Copyrighted Material

  Galactic Executioner Copyright © 2020 by Variant Publications

  Book design and layout copyright © 2020 by JN Chaney

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from JN Chaney.

  www.jnchaney.com

  https://www.jamesaaron.net

  1st Edition

  Galactic Executioner

  Book 4 in the Galactic Law Series

  J.N. Chaney

  James S. Aaron

  Book Description

  Galactic Executioner

  Galactic Law #4

  Taurus Station has lost its leaders, crooked as they were, and now a new crime wave is ravaging the station.

  Deputy Gage Walker's investigation into dark sites across the Deadlands has roused the anger of a crime syndicate with more power than anyone knows, and they're determined to seize Taurus for themselves.

  With the help of his new team, including the Renegade Fratley Oxonos, Walker will need to infiltrate the syndicate and learn their plans before the world they know is destroyed forever.

  In a fight to save the station, Gage will need to use every tool at his disposal to ensure justice is served, even if it means becoming the very thing he hates.

  Books in the Renegade Star Universe

  Renegade Star Series:

  Renegade Star

  Renegade Atlas

  Renegade Moon

  Renegade Lost

  Renegade Fleet

  Renegade Earth

  Renegade Dawn

  Renegade Children

  Renegade Union

  Renegade Empire

  Renegade Descent

  Renegade Rising

  Renegade Alliance

  Renegade Evolution

  Renegade War

  Renegade Peace (Coming soon!)

  Standalones:

  Nameless

  The Constable

  The Constable Returns

  The Warrior Queen

  The Orion Colony Series with Jonathan Yanez:

  Orion Colony

  Orion Uncharted

  Orion Awakened

  Orion Protected

  The Last Reaper Series with Scott Moon:

  The Last Reaper

  Fear the Reaper

  Blade of the Reaper

  Wings of the Reaper

  Flight of the Reaper

  Wrath of the Reaper

  Will of the Reaper

  Descent of the Reaper

  Hunt of the Reaper

  Bastion of the Reaper

  The Fifth Column Series with Molly Lerma:

  The Fifth Column

  The Solaras Initiative

  The Forlorn Hope

  Final Battlefield (Coming soon!)

  Resonant Son Series with Christopher Hopper:

  Resonant Son

  Resonant Abyss

  The Galactic Law Series with James S. Aaron:

  Galactic Law

  Galactic Judge

  Galactic Jury

  Galactic Executioner (Coming soon!)

  Contents

  Join the Conversation

  Connect with J.N. Chaney

  Connect with James S. Aaron

  Previously on Galactic Law

  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

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Epilogue

  Renegade Star Universe

  Join the Conversation

  Connect with J.N. Chaney

  Connect with James S. Aaron

  About The Authors

  Join the conversation and get updates on new and upcoming releases in the Facebook group called “JN Chaney’s Renegade Readers.” This is a hotspot where readers come together and share their lives and interests, discuss the series, and speak directly to J.N. Chaney and his co-authors.

  Join the Facebook Group

  He also post updates, official art, and other awesome stuff on his website and you can also follow him on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

  For email updates about new releases, as well as exclusive promotions, visit the link and enter your email address.

  Click Here

  Enjoying the series? Help others discover the Galactic Law series by leaving a review on Amazon.

  Connect with James S. Aaron

  I send out updates mostly weekly. I share science, space, futurism and science fiction-related things I’ve found, lots of SF art, deals on great reading, movies, etc, basically anything I might be tempted to pick up myself. I also share updates on my work.

  To stay connected, head to the link below and sign up for the newsletter.

  https://www.jamesaaron.net/list/

  Previously on Galactic Law

  Taurus Station is where tourists, criminals, and industry pioneers come for relaxation as they travel through the Deadlands, a region of space that rests between two warring empires. Keeping the peace is a thankless job, and the law often seems like a suggestion. It falls on deputies to enforce the Sheriff’s justice however they can.

  The death and disappearance of the Carmichael Brothers, former owners of Taurus Station, has started a five month slide into chaos. A new gang of organized criminals wearing blue suits are targeting law enforcement while conducting high-value robberies on financial centers, jewelry stores, and other gathering places of the station’s elite.

  As deputies are killed, others leave the department for work in private security, or leave the station altogether, taking their families someplace safe.

  Deputy Gage Walker is part of the task force to stem the tide of lawlessness. He is also hired by industrialist Min Oragga to investigate who might be behind the crime wave and locate the Control Key that defers the ownership of Taurus. Whoever holds the Control Key runs the station.

  The threat of Lyon, the interstellar crime group Walker uncovered behind the Rivas slave trading ring, is still present, and the Renegade Fratley Oxonos uses his newly won millions to build his own freebooter gang.

  1

  “Robbery in progress, Deputy Walker,” LE-DB reported. “Promenade Sector, Section Seven. You had better move.”

  “Lights and sirens, Ellie.” I braked and made a quick turn onto a side street, away from traffic.

  “Dammit,” Keldon said. “I knew riding with you would mean actual work, Walker.”

  My partner for the shift, Sergeant Jack Keldon, grinned under his brush mustache and pulled on his duty helmet. He slapped the face shield closed. My former trainer was always quick with a joke, and despite the quip, he was the least likely in the department to turn a blind eye to work that needed to be done. He trained me well to serve the Sheriff’s Justice, and I respected him for it.

  Ellie fed us data about our destination as I raced down empty streets on the outer edge of the Promenade. The only traffic here involved lost tourists and cargo drones serving the retail areas along the strip.

  “Jewelry store,” Keldon said, whistling. “Not a smash and grab though. The crew is shaking down the customers. Looks like they caught a rich group in the middle of a scheduled showing.”

  “Inside job?”

  “Likely.” Keldon checked his duty weapon and slid it back into its holster. “Every time I think criminals are going to be smart, they disappoint me.”

  “Surveillance footage acquired,” Ellie reported. The middle strip of the cruiser’s windscreen showed footage from the showroom of a jewelry store. Glass cases lined the walls with a full bar to one side. Four men in suits held weapons on a group of well-dressed civilians with terrified expressions. Three people lay on the floor, identified as deceased. Those must have been the staff.

  “T
his is more than a robbery,” Keldon said. “Ellie, do we have IDs on the civilians?”

  “They are visitors to Taurus Station, Sergeant Keldon. Members of the Chauncey family.” She highlighted their faces and displayed names, ages, and planet of origin. “They passed through Port Authority just twenty hours ago.”

  “And the perps?”

  “I have no record of any of these individuals in the station database. They did not pass through normal ports of entry, and I do not have any matches with current residents.”

  I skidded around a corner and accelerated. The shop was just a klick ahead now. This was a regular street, and some people didn’t pay attention to the lights and sirens, forcing me to slide around them. The cruiser could handle the sudden shifts easily. What worried me were the hundreds of tourists ambling along the sidewalks. One of them could stumble into our path at any moment, especially when rubbernecking.

  The shop appeared in the windscreen display. The front had been placed in security lockdown, with metal guards covering the doors and windows.

  “Do we have a security override?” I asked Ellie.

  “Working, Deputy Walker. They appear to have taken control of all internal network systems. I was able to enter the CCTV feed through the municipal link.”

  “Maybe these guys are smart after all,” Keldon said.

  I slid to a stop in front of the store, and Keldon threw his hatch open. After placing the cruiser in a secure park, I followed. Keldon was already running for an alley on the far side of the store.

  “There has to be a cargo point,” he called back to me. “Watch out for someone at the back door.”

  He had barely said back door when bullets struck the wall near his head. I came around the corner and took cover behind a dumpster next to Keldon as two men in suits fired on us from the other end of the alley.

  “That’s our way in,” he said.

  I checked my duty weapon. “I’ll go low. You go high.”

  “Story of your life, Walker.”

  I slid out from beside the dumpster and fired on the two men at the door. I caught one in the leg as the other pulled back inside. Keldon followed me, pushing forward down the alley. When the unhurt man leaned around the doorway again, Keldon’s shot hit him in the right arm and he fell back, howling in pain.

  We reached the door as the man I’d shot in the leg was dragging himself back inside, trying to reach for the locking mechanism on the inside of the door. The perp Keldon had hit was lying on the ground, dead from a gunshot that had exploded out the back of his skull. I was confused but didn’t have time to think about it with another suspect still armed.

  “Drop your weapon,” I shouted, moving forward with my pistol raised.

  The man rolled onto his back, smearing blood all over his suit. He raised his pistol as he looked at me, and I fired, drilling him back with two shots that hit center mass.

  The shots didn’t stop him though. He put his pistol under his chin and squeezed the trigger.

  “Well, damn,” Keldon said from behind me.

  “Ellie,” I said. “We’re entering the building. Do we still have live victims inside?”

  “Surveillance shows all three civilians as alive, Deputy Walker. You will find the showroom through the last door on your left.”

  I entered the building, pistol ready. As soon as I checked the hallway, pistol fire hit the wall next to my head. Returning fire, I dropped to a knee behind a stack of boxes and waited for whoever was down there to run through their magazine.

  They didn’t. As soon as I was out of sight, they stopped firing.

  Dammit.

  “Ellie, what can you give me on the hostiles in there?”

  “They are outside the scope of the interior cameras, Deputy Walker. Based on audio ballistics, there should be one hostile perpetrator. They are currently using a pistol.”

  I could have told her that.

  “I’m firing, Walker,” Keldon said from behind me. Keep your head down. Once I get them behind cover, you run for the next doorway.”

  I checked around the box to get another look at the hallway. There was a door five meters away. The lit door to the main showroom was the next one down from there.

  “Let’s do it,” I told Keldon.

  He fired three times in rapid succession, laying down cover, and paused when he didn’t get immediate return fire. I sprinted for the doorway.

  Tiles from the floor exploded in front of me. Behind me, Keldon fired as I slid into the doorway. Without stopping, I raised my pistol and spotted a man with close-cropped brown hair, looking nearly identical to our dead man outside. He was trying to check for me and Keldon at the same time.

  I fired, forcing him down, and ran for the other door. Keldon kept shooting as I left the hallway.

  The display room was lit with brilliant white bulbs in the ceiling. Long jewelry cases running the length of the room had all been opened, their velvet interiors swept clean.

  Keeping along the wall, I cleared the room then spotted three civilians lying on the floor behind the sales counter. A man and woman were unconscious, but another woman with bright red hair stared at me with wide eyes. She kept her mouth clamped closed.

  I raised my free hand to reassure her when her gaze flicked slightly to my left.

  Turning, I moved in time to catch another perp in a blue-gray suit as he stepped around a partition with a crowbar raised above his head. Reversing my pistol, I drove the butt into his teeth. He stumbled back, spitting blood and his front teeth.

  More gunfire came from the hallway as I hit the man again, knocking him out.

  “You get a scan, Ellie?”

  “Attempting ID now, Deputy Walker.”

  I patted him down for weapons and found nothing, then I rolled him over and applied cuffs. Without wasting any more time, I moved back to the hallway, looking for Keldon.

  The sergeant was walking back from the left, his pistol already back in its holster. He had a grim look.

  “You all right?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I shot this one in the shoulder and he went down, then he pulled the muzzle in the mouth move, same as our guy in the alley.”

  I frowned. “When was the last time an armed robber chose suicide over arrest?”

  Keldon shook his head. “The suits are strange, too. This is a weird call. I don’t like it.”

  “Well, I got one alive at least. Our civilians are in the showroom.”

  “Send an update. I’ll check on them.”

  I stood in the doorway as Keldon went to the woman who had given me the warning and knelt to cut the ties on her wrists.

  “Are they all gone?” she asked in a meek voice.

  “All gone,” Keldon assured her.

  “That one’s making gurgling sounds,” she said.

  Keldon checked the other two unconscious civilians as I had Ellie call for medical support. Kneeling next to my cuffed perp, I got a better look at him. The suit and haircut made him look like a young banker on lunch break from the finance district.