by Jay Allan
They reached her cell after just a few moments, and Ethan found her just as he had seen her in the holo recording, curled up in a fetal position on the floor in front of the cell door, her hair splayed out around her head, and her face purpling with a nasty bruise around one eye. Again, Ethan felt rage welling up inside of him, but he had to force it down. While he was surrounded by Brondi’s bodyguards, there was nothing he could do to avenge himself on Verlin.
Ethan went down on his haunches in front of the cell, getting to eye level with Alara. Her eyes were shut, and her previously loud sobbing had quieted to a soft sniffling.
“Alara,” he said in a gentle tone. “It’s me, Ethan.”
She looked up at him with grease-smeared, tear-stained cheeks. Only one of her violet eyes opened, but her gaze quickly found him and settled on his face. “Efan … they got you, too. I’m sawy.” Her lip was split and swollen, causing her to lisp. Ethan vowed to tear Verlin apart for what he did to her. Had he known when he’d first run into the bounty hunter aboard Chorlis Orbital that the man would do this to Alara and ultimately deliver them both to Brondi, he would have drawn his sidearm and shot the dark man dead rather than saying, “I mind my own business.”
“Hey, beautiful. How are you doing?” Ethan asked.
“How do I wook?” Alara asked. She propped herself up on one elbow and tried to smile, but it came out looking sad and crooked.
Ethan smiled back for her sake, but all he really wanted to do was cry and scream and kill. Most of all he wanted to kill. He felt like someone had just beaten his daughter to a pulp, and now he was just a few feet away from the man, and he couldn’t do a thing about it. “You don’t wook too bad,” he said, trying to make fun of her lisp to lighten the mood.
“You should see the other guy,” she replied, still trying that crooked smile.
“You mean me?” Verlin asked, and Alara’s gaze wandered behind Ethan to the group of men standing there.
“Speak of the devwin,” Alara said, and her gaze slid back to Ethan’s face.
By a great force of will Ethan managed to keep from turning around and lunging at the bounty hunter. He went on smiling, but his eyes had grown cold with murder. “Look, Alara, I’m going to get you out of here. I’ve cut a deal with Brondi. He’s going to let us go, erase our debt, give us our ship back … Everything is going to be just fine. You and me again, kiddie. Like always.”
“Wike always…” Alara repeated dreamily. Then abruptly she snapped out of it. “Efan, what are you talking about?”
“I cut a deal. We’re going to get out of this, you’ll see.”
“What kind of deal?” Alara asked, already suspicious.
Ethan hesitated. “Don’t worry about it.” He rose to his feet, and Alara’s good eye followed him, big and scared and suspicious.
“Efan…”
“It’s all been taken care of.”
“Listen to the man, Sweet Thing,” Brondi interrupted. “He’s prepared to do a lot for you.”
Alara began shaking her head. She rose shakily to her feet and reached through the bars of her cell to grab hold of Ethan’s hand. She managed to press on the bandage on his wrist and he winced. Realizing that something was wrong, she turned his hand over and saw the bandage. “What did you woo to him?” she asked, her gaze turning accusingly on Brondi.
The crime boss shook his head. “It’s a long story.”
“They removed my identichip, Alara. I’m going to impersonate a fleet officer in order to…” Ethan trailed off there, unable to completely say what his mission would be for fear of what Alara would think of him. “In order to get some information for Big Brainy here.”
Alara shook her head. “Don’t woo it.”
Ethan grimaced, and pulled his hand free of hers. “I’ll be back soon, kiddie.” With that, he turned and began to leave.
“I love you!” she called after him.
Ethan stopped and slowly turned; his gaze met hers, and he watched the tears shimmering in her good eye, making it shine bright like lavender blossoms in the sun. He held her gaze for a long moment before quietly saying, “I love you, too, Alara.” He took a step forward, but Ethan felt hands on his shoulders turning him roughly away.
“Touching,” Brondi said, “But I’m afraid it’s time for Ethan to go. Say b-bye, Sweet Thing.”
Ethan growled as they dragged him away. “Let me go, Brondi!”
“Oh, come,” Brondi said. “I’ve been more than patient and understanding with you, but your mission can’t wait any longer. You’ll have plenty of time to frek your girlfriend when you get back.”
Ethan shot Brondi a deadly look. “It’s not like that.”
Brondi raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “Well, I don’t really care what it’s like, now do I? Move along. You have a lot of prep work left to do.”
UNDERCOVER
CHAPTER 7
Ethan watched the translucent blue swirl of the Forliss-Etaris space gate rapidly growing larger in the distance. He could hear his nova’s engines roaring, and feel them thrumming through the light duranium and berlium alloy frame of the needle-nosed fighter. The joystick vibrated in his hand as he rocketed toward the Forliss-Etaris gate. Piloting a nova was vastly different from piloting a transport. There was a constant feeling of too much power for too small a ship, of acceleration that bled through the inertial management system—light G-forces the nova purposefully didn’t block in order to help orient a pilot in space. There was also the fact that he had enough firepower under his trigger finger to blow up a small station. It was a wonder that the fleet didn’t abuse that power more—few had the strength to stand up to them.
Ethan double-checked his nav. The star map appeared as an overlay on his HUD, and he saw the route the computer had plotted for him—from Forliss to the Etaris System, from Etaris back to the Chorlis System, then on through the Firebelt Nebula to the Chorlis-Firean gate, and from there to Firea, the ice ball where the Valiant lay in high orbit to guard the entrance of Dark Space.
Estimated travel time was just over an hour. The space gates were mostly all close together, so he didn’t have to spend a lot of time in real space unless he wanted to go sightseeing.
An hour wasn’t much time, but hopefully it would be enough for him to review his identity and familiarize himself with the nova’s controls. Ethan sat back in his flight chair and ran a hand through his recently cropped salt and pepper hair. A holoskin could fake your appearance by projecting a holo field around you, but it couldn’t fake tactile sensations, and if anybody had happened to run a hand through his previously long hair, they’d have figured him out pretty fast. He wasn’t planning to mingle or get close enough for anyone to pick holes in the finer details of his cover, but they couldn’t rule out the possibility.
Ethan’s new name was Lieutenant Adan “Skidmark” Reese, Guardian Five. He was 21 years old, characterized as arrogant, rude, and reckless. His parents worked in the agri-domes on the surface of Forliss, and he had no close relationships among the crew of the Valiant, except for his wingman, Lieutenant Tedris “Blaze” Ashtov, Guardian Six.
The last woman he’d dated was a member of his squadron. She was Marksman Gina Giord, Guardian Four. His squadron commander was Lieutenant Commander Vance “Scorcher” Rangel. Most of Guardian Squadron was out on patrols across Dark Space, but just in case, everything about everyone was detailed in an electronic dossier which Ethan had loaded into the holocard reader implanted behind his ear. That file had been hastily put together from interrogating the real Adan Reese who Ethan had run into aboard Chorlis Orbital. It had taken just one night for Verlin to find out everything they needed to know about the officer’s life in order to steal it from him. Ethan mused that the young man must’ve been easy to crack, either that, or Verlin’s interrogation methods were particularly effective.
Ethan closed the file with a thought and rather focused on the stars, watching them sparkle and burn. He wasn’t the type to read manuals and i
nstruction booklets. He preferred just to dive in and figure things out. He figured the best thing for his cover would be to keep his mouth shut and listen. If you gave people enough chances, they would happily tell you everything you needed to know about them. His role would be to quietly observe and stick to himself as much as possible until he could find an opportunity to sabotage the Valiant—that wasn’t going to be easy, and escaping afterward would be even harder.
Ethan frowned. He wasn’t sure he would be doing humanity a favor. In a time when the human population was already struggling, he was going to kill off 50,000 men and women. Surely there was a better way.
Maybe he could force them to become productive members of society. If he could simply doom their ship to a slow death in some way that would give them enough time to evacuate, but not enough time to fix it, then they could always find other jobs and eventually become less of a drain on society—win-win. He didn’t see how Brondi could object. The mission was to take out the Valiant, which he would do. Killing the crew was implied, but not necessarily a required part of that objective.
Now the Forliss-Etaris gate was all Ethan could see in any direction, and he was racing toward the translucent blue portal at a frightening speed. “Good luck,” he wished himself. “You’re going to need it.” And then time dilated with an actinic flash and a ripple of shimmering light.
-o0o-
As Ethan flew through the last and most dangerous part of the Firebelt Nebula, his eyes skipped between the nova’s gravidar and his HUD, which was supposed to bracket any asteroids as soon as they appeared in range. The nebula had claimed more than a few unwary ships in the past decade because its roiling red clouds swirled with fast-moving asteroids which were often the size of planetoids. Due to the nebula, it would take him almost half an hour in real space to cross from the Etaris-Chorlis gate to the Chorlis-Firean gate—that gate was actually still inside the nebula, but it provided a safe route thanks to the string of interrupter buoys which had been seeded along its jump path. The buoys would drop Ethan out of SLS at the first sign of an asteroid coming too close. At that point, he’d have to use his own SLS drive to reinitiate the jump, which would be more fuel expensive than using a gate, but still infinitely better than being dead. In real space, the nebula’s asteroids were far enough apart that they were a rare sight, and that lulled most pilots into a false sense of security while they were flying, but Ethan wasn’t about to let that happen to him. He was flying his nova hands-on and eyes open.
It wasn’t long before he was rewarded for his vigilance and half a dozen yellow bracket pairs of unknown gravidar contacts appeared against the distant red clouds of the nebula. An instant later, however, those contacts were identified as ships rather than asteroids. Ethan frowned at the SID codes which appeared beneath the bracket pairs. Abruptly, two of the yellow bracket pairs turned to green, indicating that they were friendly ships, and then the nebula flashed with yellow ripper fire and the other four bracket pairs turned red. The friendly targets were identified as nova fighters, while the enemy targets were listed as an “unknown type.”
The comm crackled with static, and then roared with chatter.
“He’s getting a missile lock on me!” The pilot’s voice was female, and Ethan’s targeting computer automatically identified the speaker as Guardian Four—Gina.
“Try to shake him. I’m going to drop a Hailfire on his tail.” That one was identified as Guardian Three, one of the many pilots whose names Ethan hadn’t bothered to memorize from his file.
Great, Ethan thought dryly. He’d already run into a pair of pilots from his squadron, and one of them was none other than his cover identity’s ex-girlfriend. Ethan keyed his comm cautiously, hoping the vocal synthesizer Brondi had found for him would do its job. “This is Guardian Five, you two need a hand?”
“Frek…” Guardian Four muttered. “I thought you were out on assignment, Five?”
“I’m back now.”
“Well get over here,” Guardian Three put in. “We stumbled on a pirate base out here, and they’ve got teeth.” As if to emphasize that point, a stream of ripper fire roared over the comm, and Three began swearing viciously.
“Acknowledged,” Ethan said, and fired up his nova’s dymium lasers. He barely had an hour in the cockpit of a nova and he was already flying into combat. Looks like I’m going to have to prove my 5A rating after all. Ethan lined up the first enemy under his targeting reticle and watched as the reticle flickered green and emitted a soft tone. He pulled the trigger and three fire-linked red lasers flashed out toward his target with a high-pitched squeal that actually made his fighter shake from the force of the abruptly-released energy. The sound was synthesized, not real, and coming from his dash speakers. Ethan saw his lasers make a direct hit and tear off a flaming chunk of the blocky twin-hulled fighter he was tracking. The enemy immediately went evasive and broke out of its attack pattern.
“Thanks for the save, Skidmark,” Guardian Four said. It took Ethan a moment to realize she was talking to him. “Guess you’re not such a dumb kakard after all.”
Ethan smiled and stomped on the port rudder to bring the next enemy into line under his targeting reticle, but it turned to face him before he could get a laser lock. A second later it spat a stream of bright golden ripper fire at him. The first few shells splashed off his canopy shields with a sound like water hissing off a hot plate, jumping his aim and shaking his fighter. Ethan tried to reacquire his target, but before he’d lined up again, a warning siren sounded in his cockpit, and he noticed that his front shields were dangerously depleted.
Ethan stomped on the rudder and pushed his flight stick down, going evasive. He heard a few thunks as ripper shells glanced off his armor, and a computerized voice sounded with, “Front shields depleted.”
Ethan gritted his teeth as he pulled through a high-G turn.
The gauge which showed him the state of his shields began flashing on the HUD, drawing his attention. What looked like four colored parentheses were arrayed around a 2D representation of his ship and flanked by glowing percentages. Aft shields were blue—100%; front were red—slowly recovering at 2%; and both sides were in the green at just over 90%. A word flashed beneath the shield display—equalize. Ethan spoke the command aloud, “Equalize shields!”
Gradually, he saw all four parentheses turn green. Another burst of ripper fire slammed into him, and his ship shuddered beneath the barrage. His aft shields immediately dropped into the red at 35%, and Ethan began jinking his fighter in earnest, rolling to starboard, side-slipping to port, pulling up hard … but the enemy pilot stayed on his tail through all the maneuvers, still appearing dead center behind him on the gravidar.
“I could use some help over here…” Ethan said.
“Roger that, I’ve got him, Skidmark.” Three said. “Hang in there…”
Ethan’s ship shuddered again and his shields hissed with dissipating energy. An audible warning sounded: “Aft shields critical,” and Ethan gritted his teeth, waiting for an explosion to rip into his back as his fighter was torn apart from behind.
Then his comm sounded with, “Missiles away! Fire your afterburners and get clear, Five!” That was from Guardian Three. Ethan struggled to find the switch for his afterburners. There were dozens of buttons whose functions were still a mystery to him. He’d only had time to figure out the basics of piloting a nova. It was a miracle he could even manage to target and shoot.
“Five, he’s lining up above you to pull a switch over! I said get clear!”
“My afterburners are tapped out, Three!” Ethan lied in between decreasing his throttle and firing his starboard maneuvering jets in an attempt to slide out from under his opponent. But the enemy pilot copied his maneuver exactly. Ethan felt panic seize his chest. That junker was going to bait and switch the missiles at the last minute, either by accelerating suddenly or pulling sharply away. Ethan grimaced. “I can’t shake him!”
“Frek it!” Three said, and Ethan heard dym
ium lasers screeching out over the comm. A second later, a vicious explosion rocked his fighter. Bits of flaming wreckage rained down all around him. One hit his canopy with a sizzling thunk that knocked his forward shields down to 10% and elicited another critical shields alert from his ship’s computer. Ethan quickly jammed his throttles to the max, jetting out from under the expanding debris cloud before something else could hit him. “Problem solved, Skidmark. I just shot down the Hailfires before they reached the target. Lucky his shields were already weakened. The other two are making a break for it. Let them go. They’re not worth the fuel and munitions. We’ll hold ground here until the sentinels arrive to capture their base.”
“I can’t believe they were hiding this close to us, right under our noses!” Gina, Guardian Four, said. “They must have taken down the comm relay as a prelude to an attack on one of our convoys.”
“Most likely,” Three replied.
According to Ethan’s file, Brondi’s gang had knocked out the relay in order to give him an excuse to return to the Valiant and make his mission report in person.
“Form up, Guardians,” Three said. “Staggered V formation.”
“Roger that,” Ethan replied. He wasn’t sure what a staggered V should look like, but he assumed the shape of the formation was more or less what was implied. He brought his fighter into line behind Gina’s nova and accelerated until he was flying parallel to her, and then the pair of them pulled up on Three’s tail.
“Adan, weren’t you supposed to meet up with Guardian Six before heading back to the Valiant?” A quick look at the comm display told Ethan it was Guardian Three who’d asked.
“He got delayed on Forliss Station,” Ethan said. The truth was he was dead, just like Adan. The two of them had been out investigating a nova pilot’s murder and they had quickly becomes victims of the killer themselves. “He had a problem with his fuel lines,” Ethan went on. “He said he’d catch up with me once it was fixed.”