The Corsair Uprising #1: The Azure Key



  The Corsair Uprising #1:

  The Azure Key

  Collected Works of Trevor Schmidt

  The Corsair Uprising Space Opera Series:

  The Corsair Uprising #1: The Azure Key

  The Corsair Uprising #2: Nightstalkers

  The Corsair Uprising #3: Death Wish

  The Corsair Uprising #4: The Lost Corsair

  Collections:

  The Corsair Uprising Collection: Books #1-3

  Science Fiction Novels:

  Symbiote

  Memory Leak

  Short Fiction:

  The Chosen (A Novelette)

  Replica (A Short Story)

  Nonfiction:

  Your Time: 10 Principles for Managing Time Before Time Manages You

  The Azure Key

  Trevor Schmidt

  United States of America

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and not intended to represent real people or places. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher.

  The Corsair Uprising #1: The Azure Key

  Copyright © 2014 by Trevor Schmidt

  Cover iStock Photo by duncan1890

  Contact the Author

  Trevorschmidtauthor.com

  Twitter: @TrevorSSchmidt

  Facebook: facebook.com/trevorschmidtauthor

  Table of Contents

  Also by Trevor Schmidt

  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 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Note from the Author

  1

  2144 A.D. - Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

  Liam Kidd stood in an alley surveying the bustling street, making sure to check the sky for surveillance drones. A bead of sweat rolled down his scarred face, which he quickly wiped with a gloved hand before it froze in the cold Toronto winter. His bright blue eyes darted between passersby as he searched for his pursuer. They wanted credits, and if he didn’t pay, he’d end up paying a different kind of price.

  Takara was a corporate enforcer and sometimes assassin working for Vesta Corporation, the largest asteroid mining company and the first one to hit one trillion credits in valuation. They were an old corporation with ties to every political office on the planet. Earth needed the precious metals and minerals for manufacturing and some fat cats at Vesta had found a way to deliver them from the Asteroid Belt, holding a tight grip on the supply. Even more frightening was their mafia-like tactics that left countless people missing and presumed dead.

  Agents like Takara, a former Yakuza member, practically had immunity from prosecution. The system was corrupt, but Liam had never had a problem with it. Until now. He’d done a few freelance jobs for Vesta Corporation in the past. Nothing big. A smuggling job here and a protection detail there. It was easy money. That is, until millions of Vesta Corporation’s credits went missing and he was the prime suspect.

  Liam poked his head out from the alley and decided to take his chances. He pulled the brim of his winter hat low over his long blond hair and pulled his blue jacket close. A gust of wind made his thick Norse jaw quiver, his short stubble doing little to warm his face. The fibers of his clothing were engineered to keep heat in, a necessity during the winters up North, but hardly a panacea for the frigid climate. He kept close to the buildings as he walked toward a growing crowd. It was New Year’s Eve and people were already showing up for the festivities. Liam had never been a big fan of crowds, but he would make an exception, just this once.

  When he was intermingled in the mass of people he chanced a backward glance. His heart raced as he searched for her face. Takara was hard to miss. She was heavily tattooed and had cybernetic implants on her arms and parts of her face, her normally graceful lines interrupted by cold, sharp alloys. He didn’t know exactly what the implants did, but he was sure it was all to make her a more efficient killing machine.

  There was no sign of her. Liam let himself relax a bit. He needed to sort through this mess before he ended up dead, or worse. Liam imagined being sent to the asteroid mines. Though spider bots did most of the hard labor, they needed workers to maintain their systems and to start the refining process. He’d been on smuggling runs to the Mars Colonies in the past, but disliked the cramped quarters and extended length of the mission. Even with the latest ship upgrades it took about three weeks one way. Too long in cramped quarters for Liam Kidd.

  The New Year’s celebration had a number of musical acts lined up for the afternoon leading up to the midnight countdown. Kim-Yoon, a Korean pop star, was singing live on the stage. What passed for ‘live’ was a hologram of them singing live in another location. To be fair, the holograms were so lifelike it was hard to tell the difference, apart from the occasional glitch. The same performance was being broadcast in New York, Rio, Los Angeles and everywhere else. It was almost midnight in Korea, which meant their headline act was about to perform.

  The song ended and the air was filled with the screams of teenage girls. Video of cheering crowds from around the world lined the screens on the metal frame of the stage. He couldn’t stay there. Now was his chance. Liam made his way through the cheering crowd, keeping low and using the cover of the masses to shield his face. Any minute a drone could recognize him and he’d be done. Facial recognition would only take a moment.

  After a few minutes he reached the edge of the crowd and decided to try to make it to his apartment on Fifth Street. It was only three blocks, but it seemed much farther in the waning light of the sun. He was going against the grain as more people began to show up. He cursed. Liam would look out of place to any trained observer, but he had to give it a shot.

  He pulled the brim of his hat down and walked along the smooth grey facades of the downtown buildings. Liam only made it a block before he heard the familiar robotic chirp. It was the unmistakable sound of information being sent from a drone to a user. He looked up and saw a spherical drone hovering above him, a small jet distorting the air below it. Its smooth metallic exterior was interrupted by several camera lenses pointed in every direction. Red OLEDs flashed, making the drone appear to glow in the fading light.

  Liam ran. The drone followed closely, continuing to chirp frantically as he tried to lose it down a side street. If Liam didn’t get away fast, he didn’t like his odds. He’d been on the other end before and knew that the more time that passed, the less likely he was to live.

  He came out on Third Street, the drone trailing by a few feet as he weaved in and out of passing people on their way to the concert, bumping shoulders with several of them and prompting a slurry of snide remarks. The sound of heavily electronic music filled the air once more and a laser-light show began behind him, sending colored beams of light into the cloudy, darkening sky.

  Liam pass
ed a side street that was filling up with food carts for the New Year’s celebration. Alley parties were finally catching on in Toronto, though Liam never saw the point. He couldn’t remember one good experience that occurred in an alley. Yet, dozens of vendors were already set up and serving while a DJ erected his speakers. The smell of countless spices floated over to him along with the brief feeling of heat against his face. When he ran past the alley another gust of cold air hit his face and the long scar on his right cheek seemed to tighten.

  He was sprinting now, clear of the bulk of the crowds and in a straightaway to his apartment. Liam was in fairly good shape, not too bulky or too skinny, athletic despite his generally poor nutrition. He thanked his genetics for that. As his speed increased the drone started to trail a bit, unable to match his pace. Still, Liam continued to turn his head every so often to make sure he was losing the robotic nuisance. After taking one final glance backward he turned his head back to his front, where he saw a flash of something metal.

  Whatever hit him made him lose his balance on the snowy ground so that his feet dug in and found only ice beneath. He lost his footing and flew backward, landing hard on the sidewalk. His eyes unfocused as he stared up into the dusk, until there was nothing left but a dark grey blotch with sprinkles of white fluttering down casually. The buildings and the sky were indistinguishable to him.

  “Takara,” Liam breathed, the wind knocked out of him.

  “Liam Kidd. Always making trouble.”

  Takara straddled him and put her laser weapon up to his head just below his cap so he could feel the freezing metal tip. He squinted, focusing his eyes on her face. He’d never seen her this close before. She might have been very pretty before all of her modifications. Her dark brown eyes now looked like the leads of a circuit, her fine black hair tied back behind heavily pierced ears. She was dressed from head to toe in form-fitting black leather, itself a testament to her moxie since most countries banned the tanning of leather in the 2070s.

  Takara gripped his jacket tight and brought Liam’s face close to hers. “Where’s my money, Gaijin?”