by Ryk Brown
“Get Deliza!” Vladimir ordered. “Neli,” he called out over his comm-set as he struggled to his feet, his captain slung over his shoulder. “Keep the officers across the street away from us! We’re on our way back!”
“Put us down!” Neli urged Josh over her comm-set.
“There’s not enough room!” Josh insisted.
“How much more room do you need?”
“It’s wide enough; I just need a few more meters to fit in!” Josh replied.
Neli swung the gun to her left and opened fire on the statue in the middle of the nearby fountain, blowing it to pieces. She continued firing, sweeping left to right along the edge of the fountain, blowing its waist-high walls apart and sending the massive fountain’s contents spilling out onto the walkway and the grass surrounding it. “I just got you an extra twenty meters!” she told him.
“Nice,” Josh replied over her comm-set. Neli smiled. It wasn’t often that she got a compliment from him.
Deliza, draped unceremoniously over Marcus’s shoulder, bounced limply as he ran across the park. She could hear the sound of his footfalls, his breathing, and the sound of the Palean stunners, as well as the Seiiki’s plasma cannons. She could smell Marcus’s jacket that desperately needed to be washed. She even caught glimpses of the grass below. But she could neither move nor speak. She was there for the ride, come what may.
“Bring her to port so I can get a shot!” Dalen yelled over the comm-sets.
“Neli! How far away are they?” Josh demanded.
“Fifty meters!”
Josh pushed his flight control stick hard over, rotating the ship quickly to starboard as it hovered only a few meters above the ground. “How’s that?”
“A little more!” Dalen replied.
Josh repeated the process, stopping when he heard the screech of Dalen’s plasma cannons.
“Come on, you little fucker,” Dalen muttered as he fired away. The inside of his turret flashed with red-orange light as his plasma cannons fired continuously. Left, right, left, right…each barrel discharging every half second. He glanced between his targeting screen and out the windows of his turret bubble, sweeping his weapon left and right as he tried to lock onto the Palean fighters diving toward them.
“They’re in firing range!” Loki warned over Dalen’s comm-set.
“They’re thirty meters out!” Neli warned. “If you don’t put it down they’ll be unable to work their way around because of our thrust wash!”
The diving fighters opened up, sending a spray of explosive rail gun rounds toward them. As they opened up, one of the fighters suddenly erupted in a fireball, causing the other to break off his attack run to avoid debris from his doomed leader.
“I got one!” Dalen exclaimed triumphantly.
“The other fighter is breaking off!” Loki announced as he watched the sensor display in the center of the Seiiki’s main console. “He’s maneuvering to come around to port!”
“I got it,” Josh declared, pushing his flight control stick hard right.
Neli held on tight, one hand on the side rail and the other on the plasma cannon as the Seiiki rotated quickly back to starboard sending the scenery outside the open cargo bay door shifting rapidly from right to left. As she held on, she felt herself become lighter as the Seiiki dropped two meters. The sound of their engines increased in volume and pitch, and the ship set down with a thud, nearly knocking her off her feet. “Jesus! When are you going to turn on the inertial dampeners?” she wondered aloud as she put both hands back on the plasma cannon and took aim at the Palean security officers who were still giving chase to Marcus.
“We can’t spare the power until the reactors are at full power!” Loki replied over her comm-set. “Can you see them?”
“Yeah!” Neli replied as she opened fire on the distant officers. “Vlad is ten meters out! Marcus is twenty!”
Vladimir ran the last few meters to the Seiiki’s ramp, no longer bothering to cut left and right to avoid fire. He charged up the cargo ramp, barely changing his stride, his paralyzed friend slung over his shoulder.
Neli stopped firing to help Vladimir.
“No! Keep firing!” Vladimir insisted, falling to his knees and dropping Nathan’s limp body onto the cargo bay deck. He quickly checked Nathan’s pulse, then scrambled back to his feet and headed down the ramp to help Marcus. As he raised his rifle to help Neli provide cover fire, something above him caught his eye; three fast-moving objects in the sky above the opposite end of the park, closing on their position. Vladimir raised his rifle to open fire on the lead element, but paused in surprise as that element fired on the two that were following it.
Jessica cut her throttle momentarily, allowing her scooter to descend quickly after passing over the trees on the outer boundary of the park. As she fell, she leaned back, then gunned her throttle again, arresting her descent and cutting her forward speed in half at the same time. Her two pursuers streaked over the top of her. She fired, dropping one of them but the other turned left at the last second avoiding her fire completely as he too descended quickly and dove between some trees.
Jessica leaned forward again, bringing her throttle back to full power, accelerating toward the Seiiki on the far side of the park. As she did so, she could see a Palean fighter circling around to the Seiiki’s starboard side at least a kilometer away. Somewhere, the other airborne security officer was lurking, waiting for her, but she had no choice. If she wanted to get off this world she had to get onto the Seiiki, and quickly.
Marcus came bounding up the ramp with Deliza slung over his shoulder as stunner fire slammed into the ground behind him. Vladimir and Neli continued their barrage, staving off incoming fire as Marcus topped the ramp and lie Deliza gently onto the deck next to Nathan.
“We gotta liftoff, now!” Josh declared over comm-sets.
The deck surged up under them, nearly knocking Vladimir off his feet, as the Seiiki’s engines screamed and the ship leapt off the ground.
“Rotate to port! Rotate to port!” Dalen insisted.
Vladimir tumbled to starboard as the ship suddenly shifted to port. Neli grabbed him to prevent him from tumbling down the cargo ramp, hanging onto the side rail to avoid being pulled out the door with him as the ship rotated and climbed.
“What about Jessica?” Vladimir yelled as he scrambled to his feet.
“We’ll pick her up on the fly!” Josh declared. “We’ve got incoming!”
A split-second later, rail gun rounds slammed into the ground outside where the Seiiki had been sitting only moments ago. The slugs exploded as they struck the ground, sending grassy soil spewing in all directions including into the cargo bay itself.
“Cargo ramp, coming up!” Neli announced as she slapped the control button.
“I’ve got her!” Loki declared, pointing ahead slightly left of center. The repetitive screech of Dalen’s plasma cannons echoed throughout the ship as the Seiiki’s cockpit was illuminated in fiery light.
“I see her,” Josh replied as he guided the ship off the ground. “What the hell is she doing?”
“She’s in a spiraling climb.”
“On purpose?”
“Marcus! Get to your turret and help out Dalen!”
“He’s only got one fighter to deal with,” Marcus grumbled as he rose and headed for the ladder.
“Where there’s one, there are others.”
“I know,” Marcus replied, struggling to keep his balance as the Seiiki tipped to one side.
“Two more fighters inbound, three clicks out!” Loki announced.
“I guess they don’t like ships lifting off without permission on Palee,” Josh quipped. “Hang on!”
“The cargo bay door isn’t closed yet, Josh,” Loki warned.
“That’s why I said hang on!”
Josh declared as he advanced the throttles and pitched the nose up.
Again, Vladimir went flying, but this time Neli went flying with him. Both of them landed against the cargo bay ramp as it rose past forty-five degrees relative to the cargo bay deck. Neli rolled up the ramp, headed for the constantly narrowing gap at the end but managed to put her arms out to stop her tumble before she fell out the back.
Vladimir, who now had one hand holding tightly to the grated ramp deck, grabbed Neli’s sleeve with his free hand. “I’ve got you!”
Jessica continued her spiraling climb, avoiding both the fire from the pursuing officer on a hover scooter and that of the attacking Palean Militia fighter as rounds meant for the Seiiki missed their targets and continued on toward her. As she rotated around, she fired her stunner again and again, each time the pursuing security officer came into her line of fire. Finally, her stunner found its target and the officer went limp.
There was a sudden jolt and the sound of an explosion. Jessica felt her stomach jump into her throat as her scooter’s thrust suddenly vanished and her scooter stopped climbing. “Oh shit.”
For a moment, as she reached the stalling point in her climb, she felt weightless. Then she began to fall. She glanced at the scooter’s flight display. She was still eight hundred meters in the air and there was little chance that she would survive the impact, even with the Ghatazhak assistive bodysuit under her clothing.
Josh held the Seiiki’s gradual climb, taking care not to pitch straight up for fear of dumping the occupants in the cargo bay out the back of the ship.
“She’s hit!” Loki declared. “She lost her engine! She’s falling!”
“I can see that!” Josh replied. “Neli! Cargo bay door! Emergency open!” Josh pushed his flight control stick forward, bringing the ship level as it continued to climb, shifting to port to slide the ship underneath Jessica.
“What are you doing?” Loki asked, afraid that he already knew the answer.
“Playing catch.”
With the ship now level, Neli allowed herself to roll back down the cargo ramp onto the deck, then jumped to her feet and ran to the door. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure Vladimir was also clear of the ramp. She pressed two buttons, then slapped the open button with her open palm. The cargo door suddenly reversed its direction, quickly opening. “Hang on to them!” she warned Vladimir.
“The door is open!” Loki announced.
Josh pushed the nose over as he killed the throttles, putting the Seiiki into a nose-down free fall back toward the surface of Palee. He quickly scanned his flight dynamics display as well as the contact info on the sensor display that represented Jessica.
“She’s closing too fast,” Loki warned.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Marcus barked over their comm-sets.
Vladimir tried to cover both Nathan and Deliza with his body, but failed to get a hold of the deck plating before the Seiiki pitched over and began her free fall. He and the two paralyzed bodies lifted off the deck, floating in the middle of the cargo bay, slowly rotating. Vladimir floundered about, finally getting a hold of Deliza.
“Clear the middle of the bay!” Josh ordered over the cargo bay’s loudspeakers.
Vladimir glanced to his left out the open end of the cargo bay, spotting Jessica and her hover scooter falling toward them. His eyes opened wide. “Oh bozhe!”
Vladimir shoved Deliza’s limp body toward Nathan, hoping to knock them both to the other side of the cargo bay and out of the way. The force sent Deliza into Nathan and both of them began drifting toward the port side of the bay as they tumbled. The force had the opposite effect on Vladimir, sending him spinning toward the starboard side but at a much slower rate.
Jessica struggled to get free but her damaged scooter refused to release its grip on her feet or remove the restraint ring around her abdomen. The last thing she wanted to do was hit the ground with a scooter full of propellant. That would surely seal her fate.
As she spun and tumbled, she spotted the Seiiki in a dive directly below her. Is he nuts? Unfortunately, it was her only hope, so she put her arms up over her head and braced herself for impact.
A second later, she passed through the open end of the cargo bay and the Palean sunlight disappeared. She felt the scooter strike something hard, jolting her and stopping her tumble. She slammed into the cargo bay’s forward bulkhead, scooter-first, careening off the ladder and onto the deck. She and her scooter rolled, bounced off the port wall, and finally came to a stop. There was a sharp pain in her left ribs. She looked down and saw that the scooter’s restraint ring had snapped and tore into her skin, likely breaking one of her ribs in the process.
Despite the distraction of pain, Jessica spotted Nathan and Deliza lying on the floor just two meters away, both unmoving with eyes open.
“She’s in!” Loki exclaimed with delight and amazement as he watched the cargo bay camera monitor. “Holy shit! I can’t believe you did it!”
“Oh ye of little faith,” Josh replied as he pulled the ship’s nose level and brought the engines back up to full power to arrest their free fall. The Seiiki settled into a hover once again, only a few meters above the buildings of the financial district below.
“How the hell did you think of that?” Loki wondered.
“It’s in the Aurora’s logs,” Josh replied with a grin. “It ain’t the first time Jess has been scooped up by a spaceship.”
“Close the cargo bay door and hold the fuck on!” Josh instructed over the loudspeakers. “We’ve still got fighters inbound!”
Neli reactivated the cargo bay door’s drive motors causing it to begin its close cycle once more.
“Gospadee!” Vladimir exclaimed. “Are you alright?”
“Get me the fuck out of this thing!” Jessica demanded, wincing in pain.
“Take it easy, Josh,” Loki reminded. “We still don’t have inertial dampeners and the door is still open back there.”
“That’s why I told them to hold on!” Josh replied in frustration as he continued to maneuver the Seiiki wildly to avoid the incoming rail gun fire from the approaching Palean fighters.
“I just don’t want anyone to fall out the back!”
“And I don’t wanna get shot down by those fuckin’ fighters!”
“Just take it easy for one more minute,” Loki pleaded, “then we’ll have enough power to give them at least some stability back there.”
“Fuck!” Josh exclaimed. “What the hell are you two doin’ back there!” he called over his comm-set. “Shoot those fuckers down, will ya?”
“Keep your shorts on, you little shit!” Marcus cursed. “I’m not even in my turret yet!”
“What the hell is taking you so long?” Josh demanded.
“Wasn’t exactly easy getting up here from the cargo deck while you were bouncing us about, ya know! I think I broke my fucking leg in the process!”
“Finally!” Neli declared as the inertial dampeners came on.
“Inertial dampeners are on, but not at full strength,” Loki’s voice warned over the cargo bay’s loudspeakers.
“Are they alright?” Jessica asked as Vladimir cut through the restraint ring with a laser cutter. “Why aren’t they moving?”
“Stunners,” Vladimir replied as he finished cutting. “This is going to hurt.” He looked at her to make sure she was ready, then quickly pulled the piece of metal tubing out of her side.
Jessica winced in pain. Blood began to ooze through her suit at the puncture sight.
Vladimir looked at the piece of tubing he had just removed. “It was in there pretty deep,” he told her, concerned. “You may have a punctured lung.”
“My nanites will take care of it,” Jessica insisted. “Get to the bridge and make sure that crazy little fucker gets us the hell out of her
e.”
“What about Nathan and Deliza?” Vladimir asked, finding the manual release lever on the floor of the scooter and releasing her feet from their restraints.
“I’ll take care of them,” Jessica insisted. “Go.”
Vladimir nodded, rising to his feet. He turned to Neli. “Help her.”
“I’m on it,” Neli replied.
“Get me the med-kit,” Jessica told her, moving slowly to crawl over to Nathan. Every movement caused intense pain in her left side. On top of that, she thought her right leg was fractured or at the very least, very badly bruised.
Marcus climbed up into his gun turret and quickly strapped himself in. He unlocked the turret and swung it around to face the incoming fighters, opening fire as soon as his gunsight spotted a target. “I never did like this fucking planet.”
“Two fighters attacking from port!” Loki warned over his comm-set.
“What the hell do you think I’m shooting at?” Marcus grumbled.
Loki looked at Josh, wide-eyed.
“I had to grow up with that,” Josh reminded him.
“That explains a lot.”
“They’re coming across to ya, kid!” Marcus barked over Dalen’s comm-set.
“I’ve got’em!” Dalen replied, swinging his gun to port and opening fire then swinging his turret back to starboard as the two Palean fighters passed over them. “Damn it!”