by Zach Winderl
“Not a problem. I don’t aim to fight anyone at the moment, we just have to run the gauntlet.”
Lilly snapped her head sideways to stare at him. “Gauntlet?”
“We’re either going to the shipyards or need to look like we are. I haven’t decided yet?”
“Haven’t decided?” Lilly verged on panic. “Was the shipyard the plan from the get go? I thought you just had to take out Motoki.”
“That was the assignment from your people.”
“My people?”
“Your tribe.”
“They’re not my people anymore.”
“If you say so.” Atom pulled on the yoke, lifting the skiff into a gentle swoop that pointed them away from the gate and further into the system.
“Are they sending you to the yards?”
Atom shook his head. “That’s all on me. After neutralizing Motoki, they would expect us to either head back to the planet to hook up with my ship, or burn hard for the gate and hope we outrun any pursuers.”
“So, you float for the spot they wouldn’t expect?”
“Firm, right through the heart of their fleet and on to the stalemated shipyards. If we can mosey this shuttle up their tailpipes, we might be able to fool them long enough to slip it through their wall and then I’m hoping they won’t risk any kind of shot that might damage the yards.”
Leaning back in her seat, Lilly whistled as she processed his plan. “You’re hopped out of your pan.”
“I think I did that a while back.”
“What’s the play if we make it to the yards?”
“I have an idea, but I need to work that out.” Atom flashed a cocky grin as he locked in the coordinates for the fleet and relaxed their acceleration to an acceptable in-system pace. “We have about an hour before we hit our event horizon. Can you relay a tight-beam to the Ticket so I can try to line up the next step?”
Lilly’s fingers began flying before she said, “I think so.”
A moment later, Hither appeared on Atom’s console.
“You’re alive.” Relief swept away worry like clouds after a storm. “We’ve all been wearing holes in the floor waiting for word. Kozue said an EMP went off and killed all unshielded planetary electronics. And we couldn’t figure a way to reach you or even figure out where you went.” The words swept out in a torrent. “Please tell me, for Margo’s sake, that you’re safe.”
Atom bobbed his head. His smile softened his rugged features. “Yeah, things seemed to have worked out in our favor. I completed the job, now we just need to work the back angle, contact the client, and get paid. This is the first time I’ve had to figure out how nomads settle their accounts.”
“That would explain the visit we just had from Bronte.”
“Bronte was there?” Atom asked in amazement. “We just completed the job, not even half an hour ago.”
“We?”
“I discovered Lilly decided to tag along.”
“That explains why we haven’t been able to locate her around here.
“Worrisome?”
“No, we just figured she had ducked into the city. She’s not crew, so we didn’t even give it much thought.” Hither frowned. “We just thought of her in passenger terms, until we started wondering if we were going to have the pop the bubble and leave her behind. We took a vote and decided that if it came to a premature lift, we would leave the pad on a credit with the Hellkite parked for her.”
“Much appreciated,” Lilly said from her seat, out of Hither’s line of sight.
“It’s the least we could do.” Hither shrugged. “Seems moot at this point. What are we up against?”
Atom stared at Hither in silence, his mind turning and formulating.
“I need you to lock this trajectory and burn hard for an intercept.” Atom punched a few keys on his screen and sent the information. “Did Bronte bother to settle while he was there?”
“He did. Fifty-thousand ko, on a chit. He asked about the next job.”
Atom looked up from the screen, focusing on the spread of stars gleaming through the Black. “I don’t know that I’ve made a final decision on that.” His eyes pinched at the mental discomfort. “I know how the crew voted last time, but I don’t know that I want to worry that one right now.”
“Then we move on the treasure?”
“The potential treasure,” Atom corrected. “We just landed the ko that will cover our expenses, there and back again. Even if we don’t find anything out there, we know we’ll be covered enough to float to our next gig.”
Hither stood and stepped back from the screen to grab the bridge com from the ceiling mount. “Shi, bridge it. Everyone else, prep for lift in two.” She stepped off camera, but left the connection live. “I’m prepping the burners now, Cap. We should be off the ground and out of the well in ten.
“And then we’re looking at….” She dropped back into her seat, but shifted her attention to another screen. “Probably four hours to intersect. I have the coords punched in the nav-system and a flight path locked, but I’ll crunch numbers and see if I can’t shave time.”
Shi trotted by in the background. “Hiya, Cap,” she called out with a friendly wave as she swiveled into Daisy’s seat and dropped down to begin fiddling with the controls. “Thanks fer preppin’ the engines, Hither. Firin’ now.”
“Lift time?” Hither asked.
“Lift in sixty,” Shi replied.
“We’ll be on our way to you, lifted and burned, momentarily.” Hither turned back to Atom. “I’m looking at the numbers. If you ease off the accel, we can make it to you in under four hours.”
“Where’s Daisy?” Atom demanded in a hushed tone. “He’s not on one of his benders?”
Hither shook her head and said, “He’s a little dinged up at the moment. Should be fine, but he’s not really in a spot to fly right now.”
“You guys had trouble?”
“Nothing we couldn’t handle, sir.”
Atom stared at her through the screen, trying to measure her words. She played the game well, but he noted Shi stiffen in her seat in the background.
“I’ll be home soon,” Atom said, keeping his own voice and face level. “I want to keep our flight uninterrupted. Not that it will fool anyone looking closely, but it will keep people guessing as to who we are and where we’re going. I’m hoping the nest I stirred on the station will set them back on their heels long enough for us to slip the system sideways.”
“And the reason for the shuttle instead of just waiting for us to scoop you?”
“No sense in sitting at the scene, waiting for someone to figure out we’re there.”
***
“Atom, we’re on approach.” Strain flexed Hither’s voice. “Our vectors will overlap for ten minutes, but we’ll overshoot unless you want us to alter velocity.”
Atom growled to himself. “We don’t have suits, you’ll have to brake and match. Unfortunately, that’ll throw some of the ambiguity out of the lock about what’s happening to us.”
“We don’t have much choice, do we?” Lilly had shifted back from her escapade as Mir and sat coiled in her seat, dozing as she half-watched the monitors.
“Maybe it made them wonder at our course.”
“If they’re even looking.” Lilly sighed and punched a black monitor to life. “There’s nothing popping on the feeds about this, military or civ. There should be something somewhere, but I’m not catching any chatter anywhere.’
“Is there a chance they don’t know yet?”
“It’s been hours. We didn’t kill everyone, not even everyone in the bay. I didn’t get a good count of everyone we left alive, but there were a few marines and the techs in the control room. That doesn’t count the two patrols somewhere else in the station that should have found them by now, even if we’d managed to kill all witnesses.” Lilly shifted in her seat and hugged her knees to her chin in thought. “There’s no way someone hasn’t discovered the present we left and sent the info up the
food chain.”
“And don’t forget the admiral had to be on the radar,” Hither said from the open com. “People had to know where he was in case something needed to be brought to his attention.”
“Unless there’s nothing to pass along and they assume he’s aboard this lighter.” Atom rubbed his eyes and sighed with resignation. “We have a better chance of falling in a black hole than slipping under their scans.”
“Maybe you should have brought the admiral aboard and eliminated him there,” Hither quirked a shrug.
“I don’t think Atom understands a knife in the dark.” Lilly’s laugh fractured the tension.
Atom cursed, even as he grinned and shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe I didn’t see this playing out like this.” He rubbed his hands through his hair and leaned back to stare up at the ceiling. “I anticipated a hot pursuit that I would take to the planet, or that I would have thrown them for enough of a decayed orbit that they wouldn’t notice me long enough to slip the system.”
“You didn’t anticipate me either.” Lilly grinned.
“And that was a pleasant surprise. I could have pulled the job without you, but you pulled their attention in a way I couldn’t have by myself.”
“I don’t suppose you want to cut me in on a portion of the payout?”
Atom slipped his hands from atop his head to cradle his neck. “We can discuss it when we are safe aboard the Ticket, but until then, I say we worry less about the money and more about how we’re floating out of all this intact.”
They sat in silence for a moment, contemplating their situation when a tight-beam communication lit up Lilly’s console.
She glanced to Atom in alarm. “That’s not from your people.”
“Nope,” Hither said from her screen. “We’ve the open channel already.”
Lilly’s fingers flew across her board. “That’s a direct link from the admiral’s flag. If we don’t take this, they’ll know something’s afoot.”
Atom nodded and muted Hither’s feed. “Can you do that voice thing again?” he asked.
“No, I didn’t have enough of a sample,” Lilly said as she patched the transmission through.
A young captain popped up on Atom’s console. “Admiral Motoki, we just received a trans— Wait.” The man registered Atom looking back at him. “You’re not the admiral. Who are you?”
“Liaison from our office at the imperial court, Flynn Mosby.” Atom gestured over his shoulder. “The admiral is closing his eyes for a few. If you think this is important enough to wake him, I can do that. He did seem pretty adamant about letting him rest, but if you think this is important enough….”
The captain hesitated.
“Or you could just relay it through me and I’ll tell him when he wakes,” Atom said.
“Just let the admiral know that we received a transmission from Kafiristan orbital regarding a disturbance in the hangar bays. The information is minimal at the moment. Apparently, there was a rapid decomp in the bay. We know there have been casualties, but nothing as to the timing of the incident. We believe an attempt was made on the admiral’s life, but they must have mistimed their attempt.
“I’m waiting on the full incident report and if there is anything of importance I will be in touch with you.” The man seemed relieved to unload the information.
“I’ll pass it along as soon as Motoki wakes up. I’ve been picking up rumors in my digging about some sort of attack. I assumed it was another act of sabotage along the lines of the EMP that took out our coms relays all over the planet.
“Perhaps a saboteur blew a lock.” Atom looked at the captain with concern. “Hopefully casualties weren’t too high. The good news for us is that we seemed to have skipped out before the admiral could be in danger. On that note, we are anticipating an arrival time just under three hours from now.”
“Very good, sir,” the captain nodded and cut the connection.
Lilly slumped in her seat. “I don’t know what I expected there, but you talking your way out of things didn’t seem high on the list.” She flashed a weary smile. “And they didn’t mention the Ticket in any of that.”
“Interesting turn.” Atom pulled Hither back up on his console. “They’re dealing with a massive decomp in the bays. That probably means no bodies, or time-consuming retrieval on the outside orbit.”
Lilly perked. “That means no admiral.”
“They don’t even suspect he’s missing at the moment,” Atom replied. “I wonder if we clipped a stasis projector during our escape?”
“Nothing kills atmo like lack of containment,” Hither said.
“That leaves us slipping out just ahead of the attack with the most important Migori man aboard our ship. Hopefully, that buys us enough time.”
“And the Ticket?” Lilly asked.
“She’s an indie merch on a straight shot to the jump-gate. That our paths cross is purely coincidental.”
“They’ll figure it out eventually,” Hither said with a distracted air as she looked over her screens. “The good news is we are set to shift our course momentarily and link in just under ten. We’re extending the umbilical now.”
“We’ll be ready.” Atom closed the coms. “Lilly, let’s wipe this place down.”
“What’s the play? Are we leaving them a surprise or spreading more confusion?” Lilly uncurled and leaned into her screens. “Or should we just slip out and leave them with absolutely nothing?”
Atom stared at his own screen in thought. “Let’s leave them a mystery.” His grin brought a low chuckle from Lilly. “I’m wiping all traces of this dock, but let’s set the lock to vent atmo after we’ve left. That way when the shuttle arrives, it’ll be empty and they’ll have to piece everything together.
“Hopefully that will give them even more of a riddle to spin their pans and it gives us more time to slip into the Black.” Atom punched a final key and initiated manual override as he brought the ship into line with the Ticket.
In the Black, two ships drifted closer together and the docking umbilical locked over the skiffs hatch. A slight thump tapped through the hull as the magnetic ring engaged. Atom watched a green light pop on his screen signifying a positive seal.
“Time to go.” He rose from his seat and initiated a final system purge.
Lilly scowled at her monitor a moment longer, finalizing the ghosting of their ship before joining Atom at the hatch.
***
Seven jumps and the respective system crossing put the One Way Ticket closer to the Palm than the crew had been since coming together. It also made their discovery and apprehension exponentially more unlikely.
After they reached the Pinky, Atom settled. He knew the chances of the Migorihan tracking their ship after the first jump-gate calculated to the distant decimals, but something in the way the hit had played out, and the involvement of the Tribe left the feeling of a heavy blade hanging over his neck.
They knew his identity, and while the Tribe might not be able to actively track his movement through the galaxy, he knew they had eyes in every system.
Two weeks passed in quiet.
Only then, when they floated on the Black, deep between two systems, did Atom pull the crew into the mess. He chose a time when Lilly worked in the hold on Ash’s weapons systems. He closed and locked the doors before joining the others at the table.
“The haul is divvied,” he said, taking a seat at the head of the table with seven even piles of square ko coins in front of him. “I’ve pulled an extra share for Lilly. Whether we asked her to or not, she put herself on the line to complete the job. I can’t say whether she deserves this or not, but I want to put it to a vote.”
“Is this a permanent arrangement?” Hither asked.
“No.” Atom shook his head. “One-time payment for services rendered.”
Daisy studied the piles. He had healed from his wound, but the slow recovery worried Atom. The pilot’s usual glowing dark complexion still seemed wan and waxy.
His eyes, though, maintained the alertness. “How does this affect the back half of the Tribe’s job?” he asked.
“We tabled that. We never voted on it and honestly, the more I think about it, the more I don’t think that’s something I need to put on all of you. I won’t ask any of you to pull the trigger and I don’t plan on putting you in that position.”
“I’ll do it,” Shi said, her voice flat, calm, deadly.
“I know you would,” Atom replied. “But it’s my call at this moment.
Shi nodded. “Jist let me know when you change yer mind.”
“You ‘ate the biddy that much?” Byron glared across the table at Shi.
“Got no feelin’s one way or ‘nother.” Shi shrugged. “It’s a gig an’ she ain’t one a us. You float outside our family an’ it makes no differ whether you live or die. ‘Less yer a danger to one a us, thin you die.”
“Back to this cut on the table. I don’t want this to be a hire,” Atom said as he turned to watch Margo stalk Mae around the thin kitchen island. “Think of it as a contractor fee for a job.”
“I’ve nothing against it,” Daisy said and held up a finger. “I’m for.”
With the exception of Shi, the others each raised a single finger in approval.
“I ain’t aginst it.” Shi shrugged. “I jist don’t like seein’ my ko go to others when it could be in my pocket.”
“Fair enough,” Atom said as he pushed a pile to each of his crew. “We all take that bite on this. On to the next order, the treasure. We’ve made it far enough that I’m not worried about the Migori, so let’s put that behind us. We know we need to make it to the Nemo System. How are we looking on that, Daisy?”
“I’d have to plot it in the nav-comp, but rough estimate is less than a week,” the pilot said with a frown as he plotted the maze of jump-gates in his head. “I’ll let the comp pull the fastest course through the maze, but I can guarantee it won’t be much more than a week.”