Depot-14: Revenge With a Kiss

By J.J. Mainor

Jakarta falls for a traveler Colton doesn’t like. Are his feelings justified, or is it a case of simple jealousy?

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.J. Mainor
• Release date: Apr 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370890163

J.J. Mainor

I can talk about my characters and stories far more easily than I can talk about myself. The best way to learn about me is through those stories. Writing primarily science fiction, I enjoy worlds and universes that aren't so black and white. Every story has something to say, and every message is not as straight-forward as it seems. We tend to boil ourselves down and define ourselves according to neat labels, whether by race, gender, political identity, or whatever; and the truth is, we're more complicated than that. I try to write worlds and characters that reflect that complexity and diversity of belief.

Book preview

Depot-14: Revenge With a Kiss

Copyright 2017 by J.J. Mainor

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 1

Stay in this room and don’t open that door for anyone but me!

Aw, why can’t I come with you?

Because it’s too dangerous.

It was hard enough to get Tucker to follow instructions in the best of times. Only thirteen Durango years old, and the boy already seemed to know everything. His brother Colton had never raised a child, and this teenager was a somewhat new addition to his life, so he had not yet learned a phrase like because I said so never worked, especially on a teenager.

What made it tougher was the element of danger and excitement that lay at the bottom of his supply depot. Colton’s partner, Jakarta, managed to get word upward through the station that a robbery was in progress at the airlock. The security seals were in place throughout, but somehow someone evaded the efforts. Last thing Colton wanted was for his brother to wind up in the middle of a firefight, but to a thirteen-year-old boy, the excitement of the moment overshadowed the real danger that awaited.

Colton grabbed his pistol and turned for the door when Tucker returned his half-hearted reason with a slight whine. I can help, he begged. Dad taught me how to use a gun. I’m a good shot!

I’m sure you are, Colton argued, but right now, I need someone who knows how not to use it.

He turned his back and left the cabin, engaging the security seals and locking the boy within…or so he thought.

Tucker was smart, smarter than Colton gave him credit for and probably too smart for his own good. Then again, it wasn’t as if the security seals were that easy to fool. It might have been his older brother’s cabin he found himself trapped in with his older brother’s secret and personal code, but it was, after all, Colton’s code. Colton wasn’t a complicated man to figure out, even for a teenager. The security code was simple and predictable, and the computer asking for it didn’t care if it came from the man himself, or the boy he wished to keep locked up. The seals were released and the door was opened before Colton ever reached the maintenance level.

What made things worse was that the boy knew where Colton kept his emergency pistol hidden. Beneath a section of deck plating under the bedpost, Tucker found the small pulse pistol his brother kept for the right occasion. In case he and Jakarta were ever disarmed and their main weapons stripped from them, this was the contingency in place to even the odds; but at that moment, it sat there for Tucker’s use.

He scooped up the pistol and snuck from the cabin. Already, he heard the commotion from below, streaming up and all throughout the station.

Down in the cargo area at the base of the station, a man – a stranger – held his own pistol to the head of another. He was a would-be thief and his hostage was the captain of the courier ship docked on the other side of the airlock. The outlaw never got to the hatch and aboard the ship; he did not yet make it away with the cargo before Jakarta drew her pistol and held him in place.

She might have taken the shot over the captain’s shoulder and killed the criminal. Every muscle in her arm twitched to pull that trigger, but something in her head, the last mental failsafe still in place, kept her finger still. The trigger had to remain in place in case that man was faster with his. The slightest hint of a threat and that captain might die at the same moment as his captor.

All she did was talk to him and stall him until her partner reached their level to provide backup.

I know you don’t wanna kill ‘im any more than I wanna kill you, she lied to him. She wanted to do it. She wanted to pull that trigger and rid the universe of one more bad guy. Of course, she didn’t want to kill, rather it was the sense of justice she wanted to unleash. The way he brandished that pistol told her there was a good chance he was already wanted for murder. Perhaps someone with nothing to lose would have piled up bodies already on that tiny supply depot, but Jakarta sensed he too wasn’t eager to kill – only that he probably had before. And it was that crime she wanted to snuff out; it was the life of that captain she wanted to protect before it went too far.

His life is not in my hands, the man told her.

Of course it is, she responded. That pistol is in your hands. That is your finger around that trigger.

But that is yours aimin’ for my head.

Only ‘cause you’re not gettin’ on that ship. You let him go and drop your weapon and this won’t end badly for you.

You know as well as I do what’s on that ship. Those Drek crystals are worth this man’s life ten times over. Yours too, I imagine.

Yeah, and they belong to a collector. Bought and paid for legal like, and I’m not lettin’ you take them for nothin’.

It was at that moment when Colton appeared at the top of the ladder, frightening the outlaw. The man took a shot at him, but missed; and Colton raced down to the second storage level. Taking the higher position, he ducked behind a pallet of individually wrapped meal bars for cover.

I don’t know how you evaded the security lockdown, the new arrival shouted down to the center of the chamber, but you’re gonna be sorry you did if you don’t drop that weapon and let your prisoner go.

Funny, that’s what she said!

The man glanced quickly toward the hatch. He was only about four meters from the opening, four meters away from his prize and from his escape and from his safety. It was four meters he might have run for, taking his chances that he could dive inside before either of the stationmasters realized and took their shots; but there were procedures. There was a routine that had to be followed – there was time needed to properly close the hatch and seal it. His escape was not as simple as jumping into the ship and magically taking off in the same moment.

From their positions, it appeared that way to both Jakarta and Colton. They had a better shot of stopping him out there in the open than they did at dislodging him from that cramped vessel. Colton took aim and considered the same proactive shot Jakarta had moments ago. Four meters was still a long ways to go when that pulse fire would cross the room in seemingly no time. It would not be until there were but two meters, or perhaps just one, that Colton would have to take the shot. He held his finger back just as Jakarta had.

The man took careful steps to close the gap, and Colton noticed the pupils in his eyes tilt upward – up toward him, higher even. Before the stationmaster could see what had his attention, a pulse lashed out across the chamber. Then another lashed out to answer it, and when Colton’s eyes craned upward, it was only in time to watch his brother tumble from the ladder to land on the grating of the platform above.

Tucker! he screamed.

Jakarta could not hold her finger back any longer. She squeezed the trigger and fired a pulse, over the captain’s shoulder and into the outlaw’s, just as she had planned. His hand loosened from the captain, who broke himself away and ran for cover behind the mobile lift.

With his