
They were all yanked in the direction of the escaping air. One of his passengers, the old male, wasn’t strapped in properly and tumbled forward. Jupiter threw an arm out to stop him and the Frigit’s wife pawed at the geezer from behind.
“Skee-eet,” the bird man yelled.
They finally got him into his seat and his mate buckled him in. Jupiter peered at the line of atmosphere spewing into space. The Lightflyer’s engines weren’t functioning but there was plenty of air. This meant the makeshift thruster would continue for a few more minutes.
Jupiter’s brow furrowed as he watched the jet. They were far enough from the sun and their rate of descent was so slow, that it was having some impact, but not nearly enough. It was time for another solution.
The cargo bay of their small craft was in the forward part of the ship. “Sorry folks,” Jupiter said as he overrode the safety protocols. “But your luggage isn’t going to make it.”
He hit a button and a door popped open about ten meters in front of them. Several small containers and one large one were launched into space. Since every action has an equal and opposite reaction, this would add to the force turning them away from the sun.
“Oh no!” the female yelped from behind him. “Everything we owned was in those.”
“Well,” Jupiter said. “If you had to pick between your luggage or your life which would you choose?”
“I’d choose another skeeting pilot,” she screamed.
Jupiter clicked off the comm link in his helmet to silence her. She went on ranting and the soundless diatribe became more funny than annoying. Their situation, however, was anything but funny. Jupiter quickly recalculated their trajectory. It still wasn’t going to change enough.
He shrugged. The luggage thing had been another Hail Mary, but there was no downside to trying longshots when longshots were all you had. His efforts had increased their survival time from seconds to minutes but those were ticking away quickly and he could not waste a single one.
Jupiter popped his harness. Now that all the atmosphere was gone there was nothing pulling him toward the hole in the ship. The vacuum inside and outside had equalized. Thanks to a full battery charge, the ship could generate enough heat to keep them alive in spite of the puncture. Jupiter clawed his way to the rear hatch. With dead engines, there was no gravity. He saw his two passengers screeching at him as he went by. They looked like a pair of crazed baby chicks yelling to be fed.
Jupiter hit a button by the rear hatch and it slid aside. He sprang forward. In mid-leap, he rotated his lower body and landed feet first. He used his legs to piston off the wall and launch himself into an adjoining corridor. He crawled along the manway to the front of the craft. The next hatch led to the cargo bay.
Jupiter grabbed three safety lines from a box beside the door. He hooked one to a loop on his belt and connected the other end to a bar welded to the bulkhead. He opened the portal and the glare of the red dwarf filled his vision. He instantly realized just how little his previous efforts had changed their course. He pushed forward into the empty cargo hold. The tether hooked to his waist suddenly snapped taught. It stopped him from drifting out into space but it also kept him from doing much of anything else. The recoil pulled Jupiter back and he tilted his upper body toward the floor. He grabbed the handle of a hatch that led to the engine compartment to stop the tumble.
He snapped his second safety line to the handle and freed the first. This re-anchoring tactic would allow him to go further than just one tether length. He pushed off again and floated toward the outer edge of the cargo hold. He tried to grab the doorway as he sailed past but missed. He panicked and flailed. Then he brought his toe up and caught it on the rim of the opening. He pinwheeled his arms to try and stabilize himself.
Now he was hanging out in space. It was a truly naked sensation. He felt so tiny and vulnerable staring into the vast nothingness. After a moment of stomach-turning vertigo, he gathered himself. He had the third safety line in his hand. He attached one end to the hasp on his belt.
Now for the tricky part. He needed more length to get a better line of sight on the front of the ship. To do that, he had to connect the ends of the two tethers. The type of connectors required that he release them from the hasp before he could join them to each other. This would create a moment when he was untethered. A screw up could send him floating off into space and death. He used his thumbs to open both clamps and quickly brought them together. One thumb slipped. The clamp closed and there was nothing for the other to fit into. He tried to open the clip again. The gloves on the suit were thick to insulate against the subzero temperatures of space but this also made them clumsy. He couldn’t get the clamp open again and jerked it in frustration. This was a mistake. He began an awkward, weightless spin and the procedure became ten times harder. The spin quickly took all the slack out of his lines and one of them was pulled from his grip. He watched in terror as it tumbled away.
He swiped at the clamp—once, twice. On the third try, the cable hit him across the wrist. He bent the joint and the line wrapped around it. He was still spinning and the clamps were so far apart that getting them reconnected was going to take too long. Jupiter glanced over his shoulder. The only thing he could see was the sun. It filled the universe. He was out of time. If he didn’t change their course in the next few seconds, they were all going to die. He surveyed his situation. He was far enough out of the ship that he could just see the fuel tanks. It wasn’t the angle he wanted but it was all he would get. He let go of the wire clutched in his right hand and groped for his sidearm. His left hand fumbled to clamp down on the wire around his wrist.
All this motion added a wobble to his spin and this made it impossible to aim with any accuracy. It was time to improvise—and pray. He pulled the weapon’s trigger and raked the beam toward the tanks. The engine was dead but the fuel tanks were nearly full. The beam sliced into them and they exploded.
An explosion in space usually has no big fireball because there is no oxygen in the atmosphere to propagate it. This ship ran on concentrated hydrogen, which was flammable, and there was just enough oxygen in the mix to ignite. When the tanks ruptured there was a brief, blinding flash and then the world went sideways.
The blast threw the ship in the opposite direction of the sun and the craft tumbled away from the hungry star. That was the good news. On the bad news front, Jupiter was bouncing around like a balloon held out a speeder window.
He felt the line jerk his arm. It held but the whipping action began spinning him in the opposite direction. This caused the line to unwind from his wrist. He groped for it desperately. This might be the last act of his life and he wasn’t going to fail for lack of trying. The line slipped from his wrist and raked along his palm. He clamped his hands over the hook at the very last second. His momentum was so strong that it popped out of his grip. He screamed in frustration and refused to die. He swung his right arm around and connected with the line. He groped and flailed. It caught him in the crook of his right elbow and he pulled both arms toward his chest. He pinned the line against his suit and then grabbed the end-clamp in his hands. He stopped long enough to get a couple of deep breaths and an alarm went off.
“Danger. Hull integrity threat. Closing all doors.”
It was the Lightflyer’s computer. The torque of their sudden change of direction was threatening to tear the ship apart. Closing the cargo door would return the vessel to a more stable shape that was less likely to rupture.
A shadow fell over Jupiter as the hatch came down and cut into the light from the sun. He began franticly pulling at the line. He clawed hand over hand trying to take up the slack. The shadow dropped lower, like the mouth of some giant beast intent on crushing him in its jaws.
Thinking about how close it was didn’t help anything. He scrambled as fast as weightlessness would allow, which wasn’t very fast at all. A slow-motion death was still death. The light shrank to a slash and he pulled himself into a ball—hoping to get his legs clear.
The closing door made no sound because there was no air in space to carry it. Everything went black. The sun was cut off and a vibration rumbled through the structure. Jupiter braced for the agony of being cut in half but it did not come. He flicked on the outer lights of his suit and saw the cargo hold surrounding him.
“Yes!” he yelled triumphantly and his helmet fogged. He pumped his fist like an athlete who had won the greatest prize of all—life.
It took Jupiter several minutes to get himself out of the cargo hold and into the cockpit. As he entered, his passengers turned to him. Instead of a cheer for saving their lives they squawked angrily.
The old male spoke up. “You nearly killed us and you lost all our luggage. There is no way we’re paying you for this trip.”
Jupiter closed his eyes and sighed. He was broke. He needed money to fix the ship and a working ship to make money.
“How about double or nothing,” Jupiter suggested. “I’ll get you to your next destination and if it’s not perfect you don’t have to pay for either trip.”
“No chance,” the birdman screeched.
Jupiter made his way over to the pilot’s chair and strapped in. He put his feet up on the control panel and closed his eyes.
“What are you doing?” the male asked.
“Taking a nap.”
“But our connecting flight for Centaur Two leaves tonight.”
“What do you want me to do? We’re dead in the water.”
“Send a distress signal. Get someone to pick us up.”
“Sorry. I’m not getting paid so I’m not required to take any more actions.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“No. That’s blackmail. Totally different thing”
“I’ll have your license for this.”
Jupiter shrugged. “No, you won’t. Because I don’t have a license.”
“What?”
“I took you for half the going rate. The cartel sets the fee structure so no licensed ship can fly that cheap.”
“Then I’ll have you arrested.”
“And you will go to jail with me,” Jupiter said. “For hiring an illegal ship.”
“But you deceived us.”
“The rates are posted for everyone to see. If you ignored them then you are culpable.”
“This is preposterous.”
“You keep saying that.”
“This is blackmail.”
“That’s my line.”
The old female put her hand on her husband’s arm. “Honey, this is getting us nowhere and we need to get to Centaur Two.”
“But it’s the principle of the thing. Our luggage.” His face flushed with exasperation. “For God’s sake we almost died.”
“And he risked his life to save us. Plus, if we miss the flight it’ll cost far more than replacing our baggage.”
The old Frigit crossed his arms and stared ahead. The woman turned to Jupiter.
“Is it still possible to make our connection?”
“Yes.”
She cut off communication and then Jupiter saw her mouth moving as she talked inside her helmet. An alert sounded in Jupiter’s ear implant and a retinal message popped up. It read, invoice paid in full, and had his passengers’ names on it.
Jupiter instantly punched a button on the control panel. “Mayday. Mayday. Ship in distress.”
“Identify,” a voice said.
Jupiter sent the false ID code for his ship.
“We have no record of you.”
“Just passing through the system and my engine went out. My friends have a connection tonight and I’d hate for them to miss it.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll be at your location in ten minutes.”
“Thanks, you’re a lifesaver.”
Jupiter clicked off the comm and glanced over. The old male still had his arms crossed. Jupiter looked back out the view port. He shrugged and pulled up the payment program. He refunded half their money. It would cover the cost of their lost baggage. He sighed. But now he wouldn’t have enough to repair his ship. He’d have to figure that out later.
There was an incoming message from the female. He opened it. There were two words, “Eat skeet.”
Jupiter sighed and mumbled to himself, “Well, this is what I get for trying to go straight.”
CHAPTER TWO
Jupiter and the Lightflyer were now on a space station above Centaur One. He had bribed a transport clerk to get his passengers on the first flight to their connecting ship. They would arrive at Centaur Two just as he’d promised. This wasn’t entirely altruistic. He didn’t want them having time to file a complaint while on the space station. He had given them false information so if they complained later the chances of getting caught were almost nil. But pointing him out to station security in person would make extricating himself very difficult.
Jupiter was currently in front of a huge observation window looking down at Centaur One. The planets in this system had been called Centaur because, like their mythical namesake, they were half man and half beast. They were tidally locked so one side always faced the system’s star and the other remained in total darkness. On Centaur One the beast side was the part facing the sun. The surface temperature was hot enough to melt lead and none ventured there. The dark side was below freezing and had been made habitable with a lot of work. It was covered in highly insulated and air tight structures. You could only go outside in heavy protective gear and for short stints. A ring of giant solar reflectors beamed energy and some heat to the surface. Most of the inhabitants were involved in mining activities and the things that supported them. Life on Centaur One was difficult, but it was a life many found a way to make it work.
Centaur Two was also tidally locked but it was so far from the central star that the side facing it was in a range that, with a little help, could support life. The dark “beast side” however had a temp of nearly absolute zero and everyone avoided it. On both planets there was something of a goldilocks zone around the rim between the dark and light sides and most of the population lived there. Centaur Three was a gas giant and the reason many ships in this system ran on combustible fuel. A ship could dip into the edge of the planet’s atmosphere and scoop up whatever fuel it needed for free. Lots of resale companies and even individual ships relied on this and as a result hydrogen-based fuels were cheap.
A shadow fell over Jupiter’s shoulder. He looked up into the observation wall in front of him. A figure he recognized was reflected in the glass. “I heard about what happened today,” the willowy creature beside him said. “You’ve certainly fallen on hard times.”
Jupiter didn’t turn but kept his eyes focused on the reflection in front of him. “Are you here to gloat, Zila?”
“My dear boy, gloating is beneath me.”
“No, it’s not.”
“OK, I admit it. I do enjoy the suffering of others. But don’t take it personally. It’s genetically encoded into my species.”
Jupiter examined her vaguely reptilian features. Zila Stavros grinned. For her a grin was simply a widening of the thin slash of a mouth that bisected the bottom of her face. Her “hair” was comprised of thick tuberous growths that she kept pulled back. When released, they fluttered around her head of their own accord. That’s why their race had become known as Medusas. The tendrils were not snakes, but the resemblance was close enough that many found them disconcerting. For that reason, Zila kept them tied down in public.
“Look, I’m just trying to stay under the radar and within the law. I’m sure there’s someone else on this ship much more worthy of your attention.”
“And an unlicensed, black market transport is within the law?”
“Well, you have to admit it’s closer than I usually get.”
“So you’re no longer bragging about being the most wanted man in three galaxies,” she said and her grin widened so much it looked like the top of her head might fall off.
For not the first time, Jupiter wished he’d mastered the Kabala Death Stare when he’d had the chance. “You do know there are listening ports all over this station.”
“Oh, yes,” she replied, and the grin finally lit her eyes. She was enjoying herself immensely.
Jupiter sighed. “So, I guess this isn’t conversation. It’s negotiation.”
“No dear boy. Negotiation implies that you have some bargaining power. All I have to do is raise my voice and you spend the rest of your life in jail.”
“I wouldn’t go down alone.”
“You couldn’t get to me with all the lawyers in this system. I pay more bribes than that silly planet down there pays in taxes.”
“All this dancing is making my feet hurt. Just tell me what you want.”
“I want you to steal the most heavily guarded cargo in the galaxy.”
“What’s the cargo?”
“What, is irrelevant to you. How, is your problem.”
“I can’t steal something if I don’t know the risks?”
“Oh, the risks are enormous. Just take your worst nightmare and multiply by a hundred.”
“That’s all?” he responded, feigning unconcern.
“Actually, I was underselling so you wouldn’t freak out. It’s probably higher.”
“A job like that will require a lot of money and I’ll need it up front.”
Zila laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. “Everything you need will be purchased for you. You will not receive a single credit until the job is done.”
“You’re not providing me much incentive.”
“I thought survival would be enough,” she said and pressed a button on her tunic. An alarm sounded. The clomp of heavy footsteps running in unison came from down the hall.
Jupiter’s eyes widened and he looked like a trapped rodent. Zila examined her long fingernails. “There is a ship you can steal in Hangar 7. But you better hurry.”
Zila fell against Jupiter and crumpled to the floor. “Help!” she yelled. Just then station security rounded the corner.
“Thief,” she said, pointing at Jupiter. He looked down and saw a piece of her jewelry draped across his hand.
“Skeet!” he swore and bolted down the hall. Only one of the men went to Zila. The others bore down on Jupiter like targeting missiles. Jupiter heard the leader calling into his comm for backup. That meant others would be coming to head him off.
Jupiter tapped his temple and summoned a display of the space station from his onboard computer. The implanted device projected the image into his optic nerve so there was no need for a screen. It was a long way to Hangar 7. Booted footsteps were coming from the hallway in front of him and he took a sudden left. This had him heading in the opposite direction of the hangars.
“Skeet!” he said in frustration and kept running.
What a fun back and forth space caper with the captain and crew of the “Hammer” first stealing the mysterious ‘Greatest Weapon of all Time!” and then having to return it. I liked that although Jupiter Kincaid is a conman at heart, he’s really caught between a rock and a hard place and forced into the heist or end up blackmailed into prison. He lies to his potential crew about his motives to keep them on board but does everything he can to protect them. I loved how the oddest crew ever meshed to become friends and allies that always had each other’s back. The dialogue throughout was witty and sharp, the banter between crewmembers clever and entertaining.
Johnny, the 500-year-old consciousness, in a mechanical body brought delightfully apt cultural references from his early past (and mine as well.) These had me laughing every time. His alien, plant-based lifeform partner/sidekick, Stu, was quirky and an imagination-bending crewmember with his own unique needs and considerations. Betty Brill, the pre-empted, original captain of the Hammer, was smart and sassy and pretty much the on-board adult supervision of the bunch. I would be hard-pressed to choose a favorite!
With an outstandingly imaginative variety of alien types populating the SCG (System Central Government), the story is fast-paced and full of pulse-quickening action. The crew faces some truly fascinating scenarios and no-win situations. The plot contains unpredictable twists as EVERYONE IN THE GALAXY tries to grab the “greatest weapon of all time.” The biggest twist of all being the weapon itself. I anxiously look forward to the arrival of the foreshadowed sequel in the series.
JUPITER KINCAID made me laugh and worry about its characters. It is fun and juvenile in much of its humor, and I loved it. I recommend this book to sci-fi/fantasy readers who don’t take this stuff very seriously, don’t have an issue with sexual innuendo (also not for the kiddies), and just want a rousingly good and entertaining reading experience.