by Lucas Bale
Back in the township, the gunship had seemed almost surreal to him, offering no direct threat beyond the weight of its oppression. Yet here, close by and above, hunting them, every detail stood out as stark and real as anything he had ever known. Every line and sinew of the armoured hull, every gun port, the incandescent blurring of the air behind their searing blue sublight drives—it all resonated the terrible realisation that if either gunship located Soteria, there would be no fighting back and no time to run. Shepherd held his breath. Sweat beaded on his forehead and ran into his eyes, and he lifted an arm to wipe it away. Apart from the noise of the drives, Soteria was silent.
Yet the gunships still had not found the freighter. They scanned continuously, but discovered nothing. One spun and drove slowly down to the valley floor, passing within a hundred metres of their position. Shepherd watched, his eyes following the ship’s movement, his muscles tensed and ready to move the instant he saw it deviate from its downward course. But its scanners appeared only to be passing over the ground beneath them. He felt caged as the weight of his fear pressed down on him. He fought the urge to shift sideways—to turn and bolt.
‘They’re scanning for signs of life,’ the preacher whispered. ‘Survivors.’
‘Or seeing if the wreckage of a few dozen oil barrels matches the amount of steel and titanium they’d expect to see on a fifty-metre freighter.’
‘Have faith. They haven’t found us yet.’
As if in response, a guttural, thunderous bellow echoed around the massif above them. Shepherd leaned forward and looked up. Another ship? No way, not this quickly. So what the hell was that? The growl came again, louder this time.
‘You hear that?’ the preacher said.
‘Another ship?’
‘Not one I recognise.’
Something hit Soteria, and she bucked down and right, hard. Shepherd immediately realised what it was.
‘The explosion weakened the snow. It’s an avalanche.’ He pulled Soteria quickly away from the mountain.
‘What are you doing?’ the preacher shouted. ‘They’ll see us.’
‘Thousands of tons of rock, ice and snow are going bury all three of us, preacher. We sure as hell can’t stay—’
As he spoke, the gunships spun to face Soteria, and the red strobe passed over the freighter’s cockpit, washing them in blood. The only thing that prevented them from firing was the cannonade of rock, snow and ice cascading down the mountain. Soteria turned and fled.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A Stranger in the House
IT TOOK three seconds for Shepherd to realise his life had changed forever.
A shrill, high-pitched whine filled the cockpit. It stunned him, as foreign to him as it was unexpected. Within the dusty annals of buried memories, it slowly became more familiar, and he found that a sudden cold fear gripped him. I’ve heard it before, but when? What the hell does it mean?
The controls bucked suddenly in his hands and Soteria broke right, hard. She’d done it herself, he realised instantly; he’d had no input into the defensive manoeuvre. That concept shocked him more than the sudden onset of the warning tone blaring in his ears—the idea that Soteria should have some automated response to a particular stimulus, and yet he’d seen no indication of it for nearly twenty years. The adrenaline in his muscles burned more fiercely. From somewhere behind him, a series of small detonations rocked the hull. The nose dipped and the freighter spiralled downwards.
Simultaneously, the bridge’s front windscreen flickered and a complex tactical reticle display materialised. A network of fine green meridians, parallels and distance-measuring scales, alongside other readouts he didn’t understand. Across the bottom, in a wide panorama, the landscape behind Soteria appeared, then shimmered and blinked—a system that had atrophied through being long dormant—and then stabilised. Shepherd glanced at it quickly and saw it was a live feed from cameras placed somewhere in the stern, but it was from cameras he hadn’t known existed. A flickering crimson circle appeared on each pursuing gunship, tracking their movements. Above each circle, a series of numbers cycled through measurements of distance, speed, and the pursuers’ angle-off-tail shown in degrees. There were other values Shepherd couldn’t understand.
The gunships opened fire. A sound like thunder, mixed with a wolf’s howl, echoed around the valley. Strobes of searing white arced away from the freighter the moment Soteria broke and nose-dived into a defensive spiral.
As suddenly as it had begun, the whine ceased.
She took over. The second that alarm started, she took over, automatically. As if some safety system kicked in.
‘She tried to hide a few of her systems from me, but I kept on digging until I found ’em. Not seen their like before—they’re older’n me. Nothing to worry about.’
Nothing to worry about my ass, Barack.
Shepherd hauled the controls into his torso, levelling out, and punched the throttle. She’s heavy, but fast. Even faster now—what the hell have you been hiding from me all these years? Through the reticle display, he could see the contours of rock traced in fine brown lines. Distance and speed readouts picked out the edges of the formations and whirred through constantly cycling values as Soteria bolted between the valley walls. Through breaks in the mist, he could tell the brown contour lines matched the flanks of the valley exactly. The display marked out two routes through the valley in red, with geometric information beside them. Ahead of him, lower and closer to the valley walls, another route flashed blue, shifting from one side of the valley to the other.
She’s telling you where to go. The blue looks like the best defensive line—using the mountainside as cover, tracking the gunships as they manoeuvre. Maybe red is the fastest, the most direct.
He flexed his aching hands and banked hard, rolled and descended towards the flashing blue line. Soteria reacted immediately, with a razor-edged precision that was utterly alien to Shepherd. He could feel thrusters beneath and beside him roaring—giving him movement along planes that seemed impossible. Each manoeuvre was quicker and tighter than he’d ever felt Soteria move before. She was faster, as if the main drives had suddenly found more thrust. Sharper and keener—like a panther caught up in the smell of blood.
Shepherd glanced at the fuel and power cell displays and watched them drop sharply. The systems are eating through power and fuel. That’s why they’re not online all the time. So what triggered them? Some kind of weapons lock? Was that what that whine was?
He glanced at the camera feeds. The gunships were thinly veiled by mist, but the red circles still moved, tracking them as they shifted into view then disappeared again. They were close, searching for another firing solution, and the freighter pitched and rolled defensively.
The high-pitched whine filled the cockpit again and, immediately, there was an upward pitch and break right. The same series of small detonations rocked the hull. Through the rear-camera feed, Shepherd watched scintillating white and orange spheres, looking like tiny comets, spiral away from Soteria in a line. The gunships fired quickly; their position had been perfect a second earlier, but their missiles were sucked towards the flaming spheres and exploded harmlessly against rock. Shockwaves punched the freighter’s hull and Shepherd knew the explosions had been close.
He found the blue line again and dialled in as much speed as he dared. The display hovering beside one of the gunships began to flash with the word “fuel”.
Can you scan their fuel reserves? Is that even possible? How much of a stranger are you to me now, old girl?
He eased back on the throttle, slowing to bring the gunships in closer. His attention shifted constantly—the main windscreen and the valley ahead, then the camera feed behind him, then back again—drinking in every pixel and scrap of information and allowing muscle memory and instinct to guide his hands.
He broke hard again, rolling into an inverted position, and continued through the roll in a wide arc to scrub off more speed. Then he banked back across the gunship
s, ascending, forcing them to overshoot. Searching for a way out, a line to buy precious seconds, to open the gap and find some space.
He banked into another valley, more sharply than he had ever thought Soteria could manage, but he was pushing her now. Every thrust and parry was at the very edge of what he thought was possible. He could feel the adrenaline surging, but he refused to give in to hope. Always stay focused. The guy in the attacker’s position always has the advantage, and he always knows more than you think he does. Never think you’re out of it, until the sky is empty. After only a few seconds, the gunships followed, but he was already into the dive, gaining speed from gravity, maintaining potential energy. Building for the moment when he would see the escape unfurl in front of him, because the power cells and fuel reserves were rapidly depleting. It’s you or me. One of us will have to give it up soon. He traced the blue line, throttling to full to open up the gap. He knew she couldn’t keep it up for long.
The display hovering beside the second of the gunships also began to flash “fuel”. Can you read my mind, too? Is that one of your tricks?
When the moment came, it flickered in front of him like old film, and he almost missed it. The valley curved into a sudden switchback and he banked hard into it, then upwards. Part of the hull clipped an icy cornice of snow and the controls bucked in his hands, clawing away speed. He throttled to full again and soared upwards through the mist. Maybe they’ll miss us, overshoot for a while before they realise. He didn’t really believe it. His fingers closed tight around the throttle until Soteria was way above full speed.
And he prayed.
Shepherd watched the blue glow of the gunship’s drives evaporate behind him. For what seemed like forever, the red circles tracked the gunships farther into the massif as Soteria climbed. Yet Shepherd refused to permit himself hope, and rightly so: he watched in horror as the gunships slowed, then burst out of the fog. Immediately they rolled into a pursuit line and fired again.
Shepherd pushed Soteria into another barrel roll, inverting smoothly then through to upright again, to lose as little speed as possible. The gunships fired in tandem—short, sharp bursts, forcing him to manoeuvre, trying to make him throw away valuable speed. Another barrel roll, tighter this time—almost like a thin spiral, flattening and arcing away from the hail of scintillating white searing the darkness of the night sky.
Each time he threw the tired freighter into a defensive manoeuvre he saw the speed fall and the fuel levels drain. Well into orange now, red next to come, and approaching fast. Yet the “fuel” markers on each gunship were flashing even more quickly. Not long—just hold them off for a few more seconds.
Soteria shook violently and a klaxon screamed. Her speed fell away pointedly and the controls began to shudder. On one of the readouts on the console, an image of her appeared—a line-drawn blueprint in green with systems and hull areas haloed in orange. One of the smaller rear drives, under the port wing, was flashing red. A single word next to it: OFFLINE.
This is it. They’re close now, well within weapons range, and we’re losing speed. Another hit and they’ll be able pull up behind us and pick a spot.
Soteria was shaking so hard now, shivering, he thought the hull might lose sections. The controls were almost too hard to manage. For a moment, he closed his eyes and almost willed the end to come. I guess I always knew it would end this way—running from the Magistratus.
But you’re not alone anymore. There are people here who need you.
What can I do?
Go down fighting. Like you promised yourself.
It’s meaningless.
Nothing is meaningless. Fight! Never give in!
Shepherd opened his eyes. ‘Are the Peacekeepers still in the hold?’ he said. He had almost forgotten the preacher was there—the man had not said a word throughout.
‘Yes.’
Shepherd hit the button to open the hold. It took a second and a half, but eventually they came into view. Seven black shapes, lifeless, tumbling through the sky towards the gunships. Fanning out like marionette skydivers. He watched as the Peacekeepers fell away behind the ship. Heavy, cumbersome, full of drag and pitching and spinning in the darkness. They fell quickly and too close to the gunships. One gunship manoeuvred sharply, a quick-thinking pilot at the controls, but he lost a huge chunk of speed getting out of the way. The other suffered a direct hit from one of its own. A two-hundred-fifty-pound frozen hunk of almost stone thumping with all the force Herse’s gravity could muster straight into the windscreen. The body exploded in a mist of red, and the second gunship began to spiral out of control. Shepherd guessed the windscreen had cracked—maybe air was pouring into the cockpit. The windscreen’s integrity wouldn’t hold. The gunship’s vapour trail curled away as it fell from the sky.
For a moment its partner continued pursuit, but the chase was halfhearted now, and then it too dropped away. Who were they, these men I’ve killed? Did they have families? Were they loved? Fathers? Sons? Or just dealers in death? How am I better than them?
Shepherd turned to the preacher and caught the barely concealed anger on his face. For a moment there was silence, then the preacher suddenly looked past him and his eyes widened.
Shepherd turned back.
Deep in the dark-blue sky, beyond the fringes of the atmosphere, a whorl of azure and white spun like a celestial hurricane. It slowly grew in size until it filled the windscreen of the cockpit.
The tunnel was breaching.
Something was coming through.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Burying the Dead
‘THE CONSUL,’ the preacher said. ‘We’re too late.’
‘Not yet,’ Shepherd growled. ‘This is not over.’
‘You don’t understand—’
‘No, I understand just fine, preacher. But I won’t let them win. There’s always a way.’
‘A Consul is the Magistratus in both war and diplomacy,’ the preacher said. ‘Each of them commands their own vessel and a personal guard of two or three cruisers, with a squadron of short-range sublight fighters. You cannot fight them. Better we run and hide in the mountains, wait them out.’
‘They’d find us,’ Shepherd replied. ‘No, I’m going to fly straight past them and into the tunnel.’
For a moment, the preacher was silent. Then he whispered, ‘You’re insane.’
Shepherd ignored him. He watched the hurricane of swirling blue and white unfurl, searching for any sign of the ships coming through. The tunnels unleashed their subspace storm some time before a vessel breached—the larger the vessel, the longer it took for the wormhole to open. There was no way there was enough time to get to the tunnel before the Consul’s guard breached, but there was one last card to play.
‘FTL is hard on all ships, no matter how advanced,’ Shepherd said. ‘It shakes the hell out of the hull, confuses the navigational systems, hits sublight propulsion—everything. After breach, it takes a while for everything to come back online and zero in.’
‘How long?’
‘Usually less than a minute.’
‘That’s not much of an advantage.’
‘The Consul has just travelled from the Core. You know how long that takes? Three days and five different tunnels. FTL is debilitating, which is why most people sleep. We were never meant to travel this way—our bodies just aren’t made for it. His crew is not expecting us to be there, so we do it quick enough, they won’t be alert and might not have time to react.’
‘Might,’ the preacher said wryly.
A fearsome shard of black slowly materialised through the squall. Lightning swirled around it as it breached. Seven dark spears jutted from its nose, and on the underside of the hull was a long, deep fin. There were gun turrets along its spine. In the stern, four huge sublight drives glowed blue as they began to warm up. It was twice the length of Soteria.
‘Hiding is not an option,’ Shepherd said. ‘Right now they don’t know we’re coming.’ Soteria began to shake as she hit
the upper layers of Herse’s atmosphere. Tiny flecks of stone peppered the hull, and the temperature inside the cockpit grew. Sweat beaded on Shepherd’s forehead. Just a little while longer. Don’t breach yet. Just give me a little longer.
‘The gunships won’t have been able to communicate with the Consul in FTL,’ the preacher said, nodding slowly.
Shepherd flexed his hands again. ‘What do you believe in, preacher?’
A second, identical ship followed the first through the breach. The cruisers were through, Shepherd guessed. They moved slowly away from the tunnel, the crew probably orienting the systems to Herse’s space. Sublight drives were spooling up, ready to drive them down to the planet.
‘I believe in something greater than the Magistratus.’
‘Have you seen it?’
‘It’s in all of us. It’s who we are and how we act.’
‘You think humanity is worth the effort?’
‘I’ve seen the darkness inside the human soul and the light which overcomes it. Yes, I think humanity is worth the effort.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
The nose of the Consul’s ship appeared the moment Soteria burst through the final layers of Herse’s atmosphere. No going back now.
The last of the atmosphere released its grip on Soteria’s hull and she felt suddenly smooth and even in his hands. The natural course to Herse Port meant the Consul was heading ninety degrees away from Soteria’s course towards the tunnel. Centrifugal force hampers the manoeuvrability of heavier ships, which means wider turning circles. Use that. Get inside the turning circle, make the gun turrets work to find you. Find the black spot, where the least number can get firing solutions. Usually, it’s the stern—sublight drives screw with automated range-finding equipment. This might give them precious extra seconds, and Shepherd intended to use every solitary one. Keeping the throttle at full, Shepherd broke for the tunnel as the last of the Consul’s vessels emerged.