by Sam Coulson
“Survive when you must, and take vengeance when you can. Vengeance can wait.” Loid turned aside to me. “I like that, I think that will be rule fifteen. Now, perk up, I need your help. Go run ahead and get Tons’ computer systems fired up and pray this works. I need to take a look at one of those Falcons and see if I can actually pull this off. I’ll explain when I get there.”
My eyes met Ju-lin’s briefly before I left. For once, I noticed, she wasn’t questioning Loid, but instead had a wistful smile as she walked next to her father. Now that he was closer, I could see that Lee’s face looked gaunt.
“Quit gawking at the lady and get your ass moving,” Loid shot over his shoulder to me as he threw his arms in the air, muttering to himself. “Seriously, he leaves me to be tortured for days and I have to explain myself, but he leaves her for an hour and acts like it’s been years. Pathetic Eli, just pathetic.”
I had just gotten the Tons’ computer systems online when Loid came in, followed by Jager and Boils, my old bunkmates.
“Twig and Berries!” Jager smiled widely as he slapped me on the back. “Good to see ya kid.”
It was, by far, the friendliest greeting I’d ever gotten from one of the colonists. I stared back at him, unsure how to respond.
“Twig and Berries?” Loid raised an eyebrow as he swiped a series of commands. “You there, Boils was it? Plug into the conduit in the access panel behind the main console and run the other end out to Teigan’s ship. What’s this Twig and Berries?”
“Ha!” Jager’s laugh sounded almost like a cough. “You don’t know? When we first got here the Govn’r found the kid hiding in a raspberry bush, buck nekid.”
“Really? Just a twig was it?” Loid’s tone was light and joking, but when he glanced my way his eyes were narrow and questioning.
I was thankful when Ju-lin rushed into the cabin. Trying hard to mask her breathlessness, she hopped lightly over the tangle of cables that Boil’s was unspooling and hugged me tightly.
“I thought they were going to kill you,” she said softly into my neck. I thought for a second that I felt her shake with a sob, but as she released her eyes were dry.
“Pick your jaws up off the floor boys,” Loid jibed at Boils and Jager, whose eyes and focus had wandered, appraising Ju-lin as she passed.
The two turned back to their task, though they continued to toss fleeting glances from time to time.
“We found it,” I said quietly. “It wasn’t a weapon, not exactly. Not something Growd could use right now, but in time he will. He took it all with him. If he slips passed the Collegiate we’ll never find him. We have to catch him, it needs to be destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” Ju-lin questioned.
“It contained—” I fumbled with my words, acutely aware that Loid, Jager, and Boils were straining to listen and didn’t want to say too much. “I know the truth. I know who I—er’ where they came from, who they were, why the Collegiate were hunting them, and why the Draugari were here.”
Her eyes widened.
I wanted to say more, but didn’t dare. Loid was sitting in the pilot’s seat, accessing a program I hadn’t seen before. He was seemingly absorbed in his task, Jager and Boil’s talked quietly to each other as they continued to unravel the cable, but I was sure that all three were hanging on our every word.
“How did you get free?” I decided to change the subject.
“Oh, it was amazing,” Ju-lin’s face lit up as she began recounting what happened after I had left. “Of course Growd was lying when he said he would send Chen to talk to me after they locked me up, but luckily-”
“I had heard the whole conversation,” Jager broke in. “I passed the word back to the Govn’r that Lin’ was back. He was shut up in the hospital from that nasty hit he took on his shoulder. But he wasn’t nearly as sick as he was making out. He snuck out of the hospital, got some of us colonists together, and organized a rescue.”
“The attack was brilliant,” Ju-lin continued, glowing with pride. “Dad sent Chen into the storage area where they were holding me and Loid. Chen made up something about how I needed a high dosage of antibiotics to make sure that I wasn’t carrying any diseases or pathogens that could disrupt the planetary ecosystem.”
“Smart,” I nodded.
“Chen managed to dose the guards with some meds he said would help contain the risk of infection and broke us out, nice and quiet.”
“Every guard in the place was piled up and snoring in the cells as we left,” Loid added without looking up. “Quite a clever piece of work. Chen may not look like much, but the little man’s got some stones.”
“By the time we got back to Dad, Teigan had found us. He and most of his mercs are fleet washouts with families on other worlds like this one. They refused to leave us undefended, so he called his ships back home.”
“And when they landed to refuel for the fight,” Loid said. “Growd sent out the drop-dead code that his crew had managed to install on all of the fighters, bricking their computers and making them useless. That is, unless-”
“Unless?” I queried.
“Unless this works,” Loid hopped up out of his chair with a smile.
“And if it doesn’t?” Ju-lin asked.
“Well,” Loid answered. “Then I promise I will save you a few minutes to gloat about how I walked into a trap again before your buddies fly through the valley and rain down some death.”
“You had better get your ass moving if you think you can do this,” Lee called from outside. “We have thirty minutes at the most before the Skins set this delta on fire.”
“Right on time,” Loid patted me on the back. “Jager, Boils! Run the cable out through the secondary storage bay. We need to jack it into the fighter’s main nav systems.”
I was the last to follow Loid out into the sun. Teigan’s fighter was resting about ten meters off of Tons-o-Fun’s port side with a dozen people waiting around. Lee stood in the center, watching Loid with a stoic gaze. Next to him was Commander Teigan, the rest were either colonists or Teigan’s pilots.
“We’re all set.” Loid took a few steps forward, leaned against the tail of Teigan’s Falcon, and pulled out his Slate.
“You really think you can override the lock-down?” Teigan asked.
“I’m not going to override it as much as I am going to bypass it,” Loid answered as he leaned over to make sure that Jager had secured the connection properly. “She all plugged in there? Good, alright, initiate the protocol. Now we wait.”
“Bypass?” Teigan raised an eyebrow.
“You can’t bypass a system lockdown like this without completely re-flashing the flight computers,” one of Teigan’s pilots interrupted. “I doubt you have updated flight system software for the Mark II Falcon just sitting around in that rust bucket of yours.”
“Rust bucket?” Ju-lin interrupted. “Watch your mouth flyboy!”
Loid smiled broadly.
Teigan gave a quick gesture to silence his man, “So what are you doing?”
“You ever heard of a hackjack?” Loid asked.
“Hackjack?” Lee muttered. “You brought us out here for that? Dammit Burns! I thought you had a plan, not some half-assed gutter-thief’s hover-jacking kit.”
“Hackjack?” I asked.
“Hover-jacking kit?” Loid echoed. “You don’t give the hackjack enough credit. You see, Eli, its software that goes in and makes a complete image of the software configuration for the ship, and then uses a complex algorithm to remove any aftermarket security specifications.”
“Like security codes?” I asked.
“And lock-out codes,” Loid added.
“Except it’s designed for stealing hovers,” Teigan broke in. “Not top-of-the-line starfighters. This will never work.”
“I don’t see why not,” Loid said.
“My cousin got pinched while using a hackjack on Artemis,” Teigan continued. “He said that even the best jacks took five to ten minutes to complete the process, and
that’s just for a hover!”
“Yes, that’s when you run it off of a Slate,” Loid answered, nodding toward the buxom red-head painted on Tons’ hull. “The equation changes a bit when you are routing it through the navigational processors and weapons system controllers of a particularly well-endowed Lady.”
“I still don’t think it will—”
Teigan’s voice was drowned out by a high pitched whirl as the Falcon’s power systems came to life.
“I’ll be damned,” Lee said with a tight smile.
“Well shit,” was all Teigan could manage to say.
“Next!” Loid shouted casually. “If I heard right we have 11 more fighters to reprogram, I’m making a few changes to the hackjack, I think I can speed it up a bit.”
“Nine more,” Teigan said shaking his head. “I lost one of my pilots in the firefight, and another took a hit to the leg. Lee’s man is taking care of them, but he can’t fly as he is.”
“Nine it is,” Loid answered.
“No,” Lee broke in. “All twelve. If Teigan will have us, Lin’s more than capable, and I‘ve spent more hours in the cockpit of a Falcon than some of you have spent living.”
“I can vouch for Twiggy-er, Ju-lin,” Loid nodded. “She can handle herself.”
Ju-lin barely stifled a squeal.
“It would be an honor,” Teigan nodded as he extended his hand to Lee.
“Enough of this crap,” Loid broke in. “Now you boys, get this bird out of the way and wheel over another.”
Chapter 35
“So what will it be?” Tren’s voice was thick with anger. “Jen’tek? Kel?”
The other two looked from Tren, to me, and back to Tren.
“We destroyed the Skins,” I said. “And captured the others.”
“And lost two Slires, and left us stranded in orbit!” Tren countered. “It will take hours to restore full power. Your leadership has failed, Lor’ten!”
I stood, meeting him eye to eye, fury built within me.
“Jen’tek, Kel!” He called again. “You must decide, are you with me, or with Lor’ten!”
Again there was silence, I met Tren’s stare as we waited.
“The Chieftain chose Lor’ten,” Jen’tek replied. “It is not our choice to make.”
Tren growled, “Kel?”
“We are alive,” he replied. “We have victory. I follow Lor’ten.”
Tren roared in anger and slammed his fist down against the navigation console. For a second I thought he was going to draw his blade. At the last moment, he turned and stormed off out of the command deck.
After he left, Jen’tek, Kel and I exchanged glances, but said nothing as we set to work to repair the ship. I was in the middle of rerouting the power from the weapons systems to engines when there was a blast from somewhere behind us.
I sprang to my feet and pushed my way through the cabin door and through the docking collar. As I opened the door to the main cabin I saw Tren’s body lying on the deck, his chest was blackened and smoldering.
“Alarm!” I shouted back over my shoulder toward the command deck. Jen’tek and Kel came running, immediately at my back. When I turned back I saw them. Two small, fragile, shapes cowering behind the sleeping pods.
The humans had broken free. I drew my blade.
“To your death,” I said with a nod as I moved to attack.
After fifteen minutes Loid had reset eight of the Falcons and was jacking into the ninth. Teigan had authorized the fighters to go up in pairs as they were armed and ready. He was sending regular reports as he monitored the Collegiate’s progress.
“According to Teigan, they are closing in slowly and deliberately.” Lee had set up a communication post nearby under a shadowed overhang. He was leaning over a sketched map while absently twirling a rusty bolt in his hand. “There are two waves, the first will be small one-manned fighters, looks like they are arranged in a three wings of a dozen each. The rest are holding back with their haulers and bombers to clean up once they wipe out our defenses. Teigan is staying low and holding off engaging them as long as possible so we can get more birds in the air. You two pilots, Trasher and Skunks, right?”
The two pilots nodded.
“You should be getting up there right as the shooting starts. Lin and I will take the last two up.”
While watching the pilots as they waited their turn to lift off, I realized that Ju-lin’s nervous energy wasn’t unique, it seemed that all fighter pilots felt the same restlessness. Skunks’ Falcon was already reset, he was sitting in the cockpit, waiting while Loid’s hackjack restored the systems on Trasher’s ship so that they could join the fight. Meanwhile Trasher kept walking back and forth double, triple, and quadruple checking the external systems on his fighter as he waited. Ju-lin, for her part, stood next to her father with her usual shifting feet.
“Lin, they are wheeling your bird up now. Go climb in and get yourself acquainted,” Lee paused as he looked down at the map. He gently set the rusty bolt that he had been fidgeting with on the corner. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
She flashed me an excited smile as she skipped away toward her fighter.
“Does that girl have any idea what we’re about to face up there?” Trasher asked after Ju-lin disappeared into her ship. “I mean, no offence, Lee, if she can fly then I want her up there. We’ll need every gun we can, but this is a suicide run.”
“Her mother was the same way,” Lee replied.
“Her mother was a pilot too?” Loid piped in. “That explains things.”
“Damn fine one too,” Lee answered. “She was a wing commander for a regional defense deployment, she was on the first response team when the Draugari attacked Alpha Centauri.”
Trasher let a low whistle, “That was a helluva battle. Would have been amazing to be there. They put up a fight.”
“It was a slaughter,” Lee retorted, his tone was dry and even. “Her entire wing was destroyed. Ju-lin was only three years old.”
“But they held off the invasion until the regional battle group made it back, with all respect sir, she was a hero.”
“Boy, I was with the regional battlegroup,” Lee’s voice was cold. “The sky was full of Draugari. There was no glory that day. Just wreckage. The regional battle group should have never been pulled out of the system. It cost my daughter her mother.”
“And on that sunny note,” Loid broke in. “Trasher, you’re good to go. Get your preflight going so you and Skunks can get up there.”
Without a word, Trasher grabbed his flight helmet off the table and entered the ship, a few seconds later, it began rolling forward with Skunks as they prepared to lift off.
“I’m going to go talk to Ju-lin,” Lee nodded to Loid. “Get me if anything changes, and Eli, don’t go anywhere. I want to talk to you next.”
Without waiting for my reply, he turned and walked toward Ju-lin’s fighter.
Loid signaled Jager’s work crew to push up the last two Falcons. As they brought them up, I saw Lee leaning over Ju-lin’s shoulder in the cockpit speaking rapidly and pointing to various systems.
“So what do you think?” Loid asked as he initiated the hackjack cycle on his Slate. “Bravery or stupidity?”
“Is there a difference?” I wasn’t sure if there was.
“You’re learning.”
“You’re still here,” I said. “What happened to Loid’s rule one? Bravery or stupidity?”
“Neither,” Loid answered. “Necessity. There is nowhere to run.”
“Growd ran,” I replied.
“Sure he ran,” Loid answered. “But where? The Celestrials are thorough. They have the world covered. Trust me, they will find him.”
“I hope so.”
“Wow, gained a little bloodlust?” he asked. “What did Alume do to you?”
“It wasn’t that,” I answered. “Well, maybe it was. I don’t know. It’s not that I want Growd dead. It’s that what he’s carrying needs to be destroyed.”
>
“Even if it costs the lives of the two dozen mostly innocent people on-board that shuttle?” Loid raised an eyebrow.
I didn’t reply.
“There we go again, not trusting old Loid,” he paused. “I think I’ve earned a bit more than that kid.”
In that moment, I wanted to explain it all. I wanted to tell him about what I was, and what I had seen, but it was just too much. I was trying to find the words and figure out where to start when his Slate sounded. Ju-lin’s fighter was ready.
“Swap the cable, boys!” Loid called over the roar Falcon’s power systems initializing.
I looked over to see that Lee was coming down the ship’s landing ramp and walking toward us.
“Don’t just stand there boy,” Lee said gruffly. “Get up there and tell her good luck, but not goodbye. It’s bad luck, fighter jocks are superstitious. Once you’re done, go grab Chen and meet me in the hangar here. I need to see him before the last ship’s ready.”
Lee turned away and I walked towards Ju-lin’s Falcon docking ramp.
Thirty seconds later I was walking up the docking ramp of Ju-lin’s Falcon. After Growd’s luxury shuttle, the Falcon looked Spartan and rough. Like the Tons, the Falcon is a workhorse, designed for a singular purpose. Power conduits were run along the ceiling, and every corner was packed with power and weapons systems. I squeezed through to the cockpit and saw a tuft of Ju-lin’s blue hair protruding over the back of the pilot’s seat.
“Hi,” even I was amazed how stupid I must have sounded.
“Eli,” she turned in her seat and smiled reassuringly. “We will get out of this, don’t worry. The way I figure it the Skins are tired from their fight with the Draugari and they will be cutting into atmo as we engage. We have the tactical advantage.”
I was glad that she mistook my awkwardness for nerves.
“Waiting is the worst part,” she continued. “I have another minute and a half on the pre-flight initialization, but then Dad told me to get in the air immediately and form up with Teigan’s wing. The first wave of the Collegiate fighters are almost here.”