by Rob Dearsley
Harris grabbed her, twisting her arm up her back again. This time, hard enough to wrench a cry from Arland’s throat.
“Time to go.” Harris shot Simon again before emptying the stunner into Hale. “That should keep her down.”
Harris shoved Arland into the drop seat nearest the cockpit, pulling the straps painfully tight around her. “We had these made for the Terran. Lucky for you I’ve got a spare pair.” Harris held up restraints. A metal device about the size of a rifle magazine, with two, thick metal hoops coming out of each side. Harris pulled her arms through the holes in opposite directions so she looked like her arms were folded across her stomach. At the touch of a control, the hoops ratcheted tight around her forearms.
Arland blew a loose strand of hair from her face. “Why are you doing this?”
Harris looked up from cuffing Hale’s arms behind her back. “We do what must be done. It’s what we’ve always done.”
“I swear, as soon as I get out of these you’re a dead man,” Arland growled. The hair fell back into her face.
◊◊
- Hope’s Folly, on-route to Pyrite System -
Staying on the highways had kept them ahead of the Reclaimer. Although, after three days, Dannage was finding the unending blue relentless and tiresome. At least they were only a couple hours from Pyrite.
Luc gave him a sidelong look. “You really think the SDF will believe us?”
That was the question. Dannage worried that anyone they contacted would be a jumped up desk-jockey who wouldn’t take his word.
“We’ll have to make them.” Dannage tapped the internal com. “Jax, put together everything we have on the Terrans, and their predicted course. And send it to any SDF outpost within range.”
“Got it,” Jax replied. There was a clack of keys as the com cut off.
“We’re still a couple of hours out, Cap’n, and you’ve been on the bridge for near on three days. Go get some rest, I’ll wake you when we’re close.”
Dannage shook his head. He didn’t want to rest. It would mean stopping to think and thinking would undo him. As long as he had something to do, he would be fine.
“Cap’n.” Luc pulled Dannage’s chair around so they were facing each other. “What we’re tryin’ to do here— it would be suicide on the best day.”
“If you want to go, then go. I won’t keep you here.”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it. I’m with you, sir, all the way. We all are. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you do it wrung out like this. Go, get some sleep, Cap’n. We need your best day.”
Dannage looked down, defeated. Of course, Luc was right, he should rest. The question was, could he?
◊◊
Dannage lay back on his cot, staring at the overhead. The netting covers on his lockers bulged under the mass of assorted oddments he’d acquired. A lifetime as a trader, all crammed into a little over two square metres of storage. It wasn’t much of a life if you thought about it like that. Compared to the likes of Quint – who owned a small moon – it was nothing. But he’d had fun, hadn’t he? Adventures with the crew.
A memory flashed through his mind and he jumped up, scrabbling through one of the storage lockers, desperate to find it. All of a sudden, it was the most important thing in the universe.
There it was. Beneath a crumpled scarf. He pulled out the frame. The blue of the highway coming through the viewport glinted off the glass. The space inside the frame was divided unevenly into two sections. On one side, the dull bronze of the Triskelion Medal nestled on a bed of felt. While on the other, was a photo of the whole crew – except Jax – jubilant in celebration after having just won the Triskel Race. His eyes fell on Arland, her head thrown back in laughter. Unguarded, just for a moment, but captured for all of time.
Stars, he missed her. She was the best of all of them. She would have known what to do. Heck, she’d probably have won the war by now. Not just run and hid like he had.
Tears blurred his vision and he scrubbed them away with the sleeve of his coat.
He’d lost so much already. But not everything. Not yet.
Dannage looked around, not seeing the cramped cabin, but beyond it, through the ship, his ship. He knew her like the back of his hand. A few crates were tethered to the back wall of the cargo bay. He couldn’t even remember what was in them anymore, let alone who they were for. In his mind, he saw Luc on the bridge, feet up on the dash, letting the autopilot drive. Then his mind’s eye shifted into the engine compartment. Jax sat cross-legged, surrounded by monitors and consoles, like some sort of tech-god, ruling over her own small domain.
He was leading them into a battle that they had no chance of winning. He’d started them on this course months ago when he’d gotten the location from Fitz. Now, he was going to end it.
Still holding the photo, he rolled over onto his cot and started to drift off.
Eighteen
- Pyrite Garrison -
Foreign words intruded into Hale’s mind.
The Old Ones are coming. Time is running out. There is only one solution left.
Hale forced the voices down and opened her eyes to the sight of combat boots.
Groaning, she rolled onto her side. Guards filed in through the small hatch in the side of the shuttle, the digital camo of their fatigues was broken by the thick metal bars, some sort of power assist system.
Two of the men grabbed her under the arms and pulled her up. Hale could hear low whining of motors in their armour as they lifted her.
Her arms were locked behind her back at an awkward, almost painful angle. With no give in the restraints, her options were limited, but she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to go down swinging. She’d already slept through one apocalypse.
Hale lunged, catching the guards by surprise and driving one into the bulkhead. The metal exoskeleton buckled under the force of her attack. A kick sent the second guard tumbling and gave Hale a moment to take stock of her surroundings. Arland was cuffed and locked into one of the drop seats at the far end of the ship. More guards came through the open hatch, guns ready.
“No!” Harris barked, raising his gun. The stunner rounds struck Hale high on the back and weakness washed over her, pulling on her limbs.
She forced herself up and lunged at the guards, kicking one back through the hatch. Harris shot her twice more.
One of the guards grabbed her. She wrenched out of his grip, pinning him against the wall. The servos in his exoskeleton whined as he tried to force her away. Another guard grabbed her shoulders, pulling her back.
She thrashed against him, but the stunner rounds combined with his augmented strength held her down.
“You have proven quite the fighter.” Harris’s gun loomed in her darkening vision. “Take her.”
He fired again, and this time, when the voices came, she didn’t have the strength to resist.
Come to us.
◊◊
- Hope’s Folly, Pyrite System -
The final tendrils of the slipway dissipated from around the Folly’s nose. The gleaming SDF ship hanging in orbit near the fourth planet drew Dannage’s attention. “Looks like they got our message.”
“Then they didn’t take it serious.” Luc looked up from his console. “Accordin’ to the computer that’s an Admiralty ship.”
He recognised the title. One of the SDF’s pompous parade ships. All fur coat and no knickers, as his gran would say.
Luc interrupted his thoughts. “Cap’n, we’re being hailed.”
Dannage glanced over. “What do they want?”
“They’re asking for you, Cap'n. Specifically.”
Dannage’s hands froze on the controls. That was new. “Let’s hear it then.” He set the autopilot to bring the Folly in-system and turned to the coms console.
The screen resolved into an SDF captain, her piercing blue eyes and light hair, pulled back into a regulation style, reminded Dannage of Arland. Biting back the emotion, he leaned into ran
ge of the com console pickup.
“Captain Dannage?” The SDF captain’s voice was tight with barely contained emotion.
“Speaking,” Dannage replied, wary that her anger might be for him. “What’s going on?”
The SDF captain leaned toward the video pickup. “I need your help. They’ve got Shauna.”
“Shauna? Shauna Arland?” Dannage rocked back, his mind reeling. Arland was alive? Stars, he’d never looked. Never even thought. Idiot.
“Yes.” The SDF captain scrubbed a hand over her face and let out an actual growl. “He, Harris, took her and the Terran over to the station. Said, he’d kill her if I tried anything. You have to get her back. Please captain—” She turned away from the screen to talk to someone out of view. When she came back, bubbling anger filled her voice. “Listen, they want us to keep you away from the station. I’ll have to make a good show of it. You’d better be as good as I’ve heard.”
Dannage nodded, still in shock. “Captain, you should know that Recoup ships will be here in under five minutes.”
Dannage whipped back to the flight console, pulling the ship around and gunning the engines.
Luc said, “The ship’s only got two main firing arcs. Flank batteries are short-range flack cannons, long-range rail guns on the bow. If you can stay off the forward or aft quarter, then they won’t have a firing solution.”
That was all well and good, but they still had to get away from, the Jean-Luke. The SDF ship’s close-in weapons opened up, spilling flack and tracer fire into the space around the Folly. Luckily for them, they were at the extreme range of the weapons.
The Folly jounced around, avoiding the weapons fire, as Dannage aimed for the blind spot just under the ship’s bow.
It was easier than it would have been against a proper combat vessel. Dannage’s ship was nimbler, and he used that to full effect.
“They’re firing again.” Luc’s warning was followed, a couple of seconds later, but a slight rumbling in the deck plate as the Jean-Luke’s CQC cannons went wide. The bow section of the ship, with its large viewing windows, loomed above them.
Dannage’s HUD showed the SDF ship starting to turn, trying to bring the CQC cannons to bear.
He whipped the Folly in a one-eighty tight enough to set the space frame groaning under the conflicting forces. There was a moment where he thought she might come apart and spill them across the vacuum of space to die. The moment passed, and they were headed back along the Jean-Luke’s midline. Another tight turn – although not quite so tight this time – and they shot out from beneath the Jean-Luke’s flight deck, into the fire restricted corridor around the shuttle launch track. It should give him enough breathing room to get clear of the close-in weapons.
Vibrations passed through the ship and up his arms, leaving them tingling. Shells from the Jean-Luke’s CQC guns whipped past within inches of the Folly. Damn, that had been too close.
“They’re turning, trying to bring the forward guns in line,” Luc warned.
He bit back an epithet and pulled on the flight stick, trying to keep the Folly ahead of their turn and still heading for the Garrison.
“What the range on the rail guns?” Dannage asked, not taking his eyes from the HUD.
Before Luc could answer, collision alarms flashed up on the HUD. Cursing his awful luck, Dannage yanked the flight stick over, pulling his ship into a corkscrewing dive. More long-range shells whipped overhead. Damn, they’d pulled that turn off fast. Before Dannage could recover from the dive, the alarm went again.
“Naff off, will you!” Dannage yelled at the SDF ship, pulling his own into a climb that dodged the shells and brought them back on track for the Garrison.
Another alarm was followed by another near miss. At least the parade ship didn’t have any missiles.
As more shells careened toward them, Dannage pulled the Folly around, behind an abandoned refinery station. The Jean-Luke’s shells slammed into the refinery.
Dannage’s hand relaxed on the stick and he let out a breath of relief. They were safe, for now, but the HUD showed the SDF ship already manoeuvring for a firing solution.
Dannage tapped the com open. “Jax, you got anything from the station?”
“Station reads as cold.” The rattling of Jax’s keyboard filtered over the com. “If it follows the normal layout, the best bet is to cut your way in through the old F18 loading docks about a quarter of the way down, planet-side of centre.”
“Thanks, Jax.” Dannage cut the com and a glowing, blue waypoint appeared on the HUD. All he had to do was get them there in one piece.
Warnings popped up on the screen as the Jean-Luke came into view around the refinery. Dannage ducked the Folly away, through the network of scaffolding that held the long cold, smelting towers.
On the HUD, Dannage tracked the Jean-Luke. It surged forward to intercept them as they came out the far side. She was expecting him to make another rush for the station.
Dannage cut the main engines and quietly nudged the Folly around on the aerosol thrusters. As they drifted through the frameworks, he scanned the system for another bolthole. His eyes fell on a completely hollowed out moon twenty kilometres down spin. He double-checked the orbits. That one would do fine.
The Jean-Luke disappeared around the far side of the refinery. Dannage fired off the engines and sent the Folly shooting off on a ballistic trajectory toward the moon.
“The Jean-Luke’s holding course,” Luc supplied. “They’ll see us in fifteen sections.”
Dannage checked the display. They’d be in the destroyed moon by then. In the meantime, all he could do was wait, his hands tense on the controls.
The Folly glided into the shadow of the moon. Dannage let out a breath, firing off the thrusters to bring the ship into a wide arc through the moon’s interior. He bled off speed until they drifted near the far side, where the original mineshaft had been cut in.
“Jean-Luke’s come around the refinery,” Luc said. “They’re looking for us.”
“Keep an eye on them, but don’t give away our position,” Dannage said.
Dannage checked the orbital paths again. A couple of minutes and he could hop to an old admin centre, and the admin centre’s orbit came close enough to Garrison for another hop. They just had to avoid the Jean-Luke. If the SDF took an inner orbital track they were sunk.
“Cap’n, they’re making a pass.” Luc pointed up.
Instinctively, Dannage looked up through the copula. Above them, the pitted inner surface of the moon was lost to the gloom.
The admin centre, a central unit surrounded by a spider’s web of docking ports, came into view.
With a puff of thrusters, the Folly edged out from the moon.
“Where’s the Jean-Luke?” Dannage whispered. He knew it made no difference to their chances of being spotted, but couldn’t help himself.
“Tracking back toward the refinery.” Luc didn’t bother to whisper.
Dannage held his breath and fired off the engines, sending the Folly drifting toward the admin centre.
“They’re coming around,” Luc announced.
Crap. Had they been spotted? The admin centre offered limited opportunities for cover. Dannage nudged the Folly around to the far side of the small station. His hands painfully tight on the controls. All they could do now was wait and see.
◊◊
Arland blew the loose hair from her face and glared at Harris. After dragging her from the shuttle, the guards had re-cuffed her hands behind her back. They started off into the station, one all but dragging her along, while his companions stayed a couple of paces behind, just out of reach.
Ahead of her, more guards carried the unconscious forms of Hale and Simon.
“Where are you taking them?” she demanded.
Harris turned, an annoying half-smile on his lips. “The Terran is going to our bio-science facility. Being able to study her link will advance our own systems. As for Mr. Corren, he might prove useful.”
&nbs
p; Arland bit back her anger. “And what about me?”
Another Spook stepped from a side room. The scar on his lips and knot of a recently broken nose marked him as the Spook from Gypsum. “Miss Arland, this is what you always wanted, isn’t it? To find us, prove we exist?”
It was true, she had. It was her reckless determination that had gotten them into this mess. That would undoubtedly get Hale killed. Damn it.
When she looked back up, Harris and the Spook were talking in hushed tones.
“Bring her.” Harris turned and walked into the side room.
Arland’s guard made to drag her along after Harris.
Enough.
Impotent anger boiled over and Arland made to shove the guard away. “I can walk, you know.”
The guard didn’t lose his grip and, thanks to the exoskeleton, didn’t even move. He glared and yanked her forward, hard enough she lost her footing.
Harris waited on the far side of the control room, in front of a large communications screen. “Captain, you will stop any ships from approaching this station, or I will execute your daughter.”
Arland thrashed against the guard, as he dragged her over to the screen.
“Damn you, Harris.” Arland’s mother leaned in toward the vid-com pickup, her face looming massive over Harris. “By the Stars, I swear you are a dead man. I’ll make sure of it.”
The guard forced Arland to her knees and, at a signal from Harris, drew his sidearm.
“Don’t,” Arland yelled, looking up at her mother. “Blow this pace to hell!”
The guard’s gun ground into her temple.
Harris remained impassive. “Captain, stop that ship. We can have no interruptions.”
“Damn you.” Arland’s mother slammed her fist down, cutting the com.
Harris turned away from the screen to look down on Arland. She was getting damn fed up with people looking down on her and glared up at him, blowing the loose hair from her face. “Take her away.”
Someone pulled a hood over her head, enveloping her in darkness.
Arland had been on Garrisons before and the way the concentric deck layout merged and split apart as it spiralled outward had been enough to confuse her back then. Under the perpetual twilight of the hood, she was completely lost. At first, she tried tracking her movements through sounds, the hush of the air circulators, or the chirping of a console. But the fabric of the hood gave all the sounds a muted, echoey quality that made it impossible to pinpoint the source.