“Good. Maybe I’ll be able to hear him scream.” Laura grinned. “Well, I’ve wasted enough time. Take me to my blip-ship, Governor. I’m not here for parties.”
Chapter Sixteen
Laura Shemzak was almost beside herself with joy and awe. The blip-ship was a bullet-shaped cylinder, three meters long and two high. Silver-hued and sleek, it shone in the strip lighting.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she said, stepping forward to touch it.
“We have redesigned the fuselage, but not only for aesthetic purposes, Pilot Shemzak,” said Engineer Peo Logir, regarding the bright new blip-ship proudly. “Now that the XT models are to be fully maneuverable not only within atmospheres, but on planetary surfaces, there had to be some streamlining done to the hull. And I think you’ll be pleased with the other changes in this model as well.” He smiled at her kindly. “It’s going to be like a second body to you, Laura. A better body.”
“Something wrong with the one I’ve got?” Laura demanded indignantly.
“Absolutely nothing. But I don’t think it has quite the … ah … flexibility and utility of this particular XT.”
Laura opened her mouth to comment, but decided to allow the engineer to get on with his lecture. “Gotcha. So tell me more.”
“For one thing, the force field power has been stepped up by a factor of ten,” said Logir, scratching his moustache. “And we’ve remodeled the secondary manual console—”
“Maybe you’d better just show me,” said Laura, eager to slip inside her new ship.
“Of course,” said the engineer, gesturing for her to follow him. He pulled a data pad from his coat pocket as they walked.
“We were sent the specifications of your personalized connection capabilities, and the XT Mark Nine is adjusted accordingly.”
“Let’s give it a go, then,” Laura said, pulling up her right jump suit sleeve as they neared the ship. She tapped the correct sequence of pressure points, then peeled back her skin. She then held the exposed jack to a plate on the side of the blip-ship. Above her head a circle of multicolored lights blazed on in the ship’s side. They pinwheeled for an instant, describing the circumference of a small door.
The hatch opened. A ladder extended itself from the opening.
“Anything different jacking in?” Laura asked as she climbed up the rungs.
“Standard, Laura. No reason to change that.”
She hoisted herself into the padded cockpit and hit a switch. Vu-screens and panels lit. Lights blinked on, stitching quick sequences on their boards. “Real nice, Logir,” Laura said, touching the porous material covering the formchair. “Nothing like the smell inside a new blip-ship.”
“It’s fully stocked for your journey as well. I think you’ll find everything in order, Pilot Shemzak.” The engineer looked up at her. “Jack in, Laura, and see how she runs!” he said eagerly.
Laura de-Velcroed the appropriate flaps on her jump suit’s legs, torso, and arms. She untied her scarf and slipped it into a pocket.
She hit a button on one console. Wires fell from the ship’s ceiling. More popped onto her lap from the left. Methodically, jack by jack, she began connecting her body and her nervous system to the blip-ship. Finally she took the last one, and clamped it snugly into the socket at the base of her skull.
“I’m in,” she shouted down to the engineer.
“Ready to switch on power flow.”
“Do it!” Engineer Peo Logir said, pleased at the blip-ship pilot’s obvious approval.
She hit the proper sequence of toggles on the primary manual consoles. She felt the familiar exhilarating surge as the microcosm of her neurons, nerves, synapses grew. It was almost as though she were a planted seed, extending roots of wire, shoots of metal, branches of power into the universe.
The rush was incredible. Suddenly she saw through the sensors of the XT, felt through the hull. The sense of completion was overwhelming … as though she and the ship were one, Alpha and Omega joined, power personified.
She drew her awareness back to body control, looked down at Peo Logir, and said, “Nice. I can feel differences, though.”
“You’ll like them. Now, if I can bring your attention to an important additional feature in the subsonic articulation of the weapons array—”
“I’m cleared for takeoff?”
“Well, yes, you signed the requisition form in triplicate and defense sensors are alerted to your flight plan. But I’ve got a whole laundry list of the Mark Nine’s features that I need to—”
She held out her wire-webbed hand. “So toss me the manual. I’ll read it on my coffee break.”
Stunned, Peo Logir did as directed. Laura stuffed the small pad safely in a compartment.
“You gonna open the doors, or am I going through the walls?”
“You are in a hurry, aren’t you? I’d rather hoped we could have dinner.”
“Some other time, sweetheart. I owe you.”
The engineer, smiling, disappeared into a little room. The pitch of motors could be heard as the launch doors slipped back. A wind filled with city sounds and pollution swept in. Buildings loomed overhead, breaking up the clear greenish sky.
“Thanks, Peo!” Laura said, broadcasting through the ship’s speakers.
She closed and sealed the hatch, surrendered her consciousness to the blip-ship, fed power to the contragrav and retrorockets, and reached for the sky on plumes of steam and fire.
Fifty meters up, she shifted into hover, and used the state-of-the-art sensor grid to scan the surroundings.
There it was.
If the blip-ship had a mouth, it would have smiled mischievously.
In the cell, Gemma Naquist sulked.
“What’s your problem?” Northern asked. “You volunteered to go.”
“I felt like stretching my legs, okay?” she murmured in her usual hard monotone. “I didn’t realize we were carrying a Jonah.”
“And so now you’re grouching in the belly of the whale.” Northern began pacing again, a nervous habit he’d thought he’d conquered, suddenly resurrected.
“Northern, I’ve never liked the idea of getting mind-gutted, and it’s particularly galling to know that the Federation is going to be on the blunt end of the knife.” She shook her head. “When you posted that advertisement on Antares IV, I should have run the other way—started up a dairy farm, like my parents.”
“Gemma, you liked the idea of being a soldier of fortune,” said Northern, wagging a fatherly finger. “And you love the life. Now that a bit of misfortune has rained upon us, all previous choices were wrong?”
Naquist bit her lip and looked away. “Do you think they’ll come and rescue us?”
“Who? The U.S. Cavalry?”
Naquist gave him a perplexed look.
“No,” he said. “If we’re not back by a certain time, the instructions are to get the hell out.”
“Valorous, dutiful, stupid Captain.”
“It’s the group that matters, Gemma, you know that. The Cause.” He smiled sadly at her. “The Ship.”
“Well, if they want to risk their necks, I’d be happy if they came for me!”
“It would be suicide, Naquist. You know that.” He sat beside her. “I just had a lovely thought. You know that I’ve always thought you are quite beautiful. And since we don’t know just what’s going to become of—”
The wall opposite them dissolved.
Captain Tars Northern took his hand off Gemma Naquist’s knee and stood, waving away the smoke. When the dust cleared, he saw the magnificent view provided by their perch forty stories above ground … and some kind of ship hovering in the middle of it all.
An alarm began to blare.
“Okay, Northern, listen up, ‘cause there’s no time to argue,” said a low-pitched amplified voice.
“Laura Shemzak!” Gemma Naquist said.
“This is the deal, Northern,” said the augmented voice from the ship. “I give you a ride back to your shuttle and help make sure that shuttle gets back to the Starbow. You and your crew and the Starbow help me liberate Cal from the Jaxdrons.”
“That’s a terribly difficult task, Laura, that bears a great deal of—”
“Bye.” The blip-ship started to drift away.
“Wait!” cried Gemma Naquist. “We’ll do it!” She turned to Northern. “Or am I going to have to personally kick your ass down there!” She pointed down to the street.
“Outvoted, it seems Laura,” called Northern, cupping his hands. “Deal!”
The blip-ship returned.
“So let us in!” Gemma Naquist said. Already the guards were at the door.
“Who said anything about in?” returned the blip-ship. “You will notice several bars inset on the hull, aft, just a short jump away. Hop on, buccaneers!”
Gemma was aghast.
“Tallyho, my dear,” said Northern, recklessly leaping. His hands grasped the bar. He swung his feet over another and locked his knees around it securely.
The door to the cell began to open.
Gemma Naquist cursed and jumped. She caught the bar but one hand slipped. Northern helped her into position as the cell door burst open and a guard stepped in, holding a proton gun.
A stun beam from the blip-ship dropped him.
“Hang on to your heads,” said Laura Shemzak, and the blip-ship streaked away toward the spaceport.
“Farewell, cruel world!” cried Captain Tars Northern, hanging on to the bars for dear life.
Gemma Naquist wasn’t sure if he was laughing or screaming, and she was too preoccupied to care.
Laura Shemzak was careful with her air speed on the trip back to the shuttle. Her computer continuously calculated the atmospheric conditions and made sensor readings on her passengers to determine the air pressure they could take. She was also careful to leave the automatic peripheral force screen off, since that would instantly kill them in their quite precarious—and very amusing—condition.
With a jaunty confidence, she flew to the shuttle while Captain Tars Northern and Gemma Naquist clung to the hull, the wind whipping their hair and clothes.
Laura kept her vessel low to prevent easy radar detection and swept the comm bands for news of the breakout. It wasn’t long in coming: a police bulletin was broadcast. Although the blip-ship and its passengers had not been located, an alert concerning the escaped prisoners was on the air. It was a confused and inaccurate report. Apparently her action had not merely caught the defense team by surprise; it had caught them napping.
When the spaceport came into view, her magnification vu-screen indicated that no special guard had been placed around the Starbow’s shuttlecraft. As they drew closer, Laura keyed a detailed sensor sweep for signs of human activity.
She slowed down enough to allow her amplified voice to be heard above the screech of the wind.
“Listen up, guys,” she said. “I read two security men nosing around the shuttle, equipped with hand weapons, so keep your tails close to Momma.”
“We read you, Mom,” returned Northern. She heard him clearly through the ship’s sensors. “Just don’t drop your litter yet. We’re still a little high up!”
The blip-ship descended toward the landing pad where the shuttle pointed its nose somewhat less than majestically toward the sky. The two security men were just emerging from the hatch and climbing down the ladder, looking neat and smug in their uniforms, apparently still unalerted as to who might be paying a visit.
One of the men happened to look up and saw the shiny cylindrical vessel coming their way. He turned to call his companion, then lifted his wrist communicator. But it was too late. Laura had them within the range of an electronic disruptor beam, and in moments they dropped unconscious to the permacrete.
“Think you can take it from here?” she asked her shaken passengers as she hovered two meters off the pavement.
“Oh, sure,” said Naquist. “All in a day’s work.” She kicked free of the ship and landed on both feet.
“You’ll cover for us?” Northern asked before he let go of his set of bars.
“I always go the extra light-year, Captain.”
“Thanks,” said Northern, and dropped. Laura stood sentry as the two scampered for the shuttle. When the hatch was closed, Laura established radio contact.
“I think we’d better hurry,” she said. “I read a couple of military vehicles zooming our way fast.”
“Roger,” returned Northern’s voice.
The shuttle jumped as its antigrav motors turned on. Within moments it was hovering above the pad.
“Okay,” said Laura, as a bit of laser fire touched her just-turned-on deflector shields. “We’re out of here!”
Within minutes the two ships had escaped the planet’s atmosphere; the bright, color-streaked globe that was Shortchild fell away from them like a child’s toy.
Ahead, however, three points of light were growing in size.
“Jesus,” said Northern, strapped beside a control console. “Federation battleships! Three of them. I didn’t know I was that important!”
Gemma Naquist’s attention was focused on the jump-drive readings. “Come on, you bucket of bolts, move it!”
“How much longer before we get free of the gravity well and key the jump?” Northern asked.
“At this rate, another three goddamned minutes!”
“We’re going to have to take evasive action, then. We’ve got a couple ships on our tail, and part of the fleet meeting us head on.”
“We can’t. That would treble the time before we can safely jump. Take evasive maneuvers, yes, but keep going in this direction or we’ll never get back to the Starbow. Thank God we’ve had time to alert the folks back home about our return.”
“Midshipman,” chided Captain Northern. “I hope our blippie friend is still riding shotgun.”
“I really don’t think it’s the right time to be calling her names, Captain.”
A quick sensor check placed the blip-ship pacing them less than half a kilometer away. Laura was already aware of the Federation ships.
“I’ll do my best as a distraction,” she said. “I want to check out how much firepower this baby has, anyway.”
Within ninety tense seconds, the Federation vessels were within visual range. Two cruisers, one dreadnought, they were all ellipsoids bristling with weapons.
“Begin evasive maneuvers,” said Naquist.
“Can’t we jump now?”
“Still not in safety zone. We’ll be pushing it as it is.”
“Damn. This thing really wasn’t built for a space battle. I’m putting full power on deflector screens.”
Gemma glanced down at the comm needles. “We’ve got something coming in on Federation band, Captain.”
“Put it on. If they’re talking, they won’t be shooting!”
Naquist obeyed, hands playing expertly over the comm panel. “ … This is GFS Churchill … to shuttlecraft … we have you within firing range. Notify us of your surrender immediately, or we will proceed with destruction procedure … ”
“Tell them we surrender,” said Captain Northern.
“What?” Naquist was aghast.
“It’ll just buy us time!”
Naquist shook her head and keyed open the transceiver. “Roger, Churchill. We read you. Please notify as to the … uh … approved method for safe surrender.”
The timer revealed fifty-four seconds until safe jump.
As the Churchill began to relay the surrender procedures, a voice erupted over another set of speakers.
“Hey! I didn’t rescue you to have you surrender!”
It was Laura.
“She must have been listening in. Tell her it was just a ploy!” commanded Northern.
The blip-ship was visible now on the vu-screen.
With astonishing speed it streaked closer, letting loose a beam of power that sizzled through the shuttle’s low-power force screens and blasted off a rod of protruding weaponry.
“We’re not surrendering, Laura! It was just to buy time!” Gemma Naquist yelled into the transmitter.
“Got it—sorry,” Laura’s voice came back.
“Back to original plan!” Northern said desperately. “Man the lasers, Naquist. I’ll do the evasive maneuvers.”
It took the Federation ships only a few seconds to respond to the blip-ship’s action. Streams of energy crackled from beamers, converging on Laura Shemzak. But she avoided them easily. She flitted around the ships with incredible agility, firing her own weapons and always scoring.
If he’d had time, Northern would have enjoyed the spectacular display of action and pyrotechnics as the amazing blip-ship danced widdershins around the Federation behemoths; but he had to concentrate on making his course as erratic as possible as it threaded past enemy ships—without losing his path to a safe Underspace jump.
“My God,” said Naquist. “She’s amazing!”
“What’s the time?” Northern demanded.
“Eighteen seconds to safe jump, but we have to be clear of these ships!”
“Roger. Just one more zigzag and we’ll make a run for it. I—”
Suddenly the shuttle rocked hard. A shiver of light cascaded down the vu-screen. A few circuit boards blew in the walls, filling the cabin with smoke.
“Forget the evasive maneuvering,” said Northern. “I’m just making that run!”
His fingers found the appropriate controls.
Since they were now past the Federation ships. Naquist directed the vu-screen to starboard. The image showed the blip-ship still tirelessly skipping and jumping among the dreadnought and the cruisers like some mad glowworm on drugs.
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