Of Sea and Stars (Partners Book 3)

by Melissa Good

  “I guessed,” Jess said who hadn’t done anything of the sort. “He was bucking to put me at the Bay to run some scam, then pushed me upside when it looked like I was going to make trouble.”

  “Were you?” Elaine asked.

  Jess smiled and issued a small, self deprecating shrug.

  Jason nodded. “What threw it up was that thing you found here.” He gestured vaguely at the Bay. “Anyway, we turned it around. That’s what left in flight, and maybe down, now that we had to face off against Rocket for like ten seconds.”

  Dev put her hands behind her back and assumed a diffident expression.

  “So what’s the deal with the incoming?”

  “Unfriendly,” Jason said. “I sent a relay back to Rainier, told them we were invoking intervention. And that we’d rather have the Bay as allies than enemies.”

  Jess sighed. “Oh nice.”

  Elaine nodded. “Insurrection. Their choice. You probably never got that far in the rule book, Jess. Jason had plenty of time in med to read.”

  The entire situation turned. Jess exhaled. “According to Dee Cooper, that ragtag gang of rock scrapers with guns was all ready to fight off Interforce on the Bay’s behalf.”

  “Because they wanted that seed stuff,” April said. “Don’t give them any credit.”

  Jason chuckled. “So now it’s scrapers and the Bay and us against them. Sucks to be them.”

  “And Doctor Dan,” Dev said. “He sent a message that he’s in the operations center.”

  Elaine smiled. “Cherry in the sundae. This is going to be like shooting fish in a tide pool.”

  Jess took herself into a bit of head silence and shut out the world for a moment. She could sense a tickle of what felt like sandpaper, or the rough skin of a shark against her perceptions as she forced herself to stand still and look at the situation from the outside.

  “Jess?”

  She held one hand up and slightly turned her head to one side, focusing her eyes on the ground as she silently assembled the pieces in her mind, the seeds, the station, her brothers. Where were the threads? Where were the little sticky bits that would bring them together...if they even existed?

  Was she trying to put two and two together to get six?

  Doug’s voice echoed into her concentration. “Ten minutes. We should get moving.”

  “Jess.” Jason put his hand out and touched her shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s take this. We got it.”

  Her family, the Bay, the legacy that lived inside her. What would happen if the Bay was the center of an insurrection...and the irresistible pull of the seeds?

  Step out. Step back. Jess dissected the emotion of the situation out of it, removing the knowledge of her own part in this hideously technicolor clusterfuck.

  What was the goal? Whose goal was it?

  “Jess, let’s go. We take these guys out, they’ll think twice before coming at us again once the word about the rest of them getting tanked gets to them.”

  “Wait a moment,” Dev said, moving closer. “Jess is thinking.” She put her own hand up. “Please be quiet.”

  And Dev. New Model Developmental number one. Who started out a biological alternative thrown into an insanity and now...

  And now spoke with a steady authority and was so brilliant and so...Jess let out a slow breath. So made for her.

  Made for her. Had she been? What had the end stage been in the mind of Daniel Kurok?

  “Listen, we’re out of time,” Elaine said, but in a gentle voice. “If they catch us on the ground we’re toast.”

  Jess straightened up and returned her eyes to the group surrounding her. “It’s a scam,” she said in a low tone. “It’s them.”

  “Meaning?” Elaine asked, cautiously.

  “Them?” Jason echoed a moment later. “The other side?”

  “Why waste your resources fighting us when you can get us to fight each other,” Jess said. “Perfect plan. Get us to destroy each other then they come in and take the pickings. Get revenge for Gibraltar with no loss on their side.”

  The agents looked at each other in a sudden, charged silence.

  “Destroy the station, destroy the Bay, destroy the trade over the whole east,” Jess said. “Deplete Interforce by shoving them up against the one place they can’t win against because the Bay...” She took a breath. “The Bay is where the heart of Interforce comes from.”

  “Holy shit,” Jason finally said. “For real?”

  “We were designed for killing,” Jess said with a faint smile. “We Drakes and the long timers at the Bay. You all are the one offs, Jase. The exceptions. We’re the rule.”

  April nodded. “It’s all tail and no scorpion. No lie.”

  Elaine half turned to look west then turned back and looked at them. “Going to be a moot point in a minute,” she said. “They’re going to come in shooting. We’re not going to talk them down. They don’t have the benefit of personal knowledge.”

  “But we have to stop this,” Jess said. “Or we’ll lose everything.”

  Dev took a breath and looked at the assembled pieces Jess showed them. But she too could see the incoming force. “Jess.” She hesitated. “We should get inside the vehicle.”

  “How do we stop this?” Jess repeated. “Anyone left we can talk to?”

  Jason and Elaine exchanged looks. “I think it’s past talking, Jessie,” Jason said. “Maybe if we knock these guys out of the sky they’ll stop and listen.”

  “Jess, what about those agents from the west in the hall?” April said suddenly. “They came from there. Can we leverage them?”

  Jess stood there in silence for sixty seconds, face tense and still. Then she exhaled. “All of you, take your carriers and get into the landing bays, lower level,” she said. “Keep out of sight until I signal.”

  Jason eyed her. “What are you going to do?”

  Jess smiled. “Be a Drake.” She started for the carrier, waving them back. “Go go. Get behind the Bay shields on the water side. They won’t see you there.” Her boots hit the ramp to the carrier as April, Doug and Dev scrambled after her. “Let’s give this one shot.”

  Dev got into her seat and got her comms on, hearing now the open channel as Brent relayed the order and the protests filtered down. She opened the frequency for Bay control and tuned it. “Drake’s Bay, this is BR270006, do you copy?”

  A burst of static then Kurok’s voice replied. “Hello, Dev.”

  “Some carriers will be coming into the area in front of you. Jess would like you to leave them undamaged.” Dev got them airborne.

  “I see,” Kurok said. “Well, we will of course unless they start shooting at us. I don’t think I can prevent the good folks here from shooting back.”

  Jess chuckled. “He’s such a hoot.” She got her boards ready. “Dev, go right at ’em, and see if we can intercept before they cross Bay boundary.”

  “Yes.” Dev brought the carrier around, and they blew past where Dee Cooper’s force was camped, going between the high mountain passes that separated the Bay from the inland plateau behind it.

  It was dark, barren, and rock strewn land. On the far side of a long black lake they could now see the approaching carrier force clearly outlined against the granite terrain.

  “Broadcast our ident,” Jess said.

  “Broadcasting.” Dev triggered the looping alert. She shunted full power to the forward shields and tirmmed power to the engines, sorting through the battery cells and segregating a section of them for the weapons systems behind her.

  “Hail them.” Jess folded her hands over her stomach and watched the screen.

  It was a reasonably large force, given the circumstances, but as she studied the formation she saw the configuration shift, become less of an arrow and more of a box, and she recognized that in some deep and root memory way.

  “They’re scared,” April succinctly summed up the observation herself. “Nice.”

  “Someone,” Dev remarked, “possibly showed them that
vid.”

  Jess laughed out loud. “Hail them again, Devvie.”

  Dev keyed the mic. “Approaching vehicles, this is Interforce carrier BR270006. Do you copy?” She waited, hearing only silence. “Approaching vehicles. Please respond or this carrier will regard your approach as hostile.”

  “They’re idiots if they don’t answer.” April snugged her restraints tighter.

  Jess sighed and reached up to pull down her targeting triggers. “Probably going to have to get their attention before they’ll talk.”

  “That means shooting them, right?” April swung the boards around that controlled the plasma bombs. “I gotta remember not to release these if we’re upside down, right?”

  The radio crackled. “BR270006, this is BR56003. Dalton Arp in command,” a male voice echoed softly through the speakers. “Please identify yourself.”

  Dev keyed the mic without hesitation. “Certainly. This is Biological Alternative, set 0202-164812, instance NM-Dev-1,” she responded. “But you may call me Rocket.”

  Doug snickered and gave her a thumbs up.

  “You will land the craft and deactivate weapons, immediately,” Arp’s crisp command came back.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Dev responded. “That would be suboptimal. I suggest that you do not proceed further as you will upset Agent Drake, and that does not seem to cause excellent results for anyone in any way. At any time.”

  “This flight is going to attack if you do not comply.”

  Dev tightened down her restraints. “I would recommend separating into a larger profile in that case,” she said. “Otherwise you will likely shoot each other trying to shoot us.”

  Jess was laughing so hard she was crying.

  “Please hold on,” Dev said suddenly. “They are going to fire, Jess. I am taking evasive action.”

  And they went.

  “ARE WE IDIOTS to do this?” Elaine regarded Jason over the drop rig’s profile.

  “Are we idiots to hide behind the cliff while Jess plays chicken?” Jason had both big hands resting on his knees as he sat in his weapons console seat. Brent and Tucker up in the nose of the carrier muttered together, “I dunno, El. Could be she has a plan. Could be she just doesn’t trust us at her back.”

  Elaine sighed. “This is so fucked up.”

  “Sixteen different kinds of seagull vomit fucked up,” he agreed. “Shit, look at that blowout.”

  They had come around the edge of Drake’s Bay and now could see the sea frontage of the stakehold, black scarring all down the side of the landing bays.

  “Holy, crap.” Elaine twisted in place to see the screen. “Are those bodies down there? That pile...they are.” She blinked. “Tanked carriers to the right there.”

  Jason exhaled. “What the hell.”

  “They crushed it,” Brent said. “We’re on hail, Jase,” he added. “Local sideband, Bay ops.”

  “I got it.” Jason put on comms and accepted the call. “Go.”

  A soft crackle of the circuit opening, something they could have long ago digitally removed and never had. “This is Drake’s Bay control.”

  Familiar voice. Jason almost smiled. “Hello, Doc. This is Jason, A. Jessie told us to wait here.”

  “Yes, we heard,” Kurok said. “If I were you, I would land up on the top level and come inside.”

  He and Elaine exchanged glances.

  “There are some colleagues of yours here,” Kurok added. “And of course, if we have to start shooting it would be good not to hit someone accidentally.”

  Brent chuckled. “Point.”

  Jason shrugged in a tired kind of way. “Sure, why not.” He flicked over to a different frequency. “Flight, this is Blue lead, follow to land.”

  “Ack.” Multiple responses, sounding as tired as he felt.

  “He in charge there now?” Elaine wondered. “This is so freaking twisted.” She leaned back against the rig as the carriers started to move, crossing the ruffled waters of the half circle bay and heading toward the large flat open space at the top of the homestead.

  Big and rough and raw, Drake’s Bay. Never an effort to make the place look like anything other than it was. She regarded the pile of bodies, swarmed with seagulls chewing at them, as they crossed over a mixture of civ and the distinctive dark that matched the suit she and Jason wore. “Ever been here, Jase?”

  “No.” Jason shook his head as his hands moved over the weapons board, safing it. “You?”

  “No.” Elaine watched the ground as they neared it, seeing tall figures standing in the entryway, long rifles of some kind cradled in their arms. Disciplined stance, training evident, but wearing the rough woven cloth of the stakehold draped over them.

  The carrier landed, and without speaking they all unbuckled and stood up. “Arm,” Jason said after a moment of silence.

  “You think it’s a trap?” Elaine paused, in the act of adding her blaster. “Really?”

  “No.” Jason put his long gun on its hard point. “Just want to be on equal footing.” He hit the hatch unlock and walked down the ramp. “They won this war.”

  “They never really stopped fighting the last one.” Brent fastened his jacket up as they followed. “That’s what I heard.”

  DEV DOVE FOR the rocky escarpment as the fire came inbound, tipping the carrier onto its side between two jagged rocks and then reversing her course so close to the ground they could hear the reflectivity of the jets against the stone as they shot straight up into the attacking formation.

  “Firing.” Jess pulled her triggers with a sense of fatalistic inevitability, bracing herself against her seat and holding her breath as they took on heavy G, and her muscles worked against it as the carrier swerved and went into rotation.

  Dev carved a path through the lines of carriers and then headed toward the big personnel transport. It realized her intent and started to turn aside. She kept the line they were drawing in constant motion, ducking and swerving as fire erupted on all sides of them.

  Too crowded. Several of the carriers peeled off and started to come around farther out, but she was under and then behind the transport. “I am going zenith,” she warned.

  “Oh crap.” April grunted.

  She hit the mains full and shot from under the transport straight up and over the top of it, flying upside down and taking a barrage on the bottom shields.

  “Shunting the alarms.” Doug was braced hard, hammering the repair boards. “All repelled.”

  The carrier went sideways, falling rapidly in a spiraling tumble as Dev cut power to the engines and two of the opposing force shot each other, sending a rumble of engine recoil through the skin of their craft as she went past and cut the engines in again. The blast flashed across the front nose of one, sending it to the deck.

  “Plasma.” April ejected a handful as they came to level again above a cluster. The explosions as they hit rocked them side to side. “Got ’em!”

  Jess finished a three-sixty blaster barrage then she cut in the comms. “You fuckers done?” she snarled into the radio. “Or do we have to destroy the whole lot before you’ll talk?”

  “Ident!” A harsh response.

  “Drake!” Jess yelled back. “Who the fuck did you think it was? Some fucking sea lion? You morons done destroying the corps yet?”

  “Firing stopped,” Doug reported. “Good job, Dev!”

  Dev came to level and swept around the lead carrier, seeing the transport limping to the side, black char of fire crumpling its hull. Her heartbeat settled as she brought their flight line to come in nose to nose.

  Everyone was moving, things were shifting all around them, but she held position in mid air, watching the scan closely as Doug tapped on the pads next to her.

  “Well?” Jess snapped into the mic. “You want more of that?”

  April pinched the bridge of her nose. “Hope they don’t,” she said. “I left my bag of gummies behind.”

  “Drake,” the voice came back.

  “Yes,” Je
ss answered in a calm tone. “You ready to talk now that we kicked you in the ass? Because you’re not coming any closer to the Bay.”

  “Should I land over there near that water?” Dev asked, pointing down and to the left.

  “You get out of this thing, they’ll target you,” April said. “Keep the talk to the radio.”

  “Drake, you don’t understand what the situation is here,” Arp said. “There’s more at stake here than you know.”

  Jess flexed her hands and put them back on the triggers. “I understand more of what’s going on here than you would if you spent ten years with your head up my old dead uncle’s ass. If you want to discuss turning around and leaving or going under guard to the Bay we can.”

  The sigh came through clearly. “Do you really think that’s how this is going to go?”

  Jess pondered that for a minute. “Yes,” she then said, “that’s exactly how it’s going to go. We’re not going to put up with you trying to either take what’s ours or hurt any more of the people at Drake’s Bay.” She glanced up into the reflector to find Dev’s pale green eyes looking back at her. “And to be honest, Arp, there’s more going on here than you realize. Let’s land and talk.”

  “Mmm...” April grumbled.

  Jess sighed. “Yeah. I know. Dev, go ahead and put her down.” She got up and gestured April to take her seat. “If I fuck this up, kill everything you can.” She went to the arming locker. “I want to see if I can convince this guy we’re all being gamed.”

  April slid over and slowly closed the restraints around her. “What if he doesn’t buy it?”

  Dev turned the carrier in a gentle glide and landed it on the ridge, watching the wiremap as the single command carrier followed her over. She kept the shields up at full and waited as the other carrier landed. “Jess, I think it would be more optimal if you asked this person to come into this vehicle.”

  Doug immediately gave a thumbs up.

  “She’s right on.” April agreed at once. “Make the bastard come in here, and if they try anything at least I’ll have the satisfaction of cutting his heart out of him.”