by J. N. Chaney
The McGarry was still sitting right where he and Sara had left it, in a clearing a short distance from the dirt path into the farmlands. He abandoned his stolen vehicle on the path and boarded his stolen spaceship. It dawned on him just how many crimes he had committed over the past few days in pursuit of these terrorists. If the whole saving the galaxy thing didn’t pan out of him, he had a promising career as a ship thief.
With no undocking protocols to deal with, Burner was able to get the McGarry in the air in a matter of minutes. He ascended high into the city’s airspace. His practical hope was that the Atlantis Falcon hadn’t finished receiving clearance to leave the atmosphere yet. On a small planet like this, air traffic control would be a one or two-person operation. One or two people who might be distracted by the chaos caused at the station when a bunch of Security officers had been beaten up.
He had only been in the city’s airspace for a minute when a communication forced its way through the ship’s console. “This is Trion City Air Traffic Control to the unknown vessel. We didn’t pick you up coming into the atmosphere. Please identify yourself and your ship.”
Maybe they were a little more on the ball here than Burner had hoped. “This is Patrick Revalon, flying the McGarry. Sorry, I must have come in at an off angle and missed city airspace on my descent.”
The navigation feed showed him the normal paths spacecrafts took into and out of the atmosphere. Burner traced them backward, looking for the terrorist ship. If it was still in the atmosphere, then it would be on one of these paths.
“McGarry, you’re currently flying against the flight paths. We’re sending you an updated map in case yours is out of date or corrupted. Please set yourself to a holding pattern until we give you permission to land.”
No sign of the Atlantis Falcon yet. Burner became increasingly worried that the terrorists might already be in space. “What was that, Control, I—” He pressed his com to the console and hit a button to flood the channel with static. “I think we have a poor—” More static. “Can’t quite read—”
The single-person craft that Burner had seen being loaded darted past him on its way out of the atmosphere. That ship hadn’t undocked yet when the Atlantis Falcon had taken off. Burner was becoming more convinced that he had missed them.
The console flashed a warning sent from the control tower. “McGarry, you are flying in active flight paths and are in active danger of causing a collision with ships leaving the atmosphere. If you do not remove yourself from restricted airspace immediately, we will have no choice but to shoot you down.”
Burner didn’t bother to respond. It looked like he had missed the terrorist ship, which meant he had to get out of the atmosphere and into space as quickly as possible if he wanted a chance of catching up with them.
Another ship, larger this time, was picked up by his scanners coming up the flight path. He decided this would be the last ship he inspected before taking off. The console brought up a magnified image of the ship. It bore familiar red paint on its side which formed the words “Atlantis Falcon.”
The terrorists. Cypher.
And more importantly, Sara.
His stomach churned at the realization. The realization that right now he might be more concerned for Sara than he was catching the terrorists, but Burner pushed the thought aside.
He flicked switches and prepared for pursuit. Another warning flashed across the screen, this one larger and more menacing. It informed him that weapons on the ground were being charged and were being locked on to his ship.
Burner was really starting to hate this planet.
He waited for the Atlantis Falcon to go by on its exit trajectory before beginning a pursuit course right behind it. In the commercial ship he was piloting, he was without weapons, disablers, or any other kind of tool he might be able to use to stop the ship. His only option might be to ram it, but even then, its shielding was undoubtedly better than his own. For now, that left pursuit and the hope that an opportunity would arise to stop them when they reached their destination. His only advantage was that the terrorists did not know this ship and would not be looking out for it.
Or, they might not have been, if Demeter’s Air Traffic Control hadn’t made him extra notable by firing off a few shots from the ground at him. The first went wide by design, giving the pilot one last chance to comply with the tower’s instructions. The flashing console told him that the next shots were coming directly for him.
The McGarry would not survive a direct hit with anti-aircraft fire. He clenched his teeth and swore silently at the console, but he was left with no choice but to break off his pursuit of the Atlantis Falcon. He quickly pushed the nose down and put it into steep dive as a harsh red glow buzzed past right on his field of view. The ship’s warnings were audibly chiming now to warn him of how close to a direct hit that had been. Being a non-combat ship, the suggestions the automated system gave, such as “distress call” and “emergency landing” were not particularly helpful.
Burner broke his dive, leveled out for half a moment, and then angled straight up. The interior of the ship shook as the stabilizers struggled to compensate for this sudden change in trajectory. He kept the nose of the McGarry pointed straight up as he now approached the upper atmosphere.
Exit trajectories are carefully calculated to put as little strain on a ship as possible as it left a planet’s atmosphere and gravitational pull. Angled straight up, a significant amount of thrust and acceleration was required, and the forces applied to the ship as it passed through the upper atmosphere were more extreme. The console informed him that he was leaving the planet at a dangerous course and should adjust immediately. He knew it was going to be close. But he ignored the warnings, even as the ship’s shaking grew more and more violent. The temperature readouts near the nose were near critical. Another warning about the weapons on the ground competed for space on the screen.
His eyes scanned the instruments in front of him, checking for breaking points in any of the variables. His arms strained against the wheel, pulling the ship in an unnatural position to clear the atmosphere. He was intently focused, carefully ignoring the fact that in an instant any one of a hundred components on the ship might give, turning him and the ship into a ball of fire across the surface of the atmosphere.
After what seemed like an eternity, the shaking subsided and the temperature dial began to relax. He was out of the atmosphere and gravitational pull of Demeter, and well out of the reach of any ground weapons. The warnings started to shut down as the ship’s systems stabilized and everything returned to controlled levels.
Burner had lost track of the terrorist ship during his escape, but he had an idea of where they would show up. He set a course for the slip tunnel that would take them in the direction of the Pharbis. He pushed the McGarry to make the interception in time.
The terrorist ship was waiting for him there when he arrived. The slip tunnel was open behind them, but they had not entered it yet. Instead they looked like they were waiting there, the ship turned so their weapons would be facing at the angle that Burner’s ship was coming from. New warnings blared in the cockpit. The ship had its weapons locked on to him.
In space warfare, ships are moving fast enough that targeting systems have to predict where in space a ship will be by the time the projectile reaches them. Evasive systems try to use this to their advantage by causing randomized bursts of movement to throw targeting systems off. This creates an effective range, depending on the speed of a projectile. At a far enough distance, the defending ship had too many possible movement choices before the projectile reached them for the targeting system to accurately predict.
Burner assumed that the Atlantis Falcon was using the best weapons that credits could buy from the standard underworld source. He slowed his ship before reaching their effective range and diverted CPU power to the evasive systems. Without any further warning, the terrorist ship let out a volley from all its main weapons. Burner held his breath as the evasive s
ystems thwarted any attempt to lock on to Burner. The shots all went well wide of the mark.
The McGarry might not have any weapons of its own to fight with, but if Burner played this smart, he could neutralize the terrorists all the same, just by running out their weapons cache. If the terrorists then tried to close the distance on him, he could make them pursue him to a more favorable region of space. Then he could gain the upper hand.
Cypher must have realized this as well because he didn’t fire again. Instead, the ship turned and entered the slip tunnel.
Burner wished there was more he could do at that moment to stop them. Even though he was right on their tail, they continued toward the space station. And they had taken Sara with them.
He directed his ship toward the entrance to the slip tunnel, bringing the ship’s onboard AI online to do the calculations.
As it worked, he thought back to the conversations he and Sara had had in the barn. The closeness and intimacy they had found together in the middle of all the chaos and danger. He wondered if there was more he could have done to protect her. His mind played back the last few moments of the battle at the farmhouse, when Reginald had taken her hostage. Had there been an opportunity to take a shot before the terrorist had pulled the trigger? Should he have jumped in the melee between him and Sara instead of taking a shot at Killington? Should they have fought closer together instead of splitting apart?
It was insulting her to think like that, he knew. Sara was a trained Constable with skills that were almost comparable to his. She knew the risks of the mission, of her career in general, and accepted them freely. Not only did she not need his protection, she didn’t want it. Still, he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that she was in this situation because of him.
He tried to force it out of his head so he could focus on the mission. The AI finished scanning the entrance of the slip tunnel. Burner gave the order for it to guide the McGarry into it. It might not be possible for him to stop them before they reached the station, but if he got there at the same time, he had a chance of stopping them from deploying the bomb.
Unless the terrorists already had another team on the station who had already been given the “go” order. In which case, it might already be too late.
That thought filled Burner with dread as the McGarry entered slipspace.
30
Aboard the Atlantis Falcon
The long-range scanners showed Burner’s ship entering the slip tunnel after them. Cypher wondered if his decision to use a civilian cargo ship to pursue them was some kind of insult. He had no weapons, and his basic shields couldn’t even take a single well-placed shot. This should have been an easy victory for them, yet Burner was choosing to pursue at a considerable distance. They were more likely to exhaust themselves of ammo than to hit Burner at this range. Was Burner just showing off that he could pursue them even in a non-combat ship?
This was getting personal.
He imagined Burner grinning, mocking him.
Killington glanced over his shoulder at the scanner readout and broke Cypher’s train of thought. “He’s never going to stop, you know. He’ll keep pursuing us until either we’re dead or he is.”
Cypher scowled. He didn’t need it spelled out, Even Killington’s face was an insult to him now. The man was sporting yet another bruise over his eye after his confrontation with Burner. Cypher clenched his fist to control his anger. “After the mission is accomplished, it doesn’t matter what happens to us. We just need to hold him off until then.”
Reginald gestured to the back of the ship, where he had tied up their prisoner. “He won’t do anything to us while we’ve got her. She’s our trump card.”
Cypher had been surprised, and impressed, when he found out that the young man had captured Burner’s blonde companion. She had proven almost half as dangerous as Burner himself. And Reginald was at least partly right. Burner clearly cared for this woman, and that was going to have an impact on his decision making. Though Cypher was certain that if it came down to it, Burner was the kind of person who would sacrifice the woman to save the lives on the station, however much that might personally hurt him. She would only get them so far.
At the front of the ship, Cade opened a bottle of wine that he had found when they rummaged through the transport’s crates. Of all of them, he seemed the least impacted by the situation. Physically he was a mess thanks to his run through the woods, with his flowery shirt torn from being caught on branches. His legs were covered in dirt from when he had tripped. Despite that, he seemed as relaxed as ever.
Reginald scowled at their technology expert as he drank directly from the wine bottle. “Is now really an appropriate time for a drink?”
Cade gave a little shrug. “Cut me some slack, I’m in mourning. Lost a good friend today, old... Eggie. Hey, what was his real name?”
Cypher suddenly felt their attention directed his way. All these ingrates should be following him without question, yet they dared to judge him. He had made the decision to take out their enemy while one of them was in the line of fire. Big deal. This was war. It was Eggie’s own fault that he had been caught off guard, and that he had allowed himself to be knocked unconscious. Cade had escaped by faking losing consciousness—a smart move. Eggie’s death was no one’s fault but his own.
Plus, they’d all be singing a different tune if Burner hadn’t managed to slip away. They’d all be celebrating his quick thinking, decisiveness, and willingness to make a sacrifice.
“Edward.” Killington looked directly at Cypher as he said it. “His name was Edward, or Eddie, until we started calling him Eggie.”
Cade raised the bottle. “Here’s to Eddie, then. You were the best crate-loading partner a guy could ask for.” He took a deep swig from the bottle then held it up to examine it. “I almost joined him, you know. Was almost another casualty of the fog of war.” He turned to Killington. “I guess you know what that’s like, eh?”
He was referring to Killington’s narrow escape from the grenade that Cypher had thrown at Burner. Again, the bigger picture was ignored, the fact that it was the grenade that had allowed any of them to escape. Besides Cade, of course, who had turned tail and run before the fight had even truly started.
Cypher interjected. “That’s enough. What’s done is done. Focus on right now,” he commanded. “We need to lose Burner, or at least stall him enough that he won’t arrive at the space station until it’s too late. Ideas?”
They were all quiet, but it was a thoughtful quiet. This was the organization at its best. They might have been mismatched, angry, and always arguing, but their varied backgrounds gave each of them a unique perspective on the situation.
Reginald tried first. “Maybe we use the woman. Toss her in an airlock, send him a message showing her there and threatening to blast her into space if he doesn’t back off.”
Killington shook his head. “Even if he complied, he could just stay far enough back to avoid our long-range sensors. That wouldn’t delay him enough. What we need is to send him on a different path. There’s an S.G. Point up ahead that still goes in the direction of the space station. Our current route is considerably shorter than the other, but if we can convince him that we went down the other tunnel, maybe that will buy us some time.”
Cypher checked the AI’s navigation pane. They were about an hour out from the slip gap point. “It’s a good idea. But how do we convince him we went the other way? Even if we open the rift, his scanners will show which one we took.”
Cade slid himself closer to the console. “How busy is it?”
Cypher knew it well, having run the route a dozen times as practice for today. “Busy enough, for the Deadlands. It’s one of the common jumping-off points for ships traveling from the Deadlands into Union space.”
With a few taps on the console, Cade brought up the ship’s identifying information. “If there are other ships at the slip gap, I can change our broadcast markers with one of them so that Burner ends up following
the wrong ship. At least, so long as Burner is reliant on his scanner for tracking us. We’d still clearly be us to a visual inspection, but Burner’s keeping far enough back that he probably won’t see us before we enter the tunnel.”
Reginald gave Cade an incredulous look. “You can do that?”
Cade took another swig from the wine bottle. “Switch identifiers with another ship? Yeah, that’s easy. I used to do it all the time to give my ships diplomatic ID’s. Got free parking on a lot of planets.”
Now that a plan was beginning to form, some confidence was beginning to return to the group. Cypher was glad to see that his organization could still function after a defeat like they had at the farmhouse.
It wouldn’t be long until they reached the station, and after that it wouldn’t matter what Burner, or anyone else, tried to do. It would be too late to stop their revolution.
Though if he could find a way to make Burner pay along the way, all the better.
Sara drifted in and out of consciousness. Her head pounded and her thoughts floated idly, drifting away from her before she could grab a hold of any one of them. She tried to remember what happened to give her a clue of where she was or where she was going, but nothing came to her. There had been a fight, she remembered that much. But against who and for what, she couldn’t recall.
A voice from somewhere inside her told her that she had a head injury and it was muddling her brain. It warned her that she was in danger and needed to snap out of it. But the world was too dizzying to be set to rights for now. She just needed a little more rest first. She allowed her muscles to relax and her mind to wander.
Burner. The name came back to her. His name was important, somehow. Was she supposed to rescue him? Or maybe she was hoping he would rescue her? Oh, well. She’d sort it out later.