by Mick Fraser
“You know what this is, Varo?” he shouted above the siren, waving the data-key. “It’s our ticket out of here. You know what they call it?”
Varo, growing angry, raised his gun. “Do enlighten me!”
“Sleight of hand!”
For a moment, Angela didn’t understand what he meant. Varo looked puzzled, the expression quickly changing to one of flustered concern.
“It means while you watch this hand, you don’t see what the other one is doing!”
And then she saw it.
On Varo’s belt was a small ring of glinting metal along the flanks of which flashed a line of LEDs like an airport runway. It was a halo. The lights were increasing in tempo, and Varo quickly went from scrabbling at the device to cursing at the top of his voice. Angela felt, rather than saw, Drenno, Six-Tails, Gage and Winston fan out behind her. Varo suddenly glowed with an intense golden light, and as it engulfed him he fell back, firing two shots point blank into Rathe’s chest. The older man staggered back but remained upright, his own shield absorbing the shots.
As Varo vanished the Exethan troops moved as one, snapping to attention in perfect unison. But although their guns rose and their stances changed, an air of indecision enveloped them. A few of them glanced furtively towards the hangar door, a few trigger fingers twitched. Angela looked to Drenno, who stepped forward quickly, hands raised before him.
He spoke to the Exethan who had been positioned on Varo’s right, which Angela assumed was now the senior mindless automaton in the group. “Take it easy,” he said as softly as he could over the flames and sirens. “I don’t know what your orders are, but I’m guessing leaving your Admiral to die at the hands of the Cabal is pretty low-down on the list of priorities.”
More indecision, but with the hangar burning and the shrill chime of the alarm cutting the rising smoke to pieces, there was no time to waste.
“He’s at the Quartz,” Rathe told them, clutching at his side and wincing. “He’s alive, for now. If you want to find him that way when you get there, I’d suggest you make haste.”
The apparent acting CO hesitated for a long moment, then relaxed his shard-slinger and barked an order in whatever language they spoke. With the uniformity of a flock of birds, the Exethan swung away and marched swiftly towards the hangar exit. Not waiting around to see them leave, Drenno turned for the Jackdaw and Angela followed.
“That was too close,” Rathe said as he joined them. “And we’re not done yet. He’ll have Stalkers in deep orbit and by now he’ll have scrambled everything he’s got.”
“Are you okay?” Angela asked him.
He nodded, grimacing, and tapped his belt. “Plasma shield took the brunt of it.”
Drenno spoke over his commlink even as the cargo ramp began to lower. “Dizzy, get a hold of Gaelan and Illith. Tell them to bring the Shadow to us.”
The commlink buzzed with static. “Oh, I’m just golden, boss. A little singed on one side... You know, your concern is overwhelming.”
Drenno helped Angela onto the ramp and Rathe climbed up beside them. “No time for screwing around, Diz. Just punch it!”
“Punching it now.”
The Jackdaw immediately lurched off its landing gear, throwing Angela off balance as she scaled the ramp. Rathe caught her mid-stagger, and Gage leaned by them to jab the ramp controls with her elbow. The universe slowed momentarily, and a curious feeling overcame Angela, as though she had dropped into a lake but remained bone dry.
“Sorry,” Dizzy murmured over the commlink. “Gravity field is skewed.”
“You think so?” Drenno retorted as the gravity finally kicked in. Angela’s insides shuddered as Dizzy’s voice burst over the commlink once again, this time spitting a tirade in his guttural native tongue that Angela didn’t need a linguist to translate.
“Stations,” Drenno ordered, and Rathe led Angela up a short winding staircase to the Jackdaw’s cockpit. There were two other chairs besides the pilot seats, and it was somewhat cramped up front.
“How many, Dizzy? And how far out?”
“Uh, two—” a sudden impact rocked the ship with such force that Gage, still in the well between the hold and the cockpit, was thrown upwards and sideways to slam into the near wall before crashing to the deck. Rathe held Angela close as a second blast exploded on the opposite side. Six-Tails hurried over to the dazed Auton as Winston unfolded to hover above her.
“Concussion, severe,” the Mechanid reported. “Recommend downtime.”
“Get her off the bridge, Tails!” Drenno barked, swinging his chair. “Dizzy, why does she have concussion? Didn’t we used to have shields?”
“Working on it!”
“Just get us out of orbit, pilot!” Drenno growled, half-swinging Angela into a chair on the left side of the cockpit before two monitors and a pair of devices like joysticks.
“Gotta get out of the bloody hangar first! They're on us already!”
Drenno ignored him. “I’m down one combat analyst,” he told Angela. “Rathe can fill in, but I need you to shoot for me until we break phase!”
She caught Rathe looking at her as he strapped himself into the seat beside her. He smiled grimly, and gave one firm, reassuring wink. “Baptism of fire, right?”
Angela stared at him, then at the controls, then back again. “Right...” she mumbled. “Holy fucking shit.”
Cursing through clenched teeth, Dizzy threw the Jackdaw from the docking platform half on her side, flooring the accelerator as her proud crest scraped the frame of the runway doors. As the black ship spun with the impact, he dragged hard on the flight stick, the sharp change of direction almost hurling Angela and Rathe from their seats.
Drenno slid into the seat beside Dizzy. “How many now?”
“Three. No, four. Shit.”
“Shit mean bad this time?”
“I would say so!” Dizzy pushed forward on the stick violently, and the Jackdaw lurched into a vertical dive. In the split second before the artificial gravity realigned itself, Angela felt weightless and nauseous, as though her stomach was trying to get out through her mouth. Rathe slid his chair towards her and thumbed the monitor screen; it came to life, but as he went to thumb it again the Jackdaw shook with impact. Dizzy steered the shuttle back up. Angela glanced by the To’ecc, through the viewscreen, as he ducked the ship below the swinging tail of a larger vessel, then across the bow of another. Rathe tapped the screen again. The image shifted to show a view of space though a set of thick, green crosshairs; he hit the other screen and it lit up, presenting a similar image.
He indicated the sticks. “Belly guns! 360-degree angle of attack; point them and pull the trigger. When the crosshair is red, you have a clean shot. Don’t waste the plasma reserve – if it starts to beep at you, back it off!” She clutched the sticks, unsure. Rathe reached up to touch the databand on her brow. Her earpiece fizzed, activating so that she could now hear Dizzy’s hearty swearing more clearly through the commlink. The Jackdaw shook again as Rathe slid his chair back to its station, and Angela twirled the sticks a few times to get a feel for them. The crosshairs moved smoothly with the direction of the controls, and the chair below her swivelled with her motion.
Point and pull the trigger. As simple as that. She squeezed the trigger experimentally and was shocked to feel the vibrations hammer into her palms; it wasn’t unpleasant. The view in the monitor followed her movements precisely. The ship rocked and Dizzy swore. “You wanna fuckin’ shoot something back there?” he bellowed over his shoulder.
Angela gritted her teeth, driving both hands left until the pursuing ships came into view. The crosshairs lit up and she fired, feeling the power surge through her arms. Her shots missed, spraying wide of the enemy vessels, and she dragged hard on the sticks, pulling both cannons back around.
“The cloak scrambled our shit,” Dizzy explained, his voice hissing through her earpiece. “We need a few turns til we’re ready to shift – hold them off, Angela!”
As one s
hip, the Exethan fanned out, flanking the Jackdaw on both sides. Angela growled, dipping the right stick and raising the left. She triggered both cannons, and almost leapt out of her seat when the ship nearest to them suddenly careened off, its hull stitched with burning blue light.
“Did you see that shit?” she shouted, swinging the belly guns, searching for the next target.
“On your right!” Rathe responded, just as Dizzy banked the Jackdaw into a severe evasive turn. Enemy fire pummelled the scouter’s shields, causing the lights on the bridge to flicker. Angela followed his instruction, locating the next Exethan ship and firing. This one spun away, one wing bursting into a bloom of flameless sparks, to careen directly into another. Angela was half out of her seat when her jubilation was cut short by a powerful crash.
“There go the shields!” Dizzy shouted. “Make the next ones count, Angela!”
“What the hell have I been doing?” she muttered, raking the guns around in opposite directions; there was no sign of the remaining ships, just empty space. “I can’t see them!”
“They’re above us,” Drenno told her. “Diz!
“On it.” There was an abrupt shift of gravity as the Jackdaw swung upwards, and seconds later the Exethan ships came into view, unleashing a volley of fire that missed the scouter’s hull by inches.
Angela’s left-hand monitor began to beep, the outer rim of the screen flashing red. “What’s happening, Drenno?” she shouted, still frantically searching for the last ship.
“Ah, hell! That’s a proximity alert. Dizzy, we’ve got incoming. Shit, they must really want this girl. How long?”
“A turn or more. I’ve signalled home – Gaelan’s bringing the Shadowstar to us.”
Her screens were both flashing now, and she watched in horror as four more enemy ships appeared in her sights. She squeezed the triggers, but they fanned out and she lost track of all but two. She shot one down, but the other banked out of sight.
“They’re surrounding us,” Dizzy said. “I’ve no escape vector.”
More enemy fire peppered the Jackdaw, and this time a shrill alarm went up. Dizzy rolled the shuttle but the volley was relentless. Growling through her teeth, Angela swung the guns around, searching for a target – when suddenly a burst of colour tore a jagged rainbow across the blackness, igniting with an almost blinding white light through which the Shadowstar exploded in a hail of plasma fire and sparking embers. The shuttle ramp was wide open, gaping like a maw, and Dizzy angled the Jackdaw through the incoming flak as the Shadowstar unleashed shining hell on the Exethan ships.
Leaking fuel and gas, battered on both sides and sporting one damaged wing, the scouter could barely fly straight, and Dizzy had no choice but to come in at an oblique angle, far too fast. The good wing clipped the edge of the ramp and the Jackdaw decked hard. The control console popped violently, spraying fountains of sparks and thick, black vapour, as the Jackdaw came down rough and fast, skidding through the cargo bay, scattering containers and debris, to slam savagely against the far wall in a cloud of dust and smoke.
CHAPTER 17
~HOPE IN THE LIGHT~
SHE WAS ADRIFT on a cold, angry river. Her back scraped on cruel rocks that jutted through the churning surface, and the icy water burned into her shallow wounds. She was buffeted violently, tossed from eroded boulder to eroded boulder, until at last she came to crash against the burning sand of the riverside, where the hot sun beat down upon her face, and the briny spray of the river became acrid curls of pungent smoke. She coughed, her dry throat like a tube of razorblades. Slowly voices came to her, muted, muffled, curiously slurred, dulled by the cacophony of the river. She heard Drenno shouting orders, but could barely discern the words he said.
Through one blurred eye she was able to ascertain that she was horizontal, although not lying on her side. She realised she was not on a river at all, but still strapped into her chair and suspended in the air. In an impulsive move she immediately regretted, she reached up and unhooked the safety cinch. Her impact with the wall – now the acting floor – jarred her, but somehow cleared her head as surely as if all at once the angry river had dried up and disappeared.
“—the stanchion there!” Drenno was shouting. “Lift and pull, we can do it.”
“Leave it,” she heard Rathe say. “They need you on the bridge. Go!”
Groggily she rose, turning to peer through the smoke and sparks. Drenno and Dizzy knelt over a huge girder, trying and failing to budge it. She staggered over and gasped, rushing forward when she saw that Rathe Massai had become pinned beneath the stanchion. She grabbed hold and tried to pull with them but it was like trying to shift a mountain. She saw that one of Rathe’s hands was free and she clutched at it, locating his face, visible between two separate sections of rigid steel.
“Rathe!”
“I’m alright,” he hissed, despite all evidence to the contrary. “I’m trapped, my left leg, but I’m alright. You need to go, all of you. I’m not going anywhere, you can come and get me later!”
She looked round to Drenno, her eyes raking the Jackdaw’s shattered interior. “Where the hell are we? Did we land?”
“We’re in the Shadow’s hangar,” Dizzy told her. “And he’s right, we can get him later. Come on, boss. Illith and Gaelan ain’t good enough to outclass these bastards.”
Drenno roared and raged, as though he hated himself for being too weak, too tired, to free his friend. He stood, growling, slapping his earpiece. “Tails! Where are you?”
The distorted reply came through buzzing static. “Med Bay... got Gage... couldn’t get through to you.”
“At least you’re safe. We’re coming.”
The Shadowstar vibrated, its denser hull and tougher shields more resilient to enemy fire than the Jackdaw’s.
“Do’vah!” Gaelan shouted through another burst of interference. “Are you alright?”
“Kind of,” he said. “We’re breathing, at least.”
“Good!” she snarled. “Then get your ass up here and fly your own damn ship!”
Angela looked back down at Rathe. “Go on,” he said. “I’m trapped, not dying. I’ve gotten out of worse.”
She squeezed his hand, but felt Drenno gently grab her shoulders. She shrugged him off angrily. “I’ll stay right here!”
“You can’t!”
“I damn well can!”
“He’s right, Angela,” Rathe told her, grimacing in discomfort. “Gaelan will have put everything into the forward shields. One good hit back here and the hangar is gone.”
Drenno grabbed her again, more firmly this time. “I don’t like this any more than you, kid, but it’s true. We have to move now! Don’t worry about him. Old bastard’s hide is tougher than the hull.”
Angela heard the doubt in his voice but felt suddenly numb, and her fingers slipped from Rathe’s grasp as Drenno dragged her back. He leaned over Rathe one last time as Dizzy raced for the cargo ramp. “Hold on, old-timer. We’ll be back as soon as we’ve seen these fuckers off.”
“You’d better be!”
The Captain swore under his breath and led Angela out into the Shadowstar’s hangar. The two small ship-to-surface mining tugs remained where they had been earlier, untouched by the crashed Jackdaw. In fact, from outside, the damage looked much less extensive than Angela had expected and, aside the flashing lights and whirring siren, the only sign of catastrophe was the scattered pile of cargo crates.
“Lick of paint,” Dizzy quipped as though he read her mind. “She’ll be right as rain.”
“Right...” she mumbled as Drenno helped her down. The starfighter vibrated again, this time more severely.
Dizzy ran off towards the double doors of the service elevator. “Maybe some new buffers, too.”
Angela glanced at Drenno as they caught up, who shrugged, palming the elevator control. “Hey, we only keep him around for his optimism.”
Dizzy grunted. “I heard that, and it’s bollocks. He likes my cooking, too.”
Gaelan immediately relinquished Dizzy's chair and the To'ecc swung into it. “Your arse is warm,” he snarked, before turning to the task in hand. “How many we dealing with?”
“Four left,” Gaelan told him. “Stalkers, rapier-class.”
“That explains the warm seat...”
“Not the time!” Drenno snapped, rushing to his seat and thumbing his sticks as Dizzy brought the great starship to bear on an enemy fighter. Through the viewscreen, Angela watched the smaller, more nimble Exethan vessel attempt to veer away even as the Shadowstar’s cannons stitched a line of red plasma across its flank. Crimson vapour burst in clouds from the hull and the ship popped like a firework.
Dizzy flicked a few switches on his command console. “Hold tight!” he warned, slamming a wide grey lever forward in its cradle. When nothing happened he swore, dragging it back and slamming it forward again. “Where’s the power?”
“We burned the core,” Illith admitted. “It was the only way we could get here so fast. Everything we had left we dumped in the forward cannons and shields.”
“Perfect,” he snarled, hitting switches above his head and to his right in quick succession. “I need to recycle the core. Twelve turns, minimum.”