by Jaleta Clegg
The ship bypassed the first two fields and made directly for the southern one. Clark magnified the feed as much as it would go. The picture was grainy.
"I can’t tell what’s there," he said. "That’s definitely where they’re landing."
"Bingo," Jasyn said, echoing him. "Let’s go in, now."
"Let’s wait until the others get here. Seven against several thousand is suicidal at the very least."
"A few hundred, maybe," Jasyn said. "Unless they have massive stockpiles of food and supplies hidden under there somewhere. Xqtl is dead. You can’t grow anything there."
"We still wait. I know it’s hard, Jasyn. Trust me, be patient. She’ll be alive down there."
"I’ll wait, but I don’t want to."
Clark put his arm around her and pulled her next to him. "I don’t want to, either. Two days, and then we’ll get her out with or without help."
Jasyn leaned her head on his shoulder as they continued to watch.
Chapter 42
We came out on the very far edge of the system, way off course. Flash didn’t seem to notice. I resigned myself to making a creeping progress through the system. The engine was only up to half speed and wouldn’t go any higher without squealing. The weapons systems stole too much power. We voted and having weapons won over getting there faster.
I wasted time running scans again. The system was old and underpowered. I’d been spoiled by the extra equipment on the Phoenix. We didn’t pick up anything but normal space junk, a few asteroids not worth mentioning and two planets. Our scans barely picked up the sun. As far as I could tell, the planet we were looking for was on the far side.
The sun was an active one, spitting out radiation bursts at random intervals. We were going to pass over it, close enough that a stray flare might cause us a few problems, but far enough away to avoid straining the engine too much fighting the star’s gravity.
I twiddled some of the controls. I was on watch and currently alone in the control room. Jerimon, Deke, and Doggo were playing a game with dice. Another cheer echoed up the ladder. Flash was sleeping. It was all he did when he wasn’t navigating. Considering how old he must have been, it wasn’t surprising. Tayvis was cooking. He was the only one with any skills at all. We had little prepackaged food. Most of the supplies Wade and Deke had were ones that required some form of preparation.
I heard someone climbing the ladder and glanced over my shoulder. Wade climbed into the cockpit. He was pale, his mouth set in a grim line. He had big bags under his eyes.
"You mind some company?" he asked.
"Come sit," I pushed the other pilots seat with my foot.
He sat down and stared out the viewscreen at space. I had it focused on the closest planet, an orange gas giant with a spectacular set of rings. It glowed, a tiny ball of jeweled colors wearing a circlet of lesser jewels.
"You doing any better?" I asked. The first two days of the trip he’d screamed himself awake every time he dozed off. The rest of the time he’d twitched and kept checking the com system. It was completely dead and lying on the floor. He had to keep reassuring himself it wasn’t broadcasting an emergency signal. He’d finally managed to sleep, from sheer exhaustion.
"I keep hearing the signal," he said. "But I’m learning to ignore it."
"First step to recovery," I said.
We’d been tempted to slip him a slug of Doggo’s quatzolatl but that would have been too cruel. Doggo admitted to me that he never actually drank it. He only carried it to start fires and clean his jewelry.
"How do you handle it?" Wade asked me. I’d woken them up more than once on this trip with my own nightmares.
I shrugged. "I don’t want to let them win."
"You’re tough, Dace."
"Because I have to be."
"I missed space. You think there’s help for Deke?"
"If anyone can find it for him, Lowell can."
We listened to another round of cheering from below.
"Sounds like Deke’s winning again. You really aren’t Patrol?" He still wouldn’t believe me.
"Not unless I’m dead." I did another round of scans.
"How much longer?"
"Three days or so, unless you can convince Tayvis to give me some power back from the guns."
"You’re the best at persuading him to do anything," he said with a sly smile.
"Not hardly," I said and pretended I wasn’t blushing.
He was smiling, a big improvement even if it was ragged around the edges and his eyes were still haunted.
"You two hungry?" Tayvis asked, sticking his head through the hatch. "Specialty of the house."
"Canned chili again," I said. "I’d almost rather eat chicken noodle."
"It was cheap," Wade said defensively. "I like it."
"Two bowls coming up," Tayvis said and popped back down.
I turned back to the scans. I saw a brief ripple over the screen. The ship shook and spun around, lights flickering madly. I hit the thrusters and sent us off to one side with all the power I could get. Alarms buzzed and shrieked and beeped.
Wade started slapping them back off. I straightened us out and rechecked the course.
"We’re too far off," I said.
"What was that?" Wade asked.
"A ship downshifted in front of us."
Tayvis and the others crowded up the ladder as fast they could. I resigned myself to cold chili, if I got any at all.
"Go wake up Flash," I told Doggo.
His spiked hair nodded as he popped down the ladder. Doggo had taken to sliding down the outer rails as if he’d been born in space.
"What ship?" Tayvis asked.
Jerimon had beat him to the scanner. "No ship id that I can pick up. Not good. They’re moving fast."
I swore and dumped all power. The ship went dark and dead. Not even the whisper of life support disturbed the sudden silence.
"They can’t find us if they can’t scan us," I said. "We’ll look like a piece of junk."
"A blind piece of junk," Jerimon protested. "Give me scans at least."
"That will give us away faster than anything else," Tayvis said. "What direction were they headed?"
"Inwards," Jerimon answered. "How long do we sit here? Until they blow us up?"
"We have to get to the planet," I said. "Give me all the power you can and we’ll make it there in fourteen hours."
"With a burned out engine and no weapons," Tayvis argued.
"What’s happening?" Deke called from below.
"I’ll go tell him," Wade said. He fumbled his way through the dark to the ladder.
"Weapons won’t matter if we have to get into a fight with one of those," I said. "They’ve got us outgunned ten to one and they have shields."
"You don’t have to make it sound so bad," Jerimon said.
"Our only chance is to make a run for it," I argued.
"Not much of a chance," Tayvis said. "But I guess it’s all we’ve got."
I flipped on the handlight that was under my chair. A single beam of light stabbed out. "Come help me rewire it again," I said to Tayvis. "If we plug the energy feeds into the engine we can pull it directly from the pile. Maybe then I can still give you some for weapons."
"What’s the catch?" he asked.
"We have to get Wade and Deke to agree," I said. "It will burn out the hyperdrive for certain. And the sublight will need major repairs when we’re done."
"Then let’s not do it," he said. "Just take the energy out of weapons and get us there in one piece. I want to know we can still leave if we need to. Fourteen hours or thirty, it won’t make much difference."
"We still ought to talk to Deke," I said as I slid down the ladder. The beam of light from the handlight danced crazily over the walls.
"Talk to me about what?" Deke asked.
I jumped off the ladder as Tayvis slid down behind me.
"Rewiring the engine again, to get more speed," I said. "We just had a ship downshift on top of us."
"She wants to burn out the engine," Tayvis said.
Deke laughed. "Wire the energy feeds directly? Won’t work, Dace. The engine won’t last more than an hour if you do it. This isn’t a Patrol ship, it isn’t designed to handle that kind of power."
"We still need to move faster," I objected.
"Try wiring the stabilizer feeds with a crossover," he said. "And route the coolant through the back half of the system only."
"I never thought of that," I said.
"You’re not really an engineer, even if you swear like one," Deke said. I heard the smile in his voice.
"I’ll help," Wade said.
"Rewire the engine," Deke said, "as Doggo would say, hot bam."
"Do you have any more handlights?" I asked.
An hour later we were ready to go. Wade had found some emergency lights and rigged them up through the ship. Deke was back in his web in the cockpit. Flash sat in front of the nav comp waiting for me to power it back up. Doggo and Tayvis were in the engine room, ready to yank the power if it didn’t work, hopefully before we blew anything crucial. Jerimon sat in the other pilots chair. Wade sat by the scanner, ready to start the minute I gave him power. We’d been blind too long.
I took my seat. "Ready?" I asked the ship in general. I got a few nervous murmurs. "On my mark," I told Jerimon. "Three. Two. One." We both hit the switches.
The engines slowly whined up. The lights flickered and burned steady. The equipment boards lit up, solid red that slowly gave way to yellows and greens. Half of my board stayed yellow.
"Looks good," Deke said, peering at the board over my shoulder. "Give us a course, Flash."
Flash slowly tapped keys. I sent us in the general direction of the star.
"I’m not picking up ships," Wade said. "We’re finally in range of the star, though." The screen flashed bright white. "It’s a very active star. I can’t pick up anything now."
Jerimon adjusted the stabilizers. The ship rumbled with a steady vibration.
Doggo popped his head up the hatch. "Everything’s good below. Hot bam!" he added when he saw the flashes on Wade’s screen.
"No explosions, Doggo," I said. "Just radiation flares from the star."
"Still diego," he said, which I assumed meant it was exciting to him, all the same. He watched for a second before sliding back down.
"Course entered, captain," Flash said. "On course for the second planet, currently located on the far side of the sun."
"Thank you, navigator," Jerimon said formally.
Flash smacked the back of his head. "Show some respect."
"Thank you, Flash," I said. "Maybe he’ll listen to you."
I got smacked for that. Jerimon tried to hide a laugh and didn’t succeed. Flash tottered back to his cabin to sleep.
"Give it some speed," Deke said.
We opened up the engine. The ship hummed louder, building up thrust. We were really moving now.
"It should be about eighteen hours at this speed," Wade said, still bent over the scanner.
"Holding steady," I said.
"Looks good over here," Jerimon said.
"Take watch," I said to Jerimon. "I never got dinner."
"I don’t know if you’re less grumpy hungry or eating chili," Jerimon said. "And if you smack me I’ll get even."
I put my hand innocently back down, smoothing the ruffles on the miniskirt I still wore. They were drooping and ragged and stained with grease.
"Give it up, Dace," Wade said, making an effort to relax. "Nothing is going to be able to save that skirt."
"I like it that way," Deke said. "Not quite professional but it’s got style."
"If I had anything else to wear, I would." I should have kept my mouth shut.
"I remember you wearing a red nightgown," Jerimon said.
This time I did smack him across the back of his head. I left before they could tease me more.
Tayvis was still down in the engine room. I went down to check on it. Mostly I went down hoping that Tayvis wasn’t going to tease me, too. He wiggled a hose, checking the fitting. He had a wrench in his hand.
"You going to take up engineering?" I asked.
"After watching what you have to do? I don’t think so." He tightened the fitting on the hose and stepped back.
"You’ve got grease on your face," I said.
"So do you."
I wiped my cheek with one hand.
"You just smeared it worse. Hold still." He stepped close, a relatively clean rag in one hand. He wiped my cheek. "I take it things worked. We’re still in one piece."
"Worked nicely. We should be there in about eighteen hours." I took the rag and wiped the smudge off his face.
"Are you nervous?" He took the rag back and kept my hand with it.
"Not yet," I said truthfully. "I’ve been too busy to be nervous."
"I haven’t kept you distracted enough?"
I couldn’t resist his grin. I stood on tiptoes and kissed him.
"Who’s distracting who?"
"Whom," he corrected me.
"Whatever."
Doggo interrupted us a few minutes later to ask a question. He didn’t even look embarrassed. He grinned and winked as he asked Tayvis where the potholders were.
"I’m going to strangle them all," I said. "Wade put you up to that, didn’t he?"
"They know what you’re doing down here," Doggo said. "Not checking the engine."
"And it’s none of their business," I said. My face was burning.
Doggo winked at Tayvis. "You got one hot chick." He ran up the ladder before I could smack him.
"They’re just jealous," Tayvis said.
"Like you aren’t?"
"Not any more. You’d better get something to eat and some sleep."
"Are you sending me away?"
"No, I’m asking you nicely before I have to push you up the ladder."
"Just try," I said, stepping closer to him.
"Is that a challenge?" He was grinning again.
"Persuade me," I said.
"I found something that’s not chili," he whispered in my ear. His breath was warm and tickled.
"You convinced me." I started up the ladder.
"It’s chicken noodle," he said. Then laughed.
"I’d throw something at you if I had anything handy."
"You should see the look on your face. It’s not chicken noodle, either."
"What is it?" I climbed off into the galley.
"Surprise," he said as he followed me.
"Sounds appetizing,"
He held up a can. It said Chicken Surprise on the label.
"You have got to be kidding me."
"It’s not bad," Tayvis said.
It wasn’t. It wasn’t good, either, but it was better than chili or chicken noodle.
Chapter 43
Xqtl loomed in the viewscreen, a tangled mass of tans and browns and burning turquoise oceans. I shifted a slider. The engine temperature climbed steadily. We had to either slow down soon or risk losing the engine. It looked like we had to risk the engine.
"Two more ships," Wade said tersely.
"That’s twenty in just the last three hours," Jerimon said. "Why haven’t they shot at us yet?"
I didn’t bother to answer. Most of the ships didn’t have id beacons. I’d pulled the one for the Gull while we were rerouting power. I didn’t tell Jerimon because I didn’t want him having an attack of conscience over it. It amazed me what he could justify doing while he lectured me about following rules. So I simply didn’t tell anyone what I’d done.
"Any sign of the Phoenix?" I asked.
"Still no beacon reading on it," Wade said. "If it’s already on the surface it wouldn’t show yet."
We flew on, another half hour and we could be landing. I wiped sweaty hands down the legs of my tight pants. They were stretchy fabric that was very comfortable. Not that I’d want to dress like that very often. My mind latched onto random thoughts in an effort not to b
e scared.
"Surface readings show three possible landing sites," Wade said. "All the ships are using either the northern one or the southern one. The ships at the northern field all show beacons. The southern field shows nothing." He punched buttons. "Three of them landed an hour ago but they aren’t on the field now. They didn’t lift off, either."
"We go south," Tayvis said. "They wouldn’t park out in the open. Just in case someone official stops by."
"South it is," Jerimon said.
"The middle field is only a few miles from the southern one," Wade said. "It might be a better spot to land." He fiddled with the scanner. The closeup of the planet played across the bottom of the viewscreen. "I hate the way it looks down there."
"You and me both," Tayvis said. "What are those?"
"Ruins," Jerimon said. "The whole planet is covered with broken buildings. No roofs, only walls. Very few things that qualify as roads."
"It’ll give good cover," Tayvis said.
"For us and them," I muttered.
"It’s really easy to get lost," Jerimon said.
"Speaking from experience?" I said.
"Are you sure the com won’t work?" Tayvis asked for the twentieth time. "Even if we could just listen in, it would give us some idea of what’s happening."
"We’re just going to have to go in fast and run for it," I said.
"Especially now," Wade said. "Three of them are changing course, moving to intercept us. They aren’t going to ask nicely, either. Their weapons are charging."
I punched a few buttons. The ship slowed a fraction. "You’ve got some power, Tayvis. We won’t need speed in a few minutes."
"We’ll need a miracle," Jerimon said.
We pushed the ship on a straight course right for the planet. The ships came in behind us, moving faster.
"Shots coming," Wade said. He sent the image to the viewscreen.
Jerimon pushed the ship hard over into a spin. I tweaked the power balance. The engine ran hot and vibrated loudly.
"More shots," Wade said.
"Hang on if you aren’t already," Jerimon said.
We went into a spiraling, twisting path. Jerimon and I passed control back and forth, keeping the engine just under the red zone. Shots exploded around us. Jerimon looped the ship up and around and back through the three ships that were shooting at us. We were headed nose first for the planet.