“Whatever,” I said, switching to the communication controls. “This should save a bit of time.” I directed a broadcast to the nearest convenient ship. “This is . . . uh . . . a passenger shuttle we borrowed. We have the president’s daughter onboard our ship. Not a prisoner. That part is crucial. Not a prisoner. Ready to return her when you are. Over.” I put a hand on the mike and turned to Warden. “Anything you want to add?”
I was answered by a burst of static, and then the voice of a woman, speaking with extreme measured politeness with more than a hint of eroticism. “Attention. Thank you for coming within missile range of this United Republic naval battleship. We are currently maintaining a perimeter around this region of space. Please reverse and seek alternative routes, as any attempt to encroach further will be treated as hostility. If you would like to learn more about the United Republic Navy, including current maneuvers and job opportunities, please contact . . .”
“Just one thing,” said Warden. “The UR Navy mostly consists of unmanned ships.”
I flicked the communicator off with a frustrated grunt. “Right. So that was plying pointless, wasn’t it. And we’ll never be able to break through a naval perimeter in this . . . thing.”
“There may be a gap in their coverage,” suggested Warden.
“And there might not be. And once we’ve gone all the way around looking for it, it’ll be too late. The rescue fleet will have torn Salvation Station apart looking for something to rescue.” I tapped my forehead rapidly as I thought aloud, and it soon began to hurt. “There’s got to be someone we can call, let them know we’ve got the person they’re looking for. Surely you’ve got contacts in the government?”
“Yes, but I threw my phone out of the airlock when I resolved to kidnap Mr. Henderson’s son.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “And I did that too, didn’t I.”
“Not before . . .”
“Not before he called me and told me about Jemima, no, but I did after that. Give me some credit.” I blew out my cheeks. “Okay then. Forget calling someone. We’ve got to find a way past the perimeter without being noticed.”
“It occurs to me that a Quantunnel would be enormously useful at this point, if Blaze’s people have completed their gate,” said Warden.
I felt the usual surge of anger I felt whenever someone suggested using a Quantunnel, but managed to redirect it to a different part of my brain, and the energy boost sent a sequence of wheels turning. “Hang on. We can’t Quantunnel. But what’s the next best thing to Quantunnels?”
“Don’t milk it, McKeown. Do you have a plan?”
“Trebuchet gates,” I said, slightly miffed. “There’s a trebuchet gate very close to Cantrabargid; that’s why I always used it for my charter tours. We can reach that and get launched with time to spare.”
“That would propel us too far, surely.”
“There’s another crafty little hack you can do with them, kind of like the opposite of what we did last time,” I said, running the numbers through my head as we spoke. “You activate the launch before it’s fully charged, and you can get thrown a shorter distance with slightly more accuracy. I think I can get us within the perimeter, maybe even right up close to Salvation.”
“Is it safe?” asked Warden.
“No,” I said, having anticipated the question. “Although I’ll be plied if I can think of anything else to do. Except maybe fly all the way back to the Solar System and drop Jemima off to her mother directly.”
“NO,” said Warden, loudly.
“No, I’m not a fan of that one either. Trebuchet it is.”
My wounded hand started throbbing again as we neared the Cantrabargid trebuchet gate, and I started to wonder if going back to the Solar System was actually as impossible as it had seemed. Without the chip I wasn’t legally Jacques McKeown at present, and those star pilots who wanted me dead had probably all lost interest in the matter around the time their weekly fuel bill showed up.
“McKeown,” said Warden suddenly.
I snapped out of my reverie. “Hm?”
“Concentrate, McKeown, we are nearly there.”
Sure enough, the rather old and poorly-maintained trebuchet gate was filling the viewscreen, a giant, metallic pacifier hanging in space. “All right, let’s see if I can actually pull this off,” I said, mostly to myself, as I got to work interfacing with the gate and making the navigational calculations.
So, I thought. Why not go home to Ritsuko City? The fact was, I supposed, that I wanted to be here, and I wanted to save Robert Blaze. I liked the idea of a place for pilots in the universe. What I’d seen on Cantrabargid was making me go off his specific vision pretty plying fast, but I still wanted to save him. That, and now maybe kick him in the doints a few times, as well.
“What exactly is the risk here?” asked Warden. Her voice seemed to be particularly abrasive on this occasion.
“It should be easy as long as I can stay focused.” I peered at the numbers before me, and my thoughts drifted almost immediately away again. I was in pain, tired, and coming down from angry adrenaline. My brain had thrown itself onto a mattress in a sulk, curled up, and was refusing to respond.
I screwed my eyes up tight and opened them again, a technique that has never, ever worked in the entire history of man. The wall of figures I was proposing to ram our shuttle through swam momentarily back into focus, but Warden’s constant staring threw me off again. I saw her glance behind her—Jemima was still in the rear toilet listening to what sounded like theme songs from Japanese cartoons—and release an irritated sigh.
“McKeown, I think we should have sex.”
I did the eye-screw thing a second time, then a third, then clenched my fists. “I am trying to concentrate on this jump so we don’t end up crushed up against Salvation Station’s hull,” I said measuredly. “That statement did the opposite of helping.”
“Don’t be willfully dense,” chided Warden. “It is obvious that built-up frustration is affecting your judgment, and if it will ensure our survival, I am willing to make a sacrifice.”
I sat back in my chair and stared at her. She had the same stiff posture and cold tone of voice as always, not exactly throwing herself into the task of seduction. “Make a sacrifice? Oh, aren’t you just plying full of the milk of human kindness.”
She curled her mouth disgustedly. “You are physically attracted to me. It was increasingly obvious when we were being forced to work together on that planet. I’m only suggesting that we optimize our current resources.”
“And you honestly think that getting within a plying light year of your current resources would ease my tension? I’d be afraid of something getting bitten off.”
She straightened her back, offended. “Your embarrassment is wasting time. I am willing to brave this unpleasantness; I am only asking to be met halfway.”
I gave her a sidelong look through narrowed eyes, and she shifted uncomfortably. “Ohhh,” I said. “I know what this is all about.” She didn’t respond, although she maintained glaring eye contact. I continued. “This isn’t about throwing yourself on the sacrificial altar of my libido. You’re not that magnanimous. You’re the one with the frustration built up and you’re the one that secretly wants to ply me rotten.”
She colored. “McKeown . . .”
“Scratch that—you just want to ply something rotten. But you can’t let yourself think that, oh no. That would be showing far too much emotion for the plying psycho-div. So you’ve got to convince yourself that you really don’t want to and that you’ve got no choice so that you’re free to have all the dirty hate sex you want without fear of ruining your image.”
She was squirming in her seat, limbs locked, and I fancied she was about to start sweating poison like a tree frog. “What . . . on Earth . . . makes you think . . . that I would want to . . .”
She was having problems getting her mouth around the words, so I took over again. “You brought it up, you plying nutcase. Are you like this becaus
e of Henderson? You have to build up a big wall because if it ever cracks he might see your weaknesses? And now everything you’ve suppressed is rushing to the surface and overflowing the dam and you just thought, hey, here’s this rugged star pilot over here who might be able to stick a finger in the hole to stop the leak—actually, that was a bad choice of words . . .”
“McKeown,” she intoned. The straining dam had given a little squirt. “How could I possibly be attracted to you?” She pronounced the last three words the way one would pronounce louse-ridden.
I folded my arms, springing the trap. “I never said you were. I just said you were after dirty, consequence-free sex with whatever was convenient. How strange that your mind should go there—”
“Enough. I am not the slightest bit attracted to you. I don’t even know who you are!”
I raised my eyebrows, surprised. She let out a long breath, then almost immediately drew it all back in.
“That’s why I keep calling you McKeown!” she continued. “Because when I went to change your name on the chip ID network, I discovered that there were three names already on it! And not even the authorities seemed to know which one you were born with!”
She slumped in her seat and turned away. I thought the outburst was over, but then she suddenly sprang back into life like a mantrap. “When I came to that spaceport, looking for a pilot, I was convinced that I would not survive to the dawn. It was my last, tiniest scrap of hope. I was going to present a random bum to Mr. Henderson and introduce him as Jacques McKeown. I was certain that Henderson would see through it in an instant and we’d both be meat for the cassowaries.”
“Charming.” But I wasn’t sure if I was more offended by her willful endangerment of my life or use of the words random bum.
“But then we got through the dinner, and I realized that I’d stumbled upon the perfect candidate entirely by accident. Someone who can wear any disguise he wants because there’s nothing underneath. You just adapt. You become whatever you need to be.”
“Thank . . . you?”
“It was not a compliment!” She was practically screeching now, and her hands were bobbing madly as she sought the words. “You are a cockroach, McKeown! You get dropped into a situation and you scrape together whatever you need to survive a little bit longer! You’ve got no idea how to plan. How to build anything or make something of your life. Your only conviction is the desire to live a stupid space-hero fantasy! I don’t understand how someone can be so adaptable and at the same time so intent on clinging to the past!”
She deflated a little, bracing herself on the armrests, and I thought the storm might have passed but then recognized her posture as that of someone midheave during a protracted vomiting session.
Sure enough, the hands came up again. “And if I have occasionally found you interesting solely on some academic level, then it was only because I have never been able—”
Something seemed to get through to her conscious mind and she immediately clammed up, wrapping her arms around herself and shrinking in her seat. It was like a misbehaving umbrella finally closing and snapping into place. Her eyes focused determinedly on the viewscreen in front of her. Only her beet-red complexion remained as evidence of her rant.
I chewed on my lip as the silence dragged on. Then I gave a little cough. “Feel better?”
“Yes,” came a tiny little voice from somewhere inside the tightly folded package of her body.
“How was it for you, darling?”
“Just launch the plying ship, McKeown.”
Chapter 23
There was a sickening surge of turbulence, a disorienting dance of light and color across the view screen, and the shuttle emerged lurchily from the short-range trebuchet jump.
Salvation Station was very close. In fact, it was filling most of the view.
I slammed on the braking thrusters, knowing full well it wasn’t going to stop us in time, and yanked on the stick. The shuttle spun into a full turn, and we found ourselves hurtling backward along Salvation Station’s armored hull.
The actual distance between the shuttle and the station was hard to determine when the view screen showed nothing but blurred metal plating. I thought it would be safe to bank away, whereupon one of the shuttle’s fins smashed into what I supposed was one of the station’s defensive turrets, and we went into a violent spin.
The shuttle’s artificial gravity drive kept us from being thrown around, but the spinning view brought me perilously close to redecorating the interior a lovely shade of puke. I was leaning so hard on the pitch controls that I heard a crack and one of the screws in the control bank popped out and pinged away.
Finally, the thrusters caused the spin to slow, and I went through the dance of overcompensating and counter-overcompensating. Eventually, the shuttle leveled out smoothly, and I let my muscles untense in relief.
Moments later, they all tensed back up again when I realized we were heading straight for Salvation Station’s main docking bay, upside down. We’d slowed significantly, but not enough to stop us from passing through the force field and falling into Salvation’s internal gravity.
The shuttle’s roof hit the floor of the docking bay, and that was all we saw through the view screen as we skidded gradually to a halt, throwing up sparks as we went. I could feel the fins smashing through numerous loose objects, which my imagination decided must be the legs and torsos of numerous innocent bystanders.
Then we stopped, and the shuttle rocked back on its curved roof, letting us see the docking bay properly. It was the same one that we’d arrived in the last time, but it was now completely deserted but for a handful of ships. We’d been plowing through crates that seemed to have been prepared for loading.
There was a beep as the shuttle liaised with Salvation’s internal atmosphere, and the gravity was switched to match the rest of the station. The ceiling immediately became a floor, upon which Warden and I landed in a pile.
“How very smoothly done, McKeown,” said Warden from somewhere underneath my left leg.
“No, I guess you were right,” I said, still groggy from the trebuchet jump. “We probably should have plied each other senseless first.”
I struggled out of the knot of limbs and managed to get upright, then made for the airlock door. The toilet slid open and Jemima crawled out, looking rather green about the gills.
She looked up at me blearily as I struggled with the airlock door handle. “Upside down,” she mumbled.
“I knew that,” I replied, turning it the other way.
Once out in the docking bay, I could confirm that it was almost completely deserted. One or two technicians and pilots were coming and going via the main access to the concourse, hastily dropping supplies near the parked ships, but that was all. They must have noticed our entrance, but they appeared to be far too occupied to care. They glanced only briefly at the crates we had destroyed during our landing.
The next thing I noticed was the Platinum God of Whale Sharks, which was squatting on a parking space in the corner like a huge, fat dog sitting somewhat alert. A freshly brushed dog with a brand-new collar, because repairs had been made to the damaged hull and nacelle. The breaches were patched to a semiprofessional standard, and the entire ship had been recently spray-painted a vibrant red.
I was walking slowly up to it, brow furrowed and jaw slack, when I heard a familiar voice call one of my names. “Mr. McKeown! You’re back!”
Daniel was there, clutching a small box of what looked like souvenirs, which he immediately set down so he could scamper over. “Did you win?”
“What?”
“Mr. Blaze said you had to go off for a while to fight evil and right wrongs.” His eyes were shining. I noticed he’d discarded his silver jumpsuit in favor of a brand-new flight jacket adorned with Salvation Station logos, which was at least slightly less pretentious. “Is all the evil finished then?”
“Working on it,” I said, distantly. “Where is Mr. Blaze?”
“J
emima!” shrieked Daniel, noticing his crush appear from the inverted shuttle in the background. Without even a glance back at me, he trotted straight over to her, screeching to a halt the moment he was in the three-foot hover radius. “You missed everything! Mr. Blaze fixed our ship and he’s been teaching me how to fly it! It’s actually really easy!”
“DANIEL,” I shouted, loud enough to echo around the docking bay. He gave a little jump and returned his gaze to me. “I said, where is Mr. Blaze?”
“Oh, he’s just outside,” said Daniel, gesturing to the doors that led to the station’s main concourse. “He’s really worried about something; he keeps trying to get people to leave.”
I passed into the concourse and saw Blaze immediately. He stood addressing a small group of his crew as others hurried past in both directions, carrying crates. He gave a steady stream of orders in his reassuring voice, without barking or forgetting to say please, although his shoulders were hunched and his eyelids were heavy with exhaustion.
He noticed my appearance almost immediately. His eyebrows went up and the lower corners of his mouth pulled away from his teeth, in a smile that anticipated an awkward conversation. He extended a half-open hand. “Mister—”
I punched him. Grabbing his proffered hand and pulling him forward added considerable stopping power to my flying fist, which sent him right onto his back, bleeding from a split lip. But I kept holding his hand, and once he was on the floor, I transitioned his weakening grip to my wrist and showed him the bandage he had given me.
“What was all this about?!” I said, pointing, not having improved my ability to come up with spontaneous, dramatic one-liners.
“You . . . have every right . . . to be angry,” he said, with some difficulty. A couple of technicians who had been moving upon my flanks stopped short as Blaze waved with his free hand. “Look. I may have given the impression that . . . our project was better funded than it is. That’s why I took your chip. We had debts we needed to pay straightaway, and . . . I thought you would see the logic if I gave you time to cool off.”
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