“Switching to missiles,” Metcalf announced. “Let’s finish her off!”
“We’re done here,” Kym replied, quickly killing power to the weapons systems. “Our mission here was to disable that ship, and we’ve done it. We’re no better than Boke if we kill off innocent beings just to make a point. I’m sure a lot of the people on board are just there for the paycheck.”
“She’s launching lifeboats,” Godfrey observed.
Kym let out a breath of relief at the sight of the escape pods detaching from the ship. There were lots of them, meaning that the majority of the crew were making their way safely clear. A moment later, the explosion from within ripped through the upper hull, nearly breaking the ship in half. It began to drift, now powerless and effectively dead in the water. Lifeboats continued to launch.
A warning light began to flash on the console. “Those fighters are coming back,” Godfrey said.
“Well let’s not make it easy for them,” Kym said, reaching across her panel. “Activating the cloak.”
Nothing happened. The ship rocked with incoming laserfire as the fighters closed. Kym tried again, with no effect. She checked her monitors. “Power systems are overloaded. It’s going to take some time to get this straightened out.”
“What do we do?” Metcalf asked, the panic starting to come back into his voice.
“We evade,” She looked over at Godfrey, who gave a nod and began making adjustments on his controls. Kym was impressed. She never thought he would rise to the occasion so quickly.
She dodged between two orbiting freighters, hoping to shake pursuit. The fighters continued after, undaunted. “Here’s where things get interesting.’
“Define interesting,” Metcalf said.
Kym did not respond. She was too busy trying not to die.
Chapter Twenty-Two
There was a surprising lack of reaction as Jesse, K’Tran, and the others aboard their transport approached the gate to the airfield. A lone guard exited the gatehouse, stood before the laser-field that acted as a barrier, and nervously withdrew a military-grade Colt from his holster. He held it at chest height, and Jesse could see that his hand was shaking as he said “I’m going to have to ask you to stop right there.”
There was some quiet snickering coming from the others loaded onto the Antares as everyone made a casual show of leveling their own weapons at the guard. Just as casually, Jesse swung the cannon not quite in his direction. “Hope you don’t mind the interruption,” he said. “We’re from out of town. Hoping we could get the discount tour.”
The guard was sweating, and looked like he might vomit at any moment, but stood firm, though his weapon did continue to shake more violently. “I’m sorry, sir, but I have my orders from headquarters.”
“Oh, headquarters be damned,” a woman’s voice shouted from inside the gatehouse. A moment later, she stalked from the building, the top of her uniform coveralls down, tied at the waist as she approached her companion and ripped the Colt from his hand. “I’m just about done with headquarters and their damned orders!”
The first guard looked at her in horror. “Jelana, if Mister Boke finds out—”
“Mister Boke can go play in a fusion reactor for all I care,” Jelana replied. She turned to the group watching in mute fascination and smiled. “You’ll have to excuse my companion here. Being stuck here in this butthole assignment has made his brain go soft. Obviously, he has his priorities backwards.”
She reached inside the doorway to the gate house and pushed a button. The laser-field barrier shut down with a whine. Smiling, she made a broad sweeping gesture in the direction of the airfield. “You folks go on in and enjoy yourselves. Feel free to take whatever you like or even break something. I could honestly care less.”
K’Tran looked to Jesse, confusion evident in his grey eyes. Jesse shrugged and gestured for him to proceed. The Antares moved through the gate without further incident. Looking back, they could see that Jelana was still berating her companion. Loudly.
“That was . . .surreal,” Raychel commented.
“Could be a trick,” Kwinn said, keeping his attention on the multiple buildings on his side of the vehicle as they passed. “Might be setting us up for an ambush.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Jesse replied. Most of the buildings were in varying stages of disrepair. There was no sign that many of them had been occupied, or even been approached, in quite some time. Trash lay strewn between some of the shacks, and even the military-grade vehicles that were in evidence all had a fine coating of dust on them from sitting unused. “Just a gut feeling, but this all feels too real to me.”
The closer they got to the main hangar, the better looking the buildings were, though not by much. They at least looked lived in. Pulling up to the hangar, they found its doors wide open, with several ships sitting within in various states of disrepair. Just inside the doors, in the shaded part of the hangar, two beings sat playing cards at a makeshift table built out of spare parts and panels from the gutted ships. They looked up from their game as the group disembarked. One of them, a bald overweight human dressed in coveralls and a dirty undershirt, squinted at them through the smoke from his cigar. “Well lookee here,” he said. “Rescued at last.”
The other, a hulking, pink-fleshed Kammarran, regarded them through beady eyes. “Been wondering if you’d show up here,” it said, gesturing to a scavanged starfighter comm-unit sitting on another cobbled together table. “We’ve been listening in on your antics. The mucky-mucks in Valhalla City are in quite the uproar over you.”
Another group appeared from the other side of the hangar, a half-dozen humans and others wearing guard uniforms or the coveralls of maintenance personnel. They approached at a casual pace, and while the guards all carried weapons, none looked like they had any intention of using them any time soon.
“Captain Gren,” the shortest, a four-armed, ruby-skinned Balthazaaran dressed in guard’s attire, introduced itself. Black eyes in a bird-like face looked over the newcomers amiably. “I’m in charge of this facility, which I now turn over to you.”
K’Tran looked to Jesse. “Now I’m officially confused.”
“I think I get what’s going on here, but I’d like to hear it from you,” Jesse pointed to Gren.
Gren spread his four arms out at his sides. “What you see around you is the Boke employee equivalent of what you had in the mines. This was once a prime assignment, back in the early days when Boke took over this world. All of the security contingents best patrol craft were kept on this base—”
“Until Boke bought himself that little battle cruiser that he keeps in orbit over Valhalla,” a lanky, dark-skinned human woman at Gren’s side finished the sentence. “He moved the best ships and crews up there, and this place essentially became a dumping ground for equipment—and personnel. Anyone who underperforms, or displeases those in authority, is banished here and forgotten.”
“Though I do suppose that we’ve had it better than those of you from the mines,” Gren added, looking the group over with those large black eyes. “Believe me when we say that we were thrilled to hear the reports from the mine of your insurrection.”
“We got a call for assistance from the overseer. As you can see, we jumped right on that.” The dark-skinned guard said with a smirk.
“We stand ready to assist you with whatever we have to offer,” Gren said.
Jesse and the others looked at one other in amazement, not totally believing what they were hearing. Finally, K’Tran gave a shrug. “We’re making a run for the city. We’re expecting resistance. If you have any weapons—”
“What we have is yours,” Gren replied. “We would also like to accompany you. We have already disobeyed orders by allowing you in here. Any consequences we face could not make our circumstances any worse.”
“And we’d love the opportunity to hand Arigh Boke his own ass,” said the heavyset mechanic from the table.
Gren’s lips pulled back in a Balthazaa
ran smile. “That too.”
“You’re welcome to tag along,” Jesse replied. He was looking across the hangar at the different ships scattered around. He pointed at a battered war-era shuttle in one corner. “Is that SSP-3000 operational?”
“Sorry, Son,” the Kammaran said, rising from his chair, walking over with a distinct limp. “Like we said, this is more a junk yard than an operational airfield. That shuttle’s been missing its anti-grav motivator since she came in. Nothing that’s been dumped here since has had anything comparable to scavenge.”
“Would have been nice to use that to transport everyone instead of relying on those Capissens,” K’Tran said. “Not sure how long they’ll hold out.”
“Is there anything here that is working?” Jesse asked.
A sly look crossed the Kammaran’s bloated, whale-like face. He gestured with stubby arms for Jesse to follow. He wandered between the hulls of once proud starfighters. At the very back of the hangar, something bulged from beneath a large, grease-spattered tarp. “This baby’s been my pet project for a while now,” he said, “She’s not too pretty, but she’ll out-fly anything Boke’s got on that cruiser.”
With an air of theatricality, the Kammaran flung the tarp away and Jesse felt his eyes go wide at the sight. The fighter was arrowhead-shaped, with two oversized engines protruding from the back. Its armor was a patchwork of plating from different ships of its type, but the design was easily recognizable. “A Y-47 Demon,” he exclaimed. “Never seen one of these outside of a museum.”
“There was such a limited production run that even finding parts is damn near impossible,” the Kammaran said. “Boke’s people found this one somewhere in the Ardentus system, crashed on one of the moons and brought it here. Been working on it ever since. Couldn’t find or fabricate enough of the outer plating to restore it to completely original, but she’s a real pretty flier.”
Jesse grinned ear to ear. K’Tran rolled his eyes. “I know that look.”
Jesse looked at him, still grinning. “Tell me you wouldn’t jump at the chance to fly this?”
“I would,” K’Tran agreed. “But it seems you’ve already jumped.”
“This baby’s been a labor of love of mine for quite some time. Wouldn’t let just anyone else fly her.” The Kammaran looked skeptical at first but it quickly eased into a grin of its own. “But if you’re going to put her to good use against Boke and his cronies, she’s all yours.”
Before Jesse could reply, he added, “You do know how to fly? Don’t you?”
Jesse nodded with such enthusiasm, his head threatened to snap from his neck. “I’m fully rated.”
“Barely,” K’Tran bit out.
Jesse turned to him. “What are you talking about? I’ve been flying the ‘hawk since I took command of her, and I’ve flown smaller craft before.”
K’Tran’s face scrunched up at a memory. “Like that Tomcat you scraped all over the airfield at Calius Six?”
“That wasn’t entirely my fault!” He turned to the mechanic. “I managed to save the ship.”
“Yeah,” K’Tran scoffed. “Mostly.”
“One mishap, when I was twelve,” Jesse looked pointedly at K’Tran, then back to the Kammaran, “and no one let’s you forget!”
“Oh boys,” Raychel said, approaching at a run. “Hate to break up you little love-fest, but Kwinn just got word from the others. There’s a bunch of vehicles approaching from the southeast, and they don’t look friendly.”
A decades-old troop transport pulled up alongside the Antares, with the two guards from the gatehouse at the controls. “We’ve got incoming,” the woman called. “Word over the comm is that we’re to detain the escapees until they arrive, or else.”
Jesse looked to Gren, the mechanics, and the other guards. Gren gestured with one hand, and his people hurried to clamber into the transport. Raychel turned back to the Antares with the others. K’Tran started to follow, pointing back at Jesse. “This isn’t finished.”
“You can fly her next. Promise!” Jesse called after him, then moved to the Demon.
The mechanic was hanging half out of the cockpit. The engines came online with a soft growl as he flipped switches. “She’s super responsive, so keep a light hand on the stick until you get the feel for her,” he said. “Cannons are charging up. They should be ready by the time you’re airborne. Sorry we’ve got no missiles for her. Those sort of party-favors went away when they moved all the fun stuff up to that cruiser.”
“Cannons will do fine,” Jesse said, clambering up beside the cockpit, and sliding into the seat. He favored the mechanic with a smile. “I’ll take the best care I can for her. I promise.”
The mechanic slid down to the ground, looking wistfully at the Demon, then back at Jesse. “Boke’s taken a lot from a lot of good people. So long as you’re taking something back, I’m with you.”
Turning, the Kammaran made for the transport. Jesse watched as both vehicles pulled away before activating the anti-gravs. The fighter’s ascent was smooth as it lifted into the air—Jesse would have thought he was still grounded had he not been watching as he pulled the cockpit canopy shut. With a gentle push of the yoke, the Demon slid past the other craft scattered about and back out into the sunlight.
Jesse tweaked the anti-gravs again, and the fighter rose a few meters more. Confident that he would clear the roofs of any buildings, he pushed the yoke forward and engaged the throttle.
The mechanic had not been kidding. The barest touch of the throttle sent the Demon rocketing from the base, and Jesse had to compensate quickly to avoid the craft plowing into the ground. Easing off the throttle, he adjusted the controls until he had regained his bearings. Once acclimated, he put the fighter through a quick series of maneuvers, and found himself laughing like a child with a new toy as the Demon responded to his every whim.
Satisfied that he could more than handle the craft, Jesse turned and began making his way towards the convoy carrying his friends. Then a thought occurred to him and he turned away, heading in the opposite direction.
If Boke’s people are headed this way, best not to show our hold card just yet, he thought.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Arvane Scarab watched through his vehicle’s weapons range-finder at the convoy approaching from the direction of the mine, kicking up a cloud of dust in its wake. They were soon joined by a troop transport that he recognized as one of the older security detachment vehicles.
Forster’s recruited the airfield personnel, he thought with disgust. Boke should have had the entire contingent sent to the mines as well. Sentimental fool, giving them a second chance.
“Have the other vehicles spread out,” he told his driver. “I want them to see just how hopeless their cause is.
The driver nodded and relayed the order. The twelve armored Wolverine-class hover tanks that were trailing behind in double-file broke formation, three taking up positions on either side of Scarab’s vehicle, the rest taking up a similar formation directly behind. Scarab allowed himself a rare, inward smile. They would have lead longer lives staying in the mines.
A voice cut in on Scarab’s headset. “Sir, this is Bravo Two. Will you be ordering the airfield crew to stand down?”
“They have obviously thrown in with these insurgents, Bravo Two,” he snapped. “Their fate was sealed when they failed to take action as ordered. Mister Boke wants this problem eliminated once and for all. No quarter is to be given. We go in and we cut them apart. No survivors. Is that clear, Bravo Two?”
There was a long silence on the other end. Scarab knew that all the pilots had heard and were digesting what he had said. The implication was clear—show any mercy and you will meet the same fate. After a moment, Bravo Two replied, “Understood, Sir.”
“Good. Now power up weapons and prepare to engage.”
Scarab considered disciplining Bravo Two later on, to make him an example that no order is to be questioned. Between the incompetency of the guards in the mine, the
security center, and on duty as Boke’s personal guard, and the downright rebellion shown by the airfield crew, major changes would have to be made once this was all done. Discipline would need to be enforced and examples made. Scarab’s list of just who would receive that discipline kept getting longer and longer.
“I’m sure they see us by now,” his driver said. “They’re still not making any move to evade.”
Scarab looked back into his range finder, priming his own vehicles weapons at the same time. “They are either hoping we’ll show them mercy, or they realize that a quick death is inevitable. No point in delaying the outcome.”
They were coming into range of his transport’s weapons now. He could make out Pasker at the controls of the lead vehicle. He centered the crosshairs on his head. “All too easy.”
Something burst out of the dust cloud just as Scarab was starting to press down on the firing stud. A second later the tank beside his exploded in a burst of flame and flying armor, some of which struck the windshield. The driver swore, pulling hard on the control yoke, scraping the tank on the other side before regaining control.
Scarab popped the vehicle’s top hatch and stood, scanning the sky. Their assailant, a battered Demon starfighter, was circling up and around, coming in on a course that would set it up on a perfect strafing run for the remaining tanks, which were still holding their side-by-side formation. At the same time, the cannon mount on Pasker’s vehicle began laying fire into them as well. There was only one person that could be at the controls of the fighter. Forster.
Scarab slipped back into his seat. “Turn around,” he ordered, as the tank furthest to their left flew into the air on a plume of fire and smoke, landing upside-down in the dirt. “Turn us around and head back to base, NOW!”
“Sir, it’s only one—” The pilot was cut off as laserfire sprayed off the vehicles forward armor plating. Pasker’s vehicle was racing in now, leaving the transports behind, taking potshots as it raced in and among the remaining tanks. Though lightly armored and its crew exposed, the Antares was far faster and more agile than the bulkier Wolverines. The tanks were forced to swerve in all directions to avoid colliding with one another and dodge fire from the starfighter, which was turning for another run.
The Starhawk Chronicles: Rest and Wreck-reation Page 16