Flashpoint (Hellgate)

by Mel Keegan

  “Damnit, you didn’t need us.” Travers slid away the Chiyoda and zipped his jacket. “Just let these two loose!”

  “Let them lose and have them shot,” Kim said doubtfully. “These buggers wouldn’t have hesitated. Major Marin?”

  “Neil Travers,” he corrected. “That’s Curtis Marin, right behind you. Anything else you need, Mister Kim?”

  “No – I paid the bill, I’m good.” Kim was flushed, anxious. “Jesus, I’m sorry about all this. I know it’s been a major trouble but I swear, I had no one else to call.”

  “And twenty-five years doing hard labor on the wrong side of the bars, if you got hauled back to Ulrand,” Marin finished. “Don’t fret about it. We know who you are, what you did after El Khouri.” He gave the man a smile. “We also know your personal relationship with Harrison Shapiro, which places you top of the priority list.”

  “You mean, I’m his Achilles’s heel.” Kim sighed.

  “I wasn’t going to say that, but it’s true, your relationship puts you at jeopardy as well as him.” Marin frowned over the Ulranders, stooped for the three Kolyas, and deliberately confiscated them. “You idiots have comm, you have a ship. Get yourselves a medic and go. If you’re still here in an hour, you’ll be picked up.”

  With that he turned his back on them with contempt, and led the way back to the head of the stairs. Travers followed, behind Kim, covering the bounty hunters with the Chiyoda, but none had moved, nor was likely to. Management was halfway up the stairs, and as Travers started down, Marin handed a hundred credit bill to a large woman with brassy orange hair and bright green skinthins which bulged in all the wrong places.

  “Fleet business, ma’am,” he said smoothly, trading on the uniforms he and Travers wore. “You have very minor damage to a little woodwork and one wall, top of the stairs. This will more than cover your repairs and inconvenience, and if you have any questions, please ask them now.”

  At least a dozen people had heard gunshots, and they were about to see three wounded Ulranders limping away. The manager’s eyes were wide as she took the mauve and gold bill. “Fleet business? Something about the wars – the Colonial Wars?”

  “That would be classified,” he said pleasantly.

  “They’re agents?” She gestured up the stairs.

  “Licensed bounty hunters,” he corrected, “quite legal, but operating here without authority … and anything else really is classified. Do you need any assistance to cooperate with Fleet when we ask you to minimize this incident in the interests of Velcastran security?”

  The brassy copper head shook. “Hey, man, no. Velcastran security? The lips are sealed.” She gestured with the hundred credits. “We got it covered. You’re just lettin’ the bounty hunters go?”

  “They’re leaving Velcastran airspace directly,” Marin assured her. “Fleet has no use for them, and I’m sure there are more than enough fools in your prisons. No need to add more. Good day, ma’am.”

  Five patrons were arranged in the foyer, watching them leave, and Travers said quietly, close to Marin’s ear, “Smooth talking.”

  “Not quite lies,” Marin said, amused. “The trick is to massage the ego a little bit, make them feel like they’re part of something special that just happened here.”

  “Something special did.” Jon Kim mocked himself with a chuckle. “I’m still alive, and so are these brutes.” He was still wrestling with the dogs, and the sheepdog in particular was still determined to attack anything within reach. Travers stayed well out of both dogs’ strike range.

  “Mercury 101,” Marin was saying. “Perlman, fire it up. We’re coming back to you. General, we’ll be in the air in five.”

  From the street outside the motel they could see past the service garage, across the empty lot, to the lander. Travers watched the sand kick up into two-meter dust devils as the Aragos howled into life, and he took a quick look up and down the street. No one outside the Blue Lagoon was aware that anything had happened, and though the story would be all over the town by nightfall, it was over. Scott’s Harbor would brag for years that it had witnessed one small incident in the Colonial Wars.

  The sun was on the horizon, shadows were stretched and black, and the ocean was like molten gold. Travers took one moment to gaze out across the breadth of the gulf while Kim was coaxing the dogs up the ramp, but Perlman was already talking to StarCity ATC, negotiating for hangar space. She was offered the same spot they had vacated half an hour before.

  Right in the back of the lander, strapped into a seat with one dog on either side of him, held tightly under each arm, and his backpack between his feet, Jon Kim seemed to begin to breathe again. He closed his eyes and hunted for calm as the lander dropped upward from the bleached plascrete. Marin had opened the armory locker and was stowing the Kolya pistols.

  “Are we going straight up to the Mercury?” Kim asked.

  “StarCity,” Travers told him. “General Shapiro is late for a public engagement. You’re quite safe on the lander here. I’ll scare up refreshments when we’re on the platform, if there’s something you want.”

  “Coffee,” Kim said gratefully, “and water for the dogs. Thanks.”

  “No problem.” Travers took the combug from his ear and passed it to him. “Here, talk to Shapiro.”

  The sky was mauve as he went forward and took a fresh combug from the panel before Perlman. The lander was a few minutes short of StarCity, and the pilot’s threedee displayed approach data while the CNS broadcast of the memorial service played in the upper right.

  The Raphaela de Moranis auditorium was packed, and banks of blue and white flowers filled the stage. Blue and white were the Daku colors. Camera drones scooted to and fro over the audience while the latest in a company of speakers took the podium and made his tribute. On a three-meter screen behind the stage, stills and vidclips of Michael Vidal played on an endless loop.

  “Damn,” Perlman said softly, “he was a doll, wasn’t he?”

  “Yeah, he was. You knew him?” Travers was not surprised.

  “Not well,” Perlman sighed. “Him and Roark and me and Jim, we used to get a little pissed and play some very bad folgen, when we were in the same place, same time for long enough. On the base in Sark, mostly. I mean, I never really knew him well, but…”

  “I know.” Travers dropped a hand on her shoulder. “There’s an empty place where he used to be, and nobody’s likely to fill it for a long, long time.”

  “Or, ever,” Perlman said sadly. “Coming up on StarCity.” She adjusted the bug in her ear. “Mercury 101, returning to hangar. Standby to cycle the locks.”

  “StarCity, copy that.” A young woman’s voice, light and insubstantial over the loop.

  “General Shapiro, Mister Liang,” Marin said softly. “What’s the plan?”

  Shapiro sounded amused and relieved. “The plan is, I’m going to show my face at the memorial for the last twenty minutes or so. I’ve missed most of it, but social historians won’t forget or forgive if I don’t show up at all! Jon, if you’re comfortable, you can stay right where you are and watch the whole thing on CNS. I’ll be back inside of an hour. Duty’s a bitch.”

  “Ain’t it, though?” Kim agreed. “Your people have promised me coffee, and I’ll think I’ll take you up on the offer. I’ve had enough excitement for one day. One lifetime!”

  “And you’re surrounded by the best of my own bodyguard,” Shapiro added, “so relax while you can. Neil?”

  “Here,” he responded.

  “You and Curtis will be with me,” Shapiro told him. “Robert and I are going directly to the auditorium.”

  “Better late than never,” Marin observed.

  The breadth StarCity filled the forward viewports with blood and gold sunset glare from the dome, and with deft hands Perlman took the lander down and under, close to the comm arrays. The hangar opened up, bright with harsh blue neon, and Travers looked away. Inosanto was right behind him, watching the hangar engulf them, and Travers said qui
etly,

  “Tim, it’s going to be an hour or so. Lay on some coffee, and water for his dogs.”

  “And food,” Inosanto added. “I’m starving.”

  “There’s a service kiosk, right at the top of the elevator well,” Marin said, amused. “Have them send plenty. There’s a formal dinner after the memorial, but I doubt Shapiro will want to be there, so we’ll join you later.”

  “Get tiramisu,” Fargo told Inosanto.

  “I’ll see what they’ve got. What am I, a waiter?” Inosanto grumbled.

  Travers was still chuckling as they made their way out of the lander. They were in the kiosk, which was softly-lit now, with reflection effects and glowbots, when Shapiro’s voice murmured into the loop, “Come around to the executive hangar behind the mansion. You know it?”

  “We know it,” Travers assured him. “You’re using Chandra Liang’s transport?”

  “We’re taking the Magister.” Shapiro paused. “The lander is too big. The Magister is bulletproof, agile, fast.”

  “Good enough,” Marin decided. “Who’s flying?”

  “You are, Curtis. You flew, albeit briefly, with the Delta Dragons. It’s only fitting you should be flying on this of all occasions.”

  He was right. Travers knew the car, knew how it handled, and the Weiss Magister would be far better suited to the security compound on the auditorium’s air park. Marin had no reservations.

  The twilight was thick and mauve even on StarCity, and Elstrom was in near darkness already. Its carpet of lights spread to the horizon and beyond, and Travers took a moment to admire the view before they followed the path on, around a grove of olive and fig trees, to Liang’s own hangar.

  “They call this city the jewel of the Deep Sky.” Marin was a pace behind him at the armorglass, the pressure skin of the dome itself, on the very edge of StarCity. “It’s amazing.”

  “Great, if you’re a cityboy.” Travers glanced back at him, also admiring the way the garden lamps lit his face. “Not my scene. Fine for a vacation, but I’ll take Three Rivers.”

  Marin gave him a gentle push. “They’re waiting for us.”

  The hangar was just large enough to park four assorted cars and planes, and only the Magister’s corner was illuminated. Three spotlights glared on the starlight blue paint and fluoresced on the curves of the gullwings. Shapiro and Liang were already in the back; the plane’s rudimentary AI had pre-flighted all systems, and the hangar was standing by to decompress. Liang was conferencing with his people at the auditorium, and Shapiro was talking to Jon Kim. Marin slid into the right-side seat and brought the gullwings down. As Travers ran up the harness he was saying softly into the comm loop, “ATC, this is StarCity 55104, ready to depart.”

  The evening air was dry, cloud-free. Far below, the antlines of traffic circled and crisscrossed the city in orderly, geometric patterns, but Marin was cleared to drop straight down to the Marshall Hatori Convention Center, where the auditorium opened off one end of a shopping mall, buffered by a strip of parkland, fountains and statues. When Michael Vidal was immortalized in bronze, he too would stand there, impervious to time.

  The idea lured Travers back to Alexis Rusch’s analysis of the Orpheus data, and he looked up, away from the bright carpet of the city, to the milky place in the western sky, where the supergiant stars glared through the nebulosity of old supernova events. From this distance Hellgate seemed serene, unchanging. Few civilians knew how deceiving looks could be.

  “What the – Christ,” Marin muttered, and the next was a bark: “strap in, and strap tight.”

  “What?” Travers’s eyes were on the instruments before Marin was finished speaking, and he saw the trouble at once.

  “What is it?” Shapiro said sharply.

  “Another aircraft.” Marin pulled up hard, and the Magister leapt in the air like a frightened deer. “On a converging flightpath … and it just jinked up to follow us.”

  Travers pressed the bug into his ear, clicked it over onto broad-frequency and called, “Unidentified aircraft, this is StarCity 55104, you are on our flightpath. Please divert immediately.”

  The plane was an angry red blip in the Magister’s simple navdeck display, and Marin swore softly as he saw no response. He pulled up again, taking the Magister high, back toward the level of StarCity – and again, the plane was dead-center in his path. Collision alarms began to clamor, and this time Marin swung the Magister around, forty degrees off the original course, and opened the throttle.

  “He’s coming with us,” Travers said quietly. “Unidentified aircraft, this is StarCity 55104. Break off. Who the hell are you?”

  “It’s probably a drone,” Shapiro guessed. “Robert, has this happened to you before?”

  “You mean, have there been attempts on my life?” Liang asked grimly. “This would be the first. And you could be the target.”

  “Or both of you,” Marin muttered. “He’s fast … hold on, I’m going to try and shake him. Let’s see what this crate will do.”

  “Get us away from the city,” Shapiro said sharply.

  “You think?” Marin whispered. He had already thrown the throttles wide, angled the nose up, and he rolled the Magister onto an angle that would take it high above the traffic lanes and out of Elstrom airspace on the shortest route – back toward Scott Harbor and Inman Gulf.

  And still the aircraft was behind them, closing steadily with slightly better acceleration than the Magister possessed. “Screw this,” Travers muttered. “Mercury 101, do you copy?”

  “We surely do,” Perlman said loudly in his right ear. “I’ve had a track on you since you shoved off … Jesus, boss, what are you doing? Looks like you’re headed off the damn planet, and you got something on your tail. Looks like some kind of Kotaro-Fuente, maybe a Jintou, but I’ve never seen that performance out of a civvy bucket.”

  “No shit.” Travers was intent on the display. “Get here. Fast.”

  “Civvy airspace,” Perlman warned.

  “You want clearance?” Travers glanced into the back, where Shapiro’s and Liang’s faces were lit blue by the instrument panels. “General?”

  “Consider yourself authorized, Lieutenant,” Shapiro told her. “Like the man said, get here – fast.”

  She was talking to StarCity ATC then, asking for an emergency hangar cycle, and Travers returned to the navdeck display. Marin was riding the Magister’s redline, and the distance between them was still closing. “I can’t outrun it,” he warned, “and if it’s a drone, I can’t outturn it. A drone can pull G’s that’ll reduce the human brain to liquid goo.”

  “And we’re not armed,” Travers said disgustedly. “You, uh, ever do a Dendra Shemiji course that covered this?”

  “A course?” Marin’s head shook. “But I did in assignment on Santorini that got me chased all over the sky.”

  “In a bucket like this, the Magister?” Travers wondered.

  “In a Murchison F-65,” Marin corrected ruefully. “And I know the Magister’s not going to handle like a fighter. Hold on – all of you.”

  “Hey boss,” Perlman said into the loop, “they’re starting to cycle the hangar. Be with you in four minutes.”

  “Four minutes,” Travers echoed. “Curtis?”

  For just a moment Marin took his eyes off the instruments, long enough to look into Travers’s face. “We can try,” he said simply.

  He flung the Magister into a turn which slammed Travers hard against the straps, and the dash lit up with red warning lights. The Magister was robust, but it was still a civilian craft, not designed or manufactured to withstand such abuse.

  At once, Travers saw what Marin was doing. He had made a little distance on the Jiantou, but more importantly he had swung them onto an intercept course with the Mercury 101.

  “Hey, Curtis, nice flying, my son,” Perlman approved. “That makes it a little bit over two minutes before we’re on you. You hang on, now, y’hear?”

  But Marin was not even blinking as he watche
d the instruments, and before Travers could speak he had thrown the Magister to port and slammed on every airbrake, including every erg of repulsion power he could find.

  The shock of the Arago brake made diamonds glitter in Travers’s vision, and in the back Chandra Liang was yelping in pain as the harness cut into him, compressed him. The dash had lit up red again, and now the AI was murmuring in a ridiculously calm voice.

  “Warning, critical stress to airframe. Warning, structural integrity at seventy percent.”

  “Can’t pull that trick again,” Travers muttered.

  “Might not have to … see?” Marin pulled the Magister back right, and the tailflare of the Jiantou swam in the forward canopy, bright against the dark sky. It banked left, put down a wing and rolled, and the Magister dove after it, at the absolute limit of craft’s tolerance. “So long as I can keep tucked in behind him, I know right where he is. You know what’s bugging me?”

  “Oh, yeah.” It had been bugging Travers since the beginning. “He’s not shooting at us. He could have shot us out of the sky five times by now.”

  “Three times,” Marin corrected. “I’m not letting him get into any position to take an easy shot – but he’s not even trying to shoot. He’s just trying to crawl up our tailpipes. Now, why?”

  In the back, Liang had recovered his breath but still sounded hoarse. “You keep saying ‘he,’ but it has to be a drone, the way it’s flying.”

  “We’re talking about the bastard who configured it, tasked it,” Travers said tersely. “Sure, it’s a drone, but we’re up against the guy who launched it. And he’s not shooting at us.”

  “Meaning, the Jiantou isn’t armed?” Shapiro mused.

  “Maybe. But why isn’t it?” Marin threw the Magister over again, matching course and speed with the Jiantou with difficulty.

  “Because it’s the civilian version?” Liang suggested. “The Kotaro-Fuente plant here makes the sportster model, they hit the market blood red and sky blue, unarmed. They’re just upmarket toys.”