by Melissa Good
“Yes. Exactly.”
Doug got the engines tuned and adjusted the pilot’s seat a little to accommodate his larger frame. He got his hands settled on the throttles and focused on the scan as April and Jess crossed the edge of the slope that headed toward the line of wagons. “Power’s jumping.”
“Yes.” Dev got her own seat adjusted and paused then she stood up to pull the triggers down so she could reach them. “BR270006, Tac one.”
“Go ahead, Devvie,” Jess’s voice answered.
“They are preparing weapons,” Dev said. “Energy levels rising at your eleven and two.”
“Thanks. Tac out.”
JESS UNHOLSTERED HER long blaster and released the safety. “This is gonna be ugly.”
April nodded and got her hand blaster into her grip. “Hopefully ugly and short.” She tugged her hood a little closer against the cold wind now sweeping through the valley.
They reached the edge of the road and stopped, going brace legged and still as they waited for a reaction.
Two people stepped around the edge of the wagons and approached, dressed in the waxed sealskin of the better off homesteads. The one in the lead was Dee Cooper, a tall red haired woman with a thick scarf around her neck and a blaster in a holster at her side.
The second figure was the nomad Jess remembered talking to on a day that felt years in the past, but at least he was someone who owed her a mark.
They came to the edge of the road, edge of the line that marked where the land that was part of Drake’s Bay started, the road that went up to the craggy rock escarpment and gave entrance to the Bay from landside.
“Jess,” Dee Cooper said after a moment. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
Jess laughed. “You have two thousand people there with guns and two big truck mounted blasters you got from the other side. You coming to shop?”
Cooper lifted a hand and let it drop. She boldly came across the road within reach of Jess’s long arms, sparing a glance for the shorter agent next to her. “You have something we need.”
“I have something that’s mine,” Jess responded. “That you have no part of, that Interforce had no part of, that Drake’s Bay considers its own.”
Cooper regarded her seriously. “Who’s in charge in there? You? Really?”
“Me. Really. So if you want to bring that rag tag in here, take what’s mine, you’ll need to come through me to do it.” She shifted her hold on her long gun. “And then you’ll have to deal with the Bay, who took down Interforce, and have in their hands the good old tools from the old days, and they want to use them.”
“So they beat the black and greens?” Dee asked. “Really?”
“Really.”
Dee let her hand drop to the handle of her blaster. “Then why are you still wearing that uniform, Jess? Why have this scrub next to you, or that box behind you with guns aimed?”
April’s eyes narrowed. “Big talk from someone who lives in a tin can.” She ran her fingertips over the hilt of the dalknife.
“Because it provides a lot more body protection than a Bay shirt does,” Jess answered straightforwardly. “I’m not an idiot, Dee. You think I’d leave behind the firepower of a carrier to make a point? C’mon.”
The nomad just remained there at Dee’s side, listening.
Waiting to pick a side, April thought, with an inward smile.
But then Dee relaxed a little. “Jess, no one wants to tangle with you. We all have a stake. We want to buy into this, if you’re still the Drake and you run things. The guns were for Interforce.”
Lie? Not? Jess breathed out slowly, a long stream of vapor coming out of her nose. “Do I want to do a deal with people stupid enough to think they could outgun Interforce?”
“You did.” Now Dee Cooper smiled. “Fish or cut bait, coastie.”
What was the truth here? Jess found herself unable to decide. “I didn’t outfight Interforce. The Bay did.” She made a slight gesture behind her. “I was either up in space or out like a light courtesy of some little cousins who couldn’t tell one black suit from another.”
April nodded. “S’true,” she said. “That’s a whole stack of bad news back there with her family name on it.”
“Someone unlocked the armory,” the nomad standing next to her stated. “We heard it.”
Jess nodded. “That was me. I am the Drake. But that just put the nail on it,” she added after a moment of silence, then paused and touched her comms as she heard the frequency open. “Dev?”
“Incoming targets, locked on to this location,” Dev informed her. “I am going to try to hail them.”
Jess shrugged. “Sure, why not? They know who we are anyway. That bus has a distinctive signal.” She looked at Dee. “Interforce inbound. A dozen carriers.”
“Pissed ’em off, did you?”
“They don’t like to lose,” April stated. “So if I were you, I’d start blasting this place so they don’t take it out on you, too.” She looked straight at the nomad. “Truth.”
“Truth,” he agreed.
“No response to hail, Jess,” Dev’s voice sounded quietly in her ear. “They will be in range in five minutes.”
“Warn Bay ops,” Jess said. “This isn’t going to be pretty.” She reseated her long rifle. “April’s right. Start shooting,” she told Dee. “They figure the whole region’s coming up and we won’t have anything left to bargain over.”
Dee stepped forward and put a hand out to delay her as she started to turn to head back to the carrier. “Are you going to go against them, Jess?”
“Yes.” Jess felt a wash of both relief and sadness. “I have to protect the homestead. It’s in here.” She patted her chest. “Maybe if I die in some spectacular way it’ll make up for the colossal fuckup of bringing them here to start with.”
She turned and headed back to the bus and April turned and matched her steps. “You could stay with them.”
“No I couldn’t,” April said.
“Hey, nomad!” the man called after them. “What family? For the book?”
“Fuck the book,” April muttered. “He can kiss my ass.”
Jess triggered the hatch and turned as the ramp extended, looking back over the nose of the carrier at the two of them, still standing there. “Drake,” she yelled back. “Couldn’t you tell?”
Then she entered and closed the door to find April staring at her and Dev getting up out of the gunner’s seat where she’d apparently been prepared to shoot things. “Wish we had time to talk. Tie yourselves down. Devvie, light the rockets.”
Doug scrambled out of the pilot’s seat, and a moment later Dev lifted them with a flare of the shields and a blast of steam.
“THAT’S NOTHING GOOD.” The ops captain said, glancing warily at the sandy haired man standing with crossed arms next to him. “Dozen of those are going to make a big hole.”
“Undoubtably,” Kurok said. “The older weapons you have here don’t have the frequency range to disrupt their shields.”
The captain studied him.
“Justin gave me the tour back in the day.” Kurok correctly interpreted the look. “And of course I know the other side from somewhat recent experience.” He caught a brief bit of motion at the doorway and turned to see a KayTee and a BeeAye entering. “Ah.”
“Doctor Dan.” The KayTee came over to him. “They told us it will be dangerous here soon.”
Kurok was aware of the hostility around him, he could almost smell it coming off the people sitting at console, glaring at the bio alts. “That’s right, lads. I’ll find you some place to take shelter in.”
But the KayTee shook his head. “Doctor Dan, we want to help. We want to do good work here like we did up on the station. You showed us.” He held up his hand, balled into a fist.
“You’re gonna croak,” the captain said. “You know how to fight like I know how to cook.”
“We know,” the BeeAye said. “We know we’ll be made dead, but we want to help anyway.”
Kurok held up a hand and started to talk but stopped when the captain got up and came over, staring intently at the two bios.
“So wait,” the captain said, addressing the KayTee. “You’re saying you know you’re going to die and you want to do it anyway?”
KayTee nodded. “Because we’ll have done good work,” he explained earnestly. “And if we are made dead, but doing something for the people here, we want to do that.”
Kurok drew breath in to speak again, and then, again, halted because he saw the expressions of the watch change and felt a prickle across his skin as they all focused, a sudden intensity of interest that was as potent and intent as blaster fire.
It was strange, and then familiar, as he remembered seeing that expression on Justin’s face, the two of them newly paired cadets in a mock melee with live fire when he’d all unthinkingly stepped in front of a blast to take it on his new partner’s behalf.
Just a moment. Just shoving Justin out of the way behind a rock and feeling the impact against the armor he wore across his back, and looking up to see that expression looking back at him, primordial and inbred, coming up from underneath the sophisticated intelligence that was Justin Drake’s arrogant outward armor.
“Idiot.” Justin had said. But he hadn’t meant it.
“Idiots,” the captain of the watch said, but he, too, didn’t mean it. Now the ops watch relaxed and returned to their consoles, and just like that it was okay because the bio alts, with no real understanding themselves, had used a language these anachronistic throwbacks would respond to.
Absolute migraine inducing genetic insanity. But in this place and time, again, it worked.
“Okay, well. Now that we’ve got that settled. I’ll go find some place for them to guard,” Kurok said. “Is there some place we can make a hideously pointless last stand? Relieve some of the others, perhaps?”
“Yes,” the captain said. “Here,” he pointed to a map on the wall. “Non coms, what’s left of ’em, are bunked out there. Kids and all and med.”
“Ka...Kevin,” Kurok addressed the KayTee. “Take everyone, and go to that location. Protect everyone there as best you can.”
“Yes.” Kevin nodded. “We will do that, Doctor Dan.” He turned to the captain. “We will do our best work for you,” he added, and then he and the BeeAye left, heads high.
The captain watched them then regarded Kurok.
“Surprised?” Kurok asked in a wry tone. “Yeah, me too. But let’s move on.”
“Got troop carriers behind them,” one of the ops watch muttered. “Ain’t playing.”
“No,” Kurok said then cleared his throat a little. “Mind if I helped out here? I’m better with a keypad than a gun.”
Everyone regarded him in wary silence.
“Justin was the best friend I ever had,” Kurok added gently. “I feel I owe it to him to do what I can. He’d expect it of me because this was his place.”
One of the older watch looked at him, eyes slightly narrowed. “You were his.”
“I was,” Kurok said. “We bled for each other.”
Silence.
“And I went back and snapped the neck of the guy who got him,” Kurok added with the faintest of wry smiles. “However unlikely that may seem now.”
And that, too, there was magic in, as they cleared an ops console for him and waved him forward, and the captain extended a hand to him. “I’m Johnathan.”
“DJ,” Kurok responded, returning the clasp as he sat down. “Let’s see how much boom we got left.”
Chapter Fourteen
“TAKE A POSITION, Dev.” Jess swept her board again, flexing her hands. “Want the aux comp?” she asked April, who was sitting on a small ledge near the weapons console, a pair of tie downs crossing over her shoulders to the panel behind.
“Sure.” April pulled the swinging inputs over so she could reach them. “If I’m going to blow up, I want to be shooting when I do it.”
Jess understood that at a gut level and nodded. “Any response yet, Devvie?”
“Negative.”
“New target,” Doug said. “Coming from the west. Looks like two dozen inbound and a big transport.” He dialed in the board. “All heavy weaponed.”
“Nice.” Jess sighed. “Hope Dee takes that advice.”
“Bet she doesn’t,” April remarked, seeming more cheerful than usual.
Dev got herself settled. “Do you want to approach them or let them approach us?”
Jess found herself suddenly very tired of waiting. Tired of everything. “Take it to them, Dev. Fly the hell out of it, and let’s see if they’ve got anyone who can do more than just get out of your way.”
“Yes.” Dev took hold of the throttles. “Please hold on.”
“I get chills whenever she says that,” Doug said, “but I’m as hung on as I can be.”
“Same here,” April said.
“Go.” Jess pulled down her triggers and let the tension wash out of her. “Let’s go do what we do.”
A moment later they were all slammed back in their seats as Dev took the carrier from idling to full speed, going through the speed of sound in seconds as she aimed toward the phalanx of carriers coming in from the north.
Comms was still silent, though she could hear the open frequencies with their faint white noise in her ear cup. They still were a minute out from being in range, and she set her boots on the side thrusters and fit her hands around the engine controls.
They were in visual. She saw the incoming craft and plotted a course in her head, then without warning she executed it.
“Oh crap.” April grunted.
The carrier tilted and went sideways then she angled for zenith and rotated as she dove between the first and second line of carriers, hearing the thumping as Jess let loose with the plasma cannon.
She wove a line between the carriers who belatedly reacted, dodging frantically as she skimmed close to them, pushing the engines to the red line as she rotated between two other craft so closely she could almost see the faces inside the other cockpit.
One carrier smoked and headed for the deck. She twisted and circled upward, shooting for the clouds as suddenly, shockingly, comms erupted into her ear.
“ROCKET ROCKET ROCKET!” A familiar voice bawled. “STOP STOP STOP!”
“Jess, that is Brent.” Dev brought the carrier around and to even, in a long curve to bring them back into engagement. “Request for sideband.”
“Grant.” Jess didn’t take her hands off the guns.
“Sideband six, connected.” Dev finished her curve and was facing them. “This is Dev.”
“Stop shooting!” Brent said. “Holy for craps sake hold up! Wait! Is Jess there?”
“Gimme.” Jess hit the accept. “Drake, J,” she said. “Talk fast.”
“Jess. It’s Jason,” A deeper male voice answered. “Hold on. We’re not...we’re with you,” Jason said. “Please, no shit, okay? We’re the last of us at Base Ten, and we can’t afford to lose anyone else.”
Dev held the ship steady, still heading directly at the now scattered formation.
“Twelve left?” Jess asked after a long pause.
“There was fighting. We won,” Jason said. “Got Elaine here in my bus, she knows the scoop. We need to talk.”
“Twenty minutes for the inbound west targets,” Dev said quietly.
“You see what’s coming, Jason? They for you or against you?” Jess said. “We got about six teams tied up at the Bay.”
“Land and talk, Jess. Five minutes.”
Five minutes. Jess regarded the scan output. Five minutes in the long scheme of things was insignificant. “Sure,” she said. “Follow us.” She muted the input. “Dev, land on that little escarpment over there, near the—”
“I see it.” Dev swept them around in a half circle and then went into a mild dive, waiting until the last minute to reverse power and come back around to land on the rocky point, nose facing the carrier that was following them
. She secured the systems and waited.
April untied herself and got up, going over and standing by the hatch in silence.
Jess stood and shook herself a little then glanced over as Dev got out of her seat and walked back. “Hey.”
“I would like to come with you,” Dev said in a straightforward kind of way. “The carrier is set up to move quickly if needed.”
Jess studied her for a long moment.
“And also,” Dev tossed her second card on the table, “bio alts are very familiar with being lied to. I might be able to provide useful input.”
Now Jess smiled.
Dev smiled back. “And also, I just want to be with you.”
Jess lifted both hands and turned them up, laughing a bit. “Let’s all go.” She waved Doug forward. “This is going to end one of two ways, and only one is going to require any pilots.”
April hit the hatch release and they exited in a close cluster as the hatch opened on Jason’s carrier. Once down the ramp they separated a little, and Jess took the lead.
Jason and Elaine hopped out of the other craft, Brent and Tucker right behind them, Tucker with a bandage across the side of his face.
No one else. Dev hadn’t brought her scanner, she merely watched all four of the natural borns and responded with a little smile as Brent waved at her, examining the relaxation across his shoulders as he caught up to Jason.
The eight of them came together in a group, and after a swift evaluation of both Jason and Elaine, Dev herself relaxed. They were not going to be made dead. At least not at the very moment. She reached out and touched Jess’s arm, giving it a little squeeze.
“I don’t have time for the whole story,” Jason said without preamble. “But I’ve learned more about internal politics in the last week than I ever wanted to know.”
Jess nodded. “Alters was a faction.”
“You knew?” Elaine asked. “Only one of us he couldn’t fake out onto some long term mostly terminal mission was Jase because he was on med.”
Jason nodded. “Started bringing in his people right after you left for the Bay,” he said. “Half the base got sent west.”