by Jason Letts
“I’m not saying it to criticize you. We just need you to pilot to the best of your ability to dodge this fire,” he said, barely getting out the words before she swung the ship hard to starboard, pushing Rion hard against the left wall.
“They’re targeting the engines, trying to kick out our legs so they can catch us easier,” Bailor said, exchanging glances with Rion.
“Have you figured out a plan yet?” Rion asked him.
“I was just about to ask you that.”
Rion gritted his teeth and took another look at all of the controls in front of him. While Lena may have thought all of them were connected to weapons of various sorts, what he remembered from Reznik suggested that just as many of them were measures of deception or evasion. What would be enough to trick a ship bearing down hard on them?
“Can we at least fire up the second engine? Maybe if we amplify our heat signature it’ll suggest that we’ve got a bigger ship or some energy-intensive weapon we’re preparing to unload.”
“That’s not too tough, but if we bring it up too much it’ll reduce our velocity. Remember these things are pointing in opposite directions,” Bailor said.
Rion would’ve loved to simply drop a bomb that would take down the enemy behind them, but he couldn’t figure out how or if that could be done. Instead, he went with the one option he could be sure of. He remembered what Reznik did to launch those satellites, a blue button with some dots along the upper end of the console. Hitting it, he hoped the ship would successfully carry out the order.
All of a sudden a handful of green dots raced out in front of them, but it turned out even better than he expected.
“I’m seeing a flare option that would burn these drones up, suggesting the appearance of more ships. These don’t have any weapons capabilities anyway, but if it looks like we’ve got backup it might scare off our friend here,” Bailor said.
Another spritz of blaster fire pelted the ship.
“Do it,” Rion ordered. The satellites began to light up in front of them, and for all the galaxy it looked like they were rushing into the arms of a group of friends with engines roaring. They waited for signs that their pursuer would turn tail and run, but it didn’t happen.
“He’s drawn blood and won’t pull his jaws out until something bites him on the ass,” Lena said.
An alarm went off as the ship launched a missile at them. Things were getting dire fast and Rion focused on finding a way to win. Continuing to run wasn’t working out. If these people wanted to have a fight to the death this moment, he wasn’t going to hesitate to take them up on it.
“Get ready and on my mark we’re going to turn the ship around and go at them. We should be lined up with the satellites. We can give them the face and everything else we’ve got,” he said.
“But that missile,” Bailor said.
“Trust me.”
The projectile screamed up from behind. Rion smacked the big waste ejector button and signaled to change course. The missile collided with the mass of compacted matter, exploding harmlessly. The Assailing Face twisted around with the frontal display in full illumination. Rion savored a second to wonder what was going through the minds of the people on board the attacking ship: panic, confusion, or some ballooning sense of dread.
He had a hunch that a triangular shaped button was linked to a weapon of some sort. It could’ve popped the landing gear for all he knew, or triggered some jammed explosives, but he tapped the glass hard and waited for some effect. A dozen tiny blue pellets, tracer fire, struck the enemy ship all at once. The shots were highly targeted, taking out the turrets, joints on the wings, blasting open the windshield, and more.
“Look at this. It managed to locate and strike the life support systems. Between that and the loss of pressure, everyone on board will be dead of exposure in minutes,” Bailor said.
Lena sighed and sat back in the seat.
“This ship was just waiting for us to give it a chance to knock them out. We have to trust it.”
The pursuing vessel sailed on past them, a crippled husk that was going dark and seemed destined to float on for eternity. Rion watched it go with an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“That could’ve been us too easily. We can’t be unprepared like that and let someone come up on us again,” he said.
The other two agreed, and they spent the trip from Jupiter to Saturn doing as much research as they could about the ship and its capabilities. The route took them wide around Venus in order to avoid any more unwanted attention and lasted another few days. Even after all of that, there were still a dozen or more functions and mechanisms that couldn’t be identified.
It was a relief when Saturn loomed large in front of them, an oasis in a desert of empty space. Most human activity around the planet centered on its impressive assortment of moons, but the flight log took them to a spot along the exterior near what was known as the Encke Division. Most of the material in Saturn’s rings was ice, but they spotted a rock with a diameter of about a kilometer that was their target.
“I wonder where this rock got towed in from,” Bailor said.
As they got closer, they noticed that it had an artificial atmosphere installed on it, not too different than the bubble around the Mars spaceport. Arching toward it, they saw a field of green stretching out on a flat end around a few structures, one of which had the look of a farm house. A light had been rigged up near the top of the bubble to grow plants.
“I’ve never heard of an atmosphere operating on such a small mass before. The heating system, reservoir, air filter, everything must be underground,” Bailor said.
“Now that is beautiful,” Lena said with a quiet gasp. “Peace and quiet while you enjoy your view of the universe.”
Rion had his eyes on more practical things than the lifestyle such a place offered or its inner workings.
“The sensors aren’t picking up any signs of ships in the area, nor are they detecting any weapons or targeting systems.”
“I hope they don’t mind visitors,” Lena said.
They made their final approach at a slow, deliberate pace in order to avoid giving off any sense of aggression. Even when they passed through the bubble and hovered over a bare patch on the end that looked suitable for landing, there weren’t any signs of human life.
Landing pads down, Lena motioned to set the ship down but lost equilibrium and sent the vessel smacking the ground hard against the back end and careening to the side.
“Careful,” Rion said, sure the crunch he heard was the result of something breaking.
“I haven’t done this before. All the places I went had docks,” she said.
After another attempt, she managed to gingerly set the ship down. When it came to rest, Rion was anxious to see what the damage was. He opened the hatch but found there was no entryway ramp attached to the ship. To get down, he had to climb down some bars and pipes along the exterior of the main engine. It wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be, but it wasn’t pretty either.
“That’s going to take some welding to fix,” he said. “That whole pad is mangled, and that crater you left has something hard in the bottom of it. I hope we didn’t do anything to compromise the system here.”
Lena crossed her arms.
“Just because I made a mistake doesn’t mean I have to apologize to you about it.”
“I could use one.”
The voice made them all turn their heads. Bailor, who was still climbing down the side of the engine, hopped off to the ground as a man with very dark skin and white hair came toward them through a section of what appeared to be tomato bushes on poles. Staring at him to see what he would do became unseemly, and Rion nudged Lena in the back. She swallowed.
“I’m sorry about that landing, it’s just that…”
“It’s not your ship,” the man said. His expression was hard to read, something between annoyed and intrigued. He held his nose up a bit, which wasn’t a bad idea because the entire plac
e had a fragrant aroma from all of the plants.
“You’re Heath Diff, aren’t you?” Lena asked. “We came to find you. We were there when…”
“When Reznik died. Her ship was attacked by what she said was one of the black flags. The ship survived, but a fire broke out and got her,” Rion said.
“Can anybody let me finish a sentence?” Lena howled. “She brought us on board, and we’ve brought the Assailing Face to you because we need help learning how to use it. We want to continue her mission, if you can tell us what that was exactly.”
Lena finished with a smile, but the resident’s expression grew sour. He had a tomato in his hand and was squeezing it hard enough that it was starting to leak on the ground. The way he glanced up into space made Rion think for a moment that another ship was approaching, but something else must’ve drawn his attention that way.
“I don’t even know where to begin with what you said right there,” he said, sighing. “You mean to tell me another black flag killed Reznik? Wait, wait, let’s back up. When was this? It’s been a long time since I’ve set eyes on this flying toaster, and I know she wouldn’t leave me cold unless she was cold. I’ll start over. I am Heath Diff and the only way you knew to find me was if you went back through the flight logs. I told her it was a bad idea to save any of that.”
Now it seemed he might break out in tears. His mouth was open like he couldn’t get enough air. There was no doubt their return was opening up a lot of old wounds.
“It happened ten years ago,” Rion said. Heath forced a jerky nod.
“And what brings you around here now, been joy riding this whole time? No, scratch that. I know the answer to that question. You’re here for what drove Reznik out there, and she was way out there. Come on inside before this lamp fries the hair off your heads.”
Heath led them down a path between some corn stalks on the left and bean stalks on the right. The row went past a barn and the farmhouse entrance and didn’t stop until the edge of the landmass, like if they kept walking and weren’t paying attention they could fall right out into space.
The house was in excellent condition, despite a somewhat dated appearance. Not a single paint chip or even a creaky step as they ascended onto the porch. A robo dog was curled up in the corner, too tired to lift its head off the floor, even though it was a shiny piece of metal. Heath shook his head at it.
“They’re too good with these programs. Why have a fake dog act like he’s growing old?”
While the exterior of the farmhouse was old fashioned, when they stepped inside they were amazed at all of the high tech gadgetry that Heath had inside. A prominent feature in the entryway room was a large screen displaying readouts about the farming operation. It was hard not to be intrigued by readings about the humidity level, rotation speed, power output, and every other metric one could imagine. Accompanying dials and sliders could make adjustments on anything.
Heath gestured for them to sit at a bare, unpolished wooden table, but Bailor’s eyes got the best of him and he casually approached the display.
“If you so much as breathe on that, I’ll kill you,” Heath said in a polite but serious way. Bailor scratched his chin and dragged himself to the table. Rion was ready to turn the page on talk of anybody killing anyone else.
“I know it must be strange seeing that ship again, but I don’t think it’s an accident we’ve ended up with it. We’re serious about doing something to stop the Alliance,” he said.
Heath had a tired look in his eye, but he nodded dutifully.
“I’m sure you are, but whether you can do anything about it, even with this ship, remains to be seen. Reznik wasn’t a regular sort of person. Her ability to train hard and do absolutely whatever was required in order to succeed set her apart. She once spent three days in the most foul-smelling sewer imaginable, motionless, to have a chance at the fecal matter of one man to find out what he ate that she could poison.
“When everybody has ships that can blow each other apart at the touch of a button, fighting in space is a mental game more than anything else. Reznik was one person with zero hesitation. If you three have to debate what you’re going to do, you won’t last a day going against anybody out there.”
Rion already felt like he was soaking in the wisdom from this old man. Heath had clearly been deeply involved in Reznik’s endeavor, even if he hadn’t stepped off this rock in decades. What he said about needing to be of one mind gave Rion pause. So far they seemed to be arguing over everything.
“Can you clarify exactly what she was trying to do? We haven’t been able to find out from her writings, and it’s not obvious based on her actions,” Bailor said.
Heath glanced away at the display but seemed to be staring through it. The answer might not’ve been something he wanted to part with.
“Even I don’t know the exact end game she had in mind. The reason she killed Regent Kline on Mars was so that his son would take over. Her victim was careless and incompetent, but his son was much more organized and reliable. Instead of waiting fifteen or twenty years for that old bastard to retire or die, she sped things along. It took years, but Mars is finally shedding much of its squalor, or at least it was until this latest clamp down from the Alliance,” Heath said.
Rion shook his head. Hearing that the Alliance was ruining Reznik’s work made him angry. He sympathized with her plight so much now that he was trying to fill her role.
“It still doesn’t make sense to me. Why is the Alliance suddenly acting like this?”
Rion meant it as a rhetorical question, but for some reason it made Heath burst out laughing. It quickly subsided, leaving only a wry grin on his face.
“It may seem sudden to you, but for some of us this has been a long time coming. Rez and I were there when the wheels first started being put in motion. I helped her escape from the thermal plants on Mercury, taught her to fly. Being outside the system, out on our own, gave us a better vantage point to watch the Alliance open the door to what it became today.
“What they needed to do was develop an enemy, and they had dozens of choices. The Marshall Force was originally called the Marshall Group, and they were a media organization. The Alliance leaked weapons and equipment to them, and slowly their security teams grew into armies and fleets. That was the Alliance’s long game, but the Marshall Force still isn’t the potent but containable threat they wanted. In the interim, they covertly supported the black flags and other pirate groups. That immediately undermined safety in the solar system, but all these rogue ships weren’t unified enough to present enough of a threat to require this kind of takeover.”
“One question. Do you know much about the fighting going on between the Alliance and the Marshall Force? They say it’s escalated to a war, but we don’t know how much to believe,” Lena said.
Heath glanced to another corner of the room with some other types of equipment.
“I can listen in to a lot of the Alliance’s private channels with that. For the Alliance the fighting is perfunctory, for show. None of the fighters on the ground know better, but I can tell some are a little confused about why they don’t steamroll the Marshall Force and flatten them completely. None seem to realize that prolonging the fighting is the express desire of the Alliance commanders. Most don’t recognize that they’re fighting against old Alliance weaponry.
“I have to say I appreciated the leftovers though. Most of the materials we got for the Assailing Face came from Alliance supply dumps. While other looters just wanted to kill and pillage, we had something grander in mind, and we knew how to take it apart and create a marvelous ship. Reznik achieved an enviable degree of notoriety, often getting blamed for the others’ misdeeds. I admit I feel guilty over her death. As impressive as it is, if I’d been able to do what I planned to do with the ship, she’d probably still be living.”
Rion shared curious glances with the other two. How could the Assailing Face have been even greater than it was? Heath didn’t need them to ask to go on
.
“You know about the face, right? That it’s just for show. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. What we wanted was an honest to goodness weapon capable of concentrating so much heat that it would cook other ships even with the diffusion of energy in outer space. Theoretically, it was possible, but all we ended up with were big headlamps.”
Abruptly, as if disappointed in himself, Heath got up from the table and went into another room. As he walked they noticed he had a slight limp. A few minutes passed in which the sounds of clinking came from the other room. Lena stretched her fingers out on the bare wood and regarded the boys carefully.
“I know I can be like that. Three days in a sewer? I can be like that if that’s what it takes, not a regular sort of person.”
“If you want to handle the sewers, more power to you,” Bailor said.
But Rion smiled at Lena, seeing more clearly where she was coming from. He knew she was exceptional, and it was warming to see her embrace it. Whatever she could dredge up, he had a feeling they were going to need it.
When Heath returned, he had a tray with a large pitcher and glasses on it. His expression was warmer than anything they’d seen yet. His pride was beaming through.
“Careful. This lemonade is so good you’ll lose your minds,” he said. “Perfectly engineered from the seeds up.”
Part of the engineering must’ve included the pouring, because Heath filled their glasses with such precision that they had to contain an exactly equal quantity of liquid. Eagerly taking his glass, Rion sipped it to find it was loaded with enough sugar to make all of his teeth ache. He forced himself to continue drinking and put on a big smile.
“That is wonderful,” Rion said, trying to use his hand to cover how much was remaining in his cup.
Next to him, Lena cringed.
“It’s a little…” she said, when Rion clamped down on her thigh under the table. “Delicious!”
Bailor drained the entire cup and didn’t say a word.
“Now you might feel more comfortable, like you’re at home. Why don’t you tell me about yourselves and what you plan to do,” he said.