Checking the holo, El saw the utility vehicle was in pursuit. It might even gain, on account of the state of their own machine. She didn’t figure they had time to get a new car. The best answer? Traffic. Find traffic and bury themselves in it. Her car was small, and that could be an advantage. You didn’t need to be a big ship to have benefits.
The ship picks her Helm.
She brushed hair from her eyes. Now wasn’t the time for thoughts like that. El turned the little car down a tree-lined boulevard, traffic in orderly rows down each side.
“El,” said Nate. “Helm, what are you doing?
She lined the auto taxi up with the middle of the road and nailed it. Cars streamed past on either side, the city’s automation systems unable to move them all out of the way. El could imagine the rush of air outside the car as they skipped down the line of traffic with barely a handbreadth of space either side. Nate was shouting something behind her, but she didn’t care. El loved this. Sure, she might die, but she’d die happy.
The holo blinked, confused with what was going on, then re-oriented. El asked it for a route to the spaceport, tapping the console with one hand while she steered with the other. Nate was still shouting, words that sounded like are you crazy and we’re going to die and other such nonsense. The utility vehicle was slowing down behind them as it tried to bulldoze through traffic.
El gave Nate a glance. “You done?”
“Eyes on the road!”
“Why don’t you do something useful?” she said, still looking at him. “Like use that blaster of yours. Give them a reason to keep their heads down.”
“The road!” he shouted.
She turned, saw a massive transporter ahead of them, and gave the wheel a twist. Their car screeched sideways in a cloud of smoke. Wheels scrabbled, and then they were off again. But at least Nate had stopped yelling, and was instead pointing his blaster behind them. Fzzzt-crack sounded, and again, as he took shots at their pursuers.
There. Up ahead, the bright lights of the spaceport. Getting inside would be a chore considering they were moving at high speed. The number of security turrets around that place would light them up like a Roman candle if they kept their approach velocity. El rubbed a hand against her face, not even noticing the tremors were gone. Think, El.
Auto taxi. That was it.
She cut the speed of their vehicle down by a large margin, approaching the crawl they had started at. She keyed the console, selecting the spaceport as their destination, then took her hands off the wheel. The automated systems took over.
“Are you crazy?” said Nate. “They’ll catch us.”
“I’m counting on it,” said El.
“You’re … what?”
“Watch and learn,” said El.
The auto taxi slotted into the rest of the traffic approaching the spaceport. Air cars buzzed overhead, and ground cars surrounded them. All was orderly, managed by a central computer. Their own car fitted right in, if you ignored the damage it had sustained, and the smoke coming from the underside. El was certain the machine would book itself into maintenance once they’d been dropped off. They were heading to the destination point now, ceramicrete walls rising around them. El figured this must have been what logs felt like as they were shipped downriver back in the day. The telltale bubbles of security turrets studded the walls. It wouldn’t do to act up in a situation like this. Come into a spaceport with explosives or weapons? Those guns would turn you to slag.
With a little luck, they might do the same to a manually-piloted vehicle that wasn’t responding to hails.
The holo updated, showing the utility vehicle almost on them. El turned to look. The big machine was lumbering towards them, shoveling smaller vehicles aside as it came. Come on. Come on. She wasn’t disappointed. The utility vehicle was about thirty meters away when automated defenses kicked in. Turrets whirred, particle cannons showing themselves. Blue-white light, too bright to look at — El closed her eyes — lanced out. The utility vehicle was destroyed in less than a second, pieces of metal spraying the walls of their drop off lane. One of the particle cannons must have hit the fuel cell, a fireball blossoming in their wake.
El risked opening her eyes. She saw Nate, mouth slightly open, a look of what the actual fuck on his face.
Alarms sounded, red strobing light surrounding them. Their auto taxi stopped, the holo blanking. An automated voice said, “Please exit the vehicle. There is an emergency. Do not panic. Remain nearby and assist the authorities with their inquiries.”
“Okay,” said El. “You’ve got to admit, you’ve never seen better than that.”
Nate closed his mouth. “Helm, I will admit it. I have never seen anything better than that.”
“Let’s be on, then,” she said. She kicked the door open on the second try, sauntering towards the waiting majesty of the spaceport.
• • •
It wasn’t majestic inside. It was a broiling mess of terrified, running people. Security teams were doing their best to control the situation. Because there were about a hundred of them and about ten thousand civilians, it meant the situation was not in any risk of being controlled.
“The ship’s this way,” said Nate, getting attitude like he was about to lead, or captain, or whatever.
“Hold up,” said El.
“Now?”
“Now,” she said. “I haven’t said I’m flying for you.”
“I tell you what,” said Nate. “Why don’t we get on the ship, get a little sky between us and all this fuckery, and then you can decide what you want to do.”
“Okay,” said El. “It’s just, I want to be clear. I’m undecided on the flying part.”
“I’ll take it,” said Nate. “That’s a raise from where you were twelve hours ago.”
“Huh,” said El. “Guess it is.” She followed Nate through the spaceport, human detritus around them. Sometimes they fought against the flow of people. Other times, it felt like an easy tide was washing them in. They arrived at the docking bay El remembered from earlier in the day. The Republic landing shuttle was gone, but that old rust-bucket — the Tyche — still sat there. She was all alone in the bay this time, no other ships down there to keep her company.
El thought at first that might make the ship lonely. To be shunned by everything else. But something about the way the Tyche sat on her skids said, I’m standing vigil. I’ve got crew on this crust, and I won’t leave them behind. It was like she didn’t care about anything else.
It’d been a while since El had been on a ship that looked quite that way. The Nostradamus had been a mighty destroyer, but she was all impersonal efficiency.
The Nostradamus had never been a home.
El shook her head. Nate touched her elbow. “Something wrong, Helm?”
“No. Nothing’s wrong.” She shook him off. “You can drop me up the coast aways.”
“Of course,” said Nate, leading the way to the Tyche. Something in his eyes had said he was disappointed. She didn’t want to care about that. El didn’t want to care about him, or his ship. She wouldn’t start now.
CHAPTER FIVE
EL WALKED INTO the cargo bay of the Tyche. It felt like she was coming home. She didn’t know why she felt that. El started a mental list.
Point one: people are chasing you.
Point two: your captain is a bit of an asshole.
Point three: you are terrified.
None of that should mean she was at home. But something about the way the lights in the cargo bay flickered on as they entered said, hey, welcome aboard. She watched Nate walk up ahead, metal hand on the ladder to the crew deck, and she thought: he’s no asshole. He’s lost an empire, just like you.
“Crap,” said El.
“What?” said Nate, turning around.
“It’s nothing,” she said, boots clanking as she followed him across the deck. The ladder was worn, smooth metal under her fingers. She knew that feel, a starship well loved by the hands that cared for her.
“This is an Empire heavy lifter,” said El.
“There’s no Empire,” said Nate. “Nothing but what we carry inside. And that’s just feelings that should be dead already.” He sounded bitter, and she wondered if she might someday hear the story. And then she wondered why she was thinking in terms like someday, when all she wanted was a lift out of this city. She needed to be away from all the people who wanted to kill her. Having people gunning for her wasn’t a thing that got easier with time.
“What I meant is that I know the ship,” said El. She jerked a thumb aft. “Engineering.”
“That’s right.”
She turned, heading towards the ready room, and fore of that, the flight deck. “I don’t need a tour. I need a ride to the Anchorage spaceport.”
“Anchorage, is it?” said Nate. “Easy run up the coast.”
El paused at the airlock to the flight deck. She looked at the two acceleration couches, holo stage between them. The ceramicrete walls of the spaceport outside the window. At the two guys setting up a gun emplacement there. “Uh,” she said.
Nate saw it too. He slung himself into one seat. She noted that he hadn’t taken the Helm’s chair. Nate had slotted himself into the support station. “We best get moving. Take a seat.”
“I haven’t said if I’m flying for you,” said El. Nate was flicking switches on the console, the Tyche coming to life under his fingers. Her own fingers itched in anticipation. Your mouth argues about things your body’s already decided, Elspeth Roussel. But she held herself back from the chair. Once she was in the Helm’s acceleration couch, she might not get back out.
“Eh,” said Nate. “I guess you’ll just have to make do with screaming and clawing at the walls for support. I’m a lousy pilot.” To emphasize his point, he fired up the Endless controls, the negative space field nudging them off the deck. The ship didn’t come up smooth, wobbling in the air, almost nudging the side of the spaceport dock.
The comm came alive. “Tyche, this is Dock Control. You are not cleared for launch. I repeat, you are not—”
“Dock Control, do you see those two men about to fire a weapon at my starship?” said Nate.
“Uh.”
“I will put skids back on the deck as soon as you promise me they won’t fire,” said Nate. He clicked the comm off. “Assholes.”
“I’ve always found that to be true,” said El. She felt her eyes grow wide as the Tyche tipped the other way as Nate tried to get the hang of the lift controls. There was a grinding, scraping noise as they nudged a ceramicrete wall. El winced, then thought, fuck this, and slung herself into the Helm’s chair. “Get your hand off it. You’ll kill us all before that emplacement’s set up.” She clipped her harness on. It felt like it was the right size for her, the straps not needing much tightening at all.
“Get your hand off it, Captain,” said Nate.
“What?”
“Captain,” said Nate.
She snorted, grabbed the sticks, and lifted the Tyche into the sky. As they drifted above the ceramicrete of the dock’s walls, El saw the horizon lightening with the coming of a new dawn. Burnished bronze promised fire to come. She gave Sol’s arrival a quick salute, then put the sun on the east side of the starship.
The Tyche chattered to herself, then the holo cleared. WARNING WARNING WARNING TARGET LOCK WARNING WARNING WARNING.
“Uh,” said Nate.
El turned, offering him what she hoped was a calming smile. “We’re fine.”
“We are? It’s just that your smile looks half-crazed.”
Half-crazed, was it? El put her hand on the throttle and gave it a nudge. There was a roar from the twin drives at their rear, and the Tyche pushed north, the cannons left well in their rear. El had her hands on the sticks of another starship, and nothing could stop her now.
• • •
El charted a course for Anchorage. The holo blinked at her, RADAR and LIDAR mapping the terrain around them. To their right, the coast of the American continent. Underneath them, the cool dark waters of the Pacific Ocean. The holo overlaid the Tyche’s telemetry with maps of the planet. Earth was still the most charted world humans had set foot on. It was their cradle. Their starting point. Their shore to an interstellar sea.
The reason El had taken them out over the ocean was because it got a lot less static on the comm. Didn’t matter if the Republic was in charge; folk looking at the skies got nervous when a military lifter flew overhead. It was wise to let some of that emotion drain out like pus from an infected wound before you waved the enemy’s flag in their face.
Not that they flew any flag. The transponder was dead. El tapped her console. “Transponder’s not working.”
“Yeah.”
“How’d you land without a transponder?” she said.
“I didn’t ask,” said Nate. “There was a lot going on at the spaceport. Seems any ship with a working reactor was pressed into service ferrying refugees down to the crust.”
“I ain’t no refugee,” said El. Her hands tightened on the sticks. She was aware of her civilian clothes, her ship suit gone. “I ain’t no refugee,” she repeated, as if it would make it true.
“Sure,” said Nate.
“Means landing at Anchorage will be a problem,” said El.
“Well, I’ve been thinking on that particular point,” said Nate, leaning back into his acceleration couch. She watched as he tightened the straps a little more. “We can just say the transponder is broken and we need repairs. Which is true, in a way. It’s similar to what I said when I landed in San Francisco. But before I could finish saying it they were screaming at me to land and help out. Then they forgot about me. Stroke of luck, that.”
“Okay,” said El. “Definitely lucky.” She was about to add something about preferring to be lucky over skilled anytime when the holo switched to an unpleasant red color. The Tyche overlaid the holo with ENEMY SHIPS INBOUND ON ATTACK VECTOR. The ship highlighted two blips, closing at hypersonic speeds. The Tyche said they were approaching at six times the speed of sound. “Enemy ships?” said El, pointing at the holo.
“No one’s told her the war’s over,” said Nate. “She’s not wrong though. Seriously, what did you do to those guys in San Francisco?
“You were the one who cut off someone’s head,” said El. “I was trying to get drunk.” She pressed the throttles forward, and felt the hard hand of Gs pushing her into the acceleration couch. A warning light came on the holo, and the speed dropped a shade. “That’s not good,” said El. “Seems the port drive’s coked up.”
“Is that bad?” said Nate.
“Could blow the drive out of the hull.” El gave him a glance. “When did you last get this ship overhauled?”
“I won her in a card game,” said Nate.
“Oh God,” said El. The enemy ships were closing fast. The Tyche gave them a nudge and reported them to be the Emissary and the Perilous. They were not much more than shuttles, but the Tyche suggested they were still wartime shuttles, which meant missiles for discouraging angry folk. She checked the weapons load outs. PDCs, empty. Chaff, gone. They had forward-facing masers and lasers. The first was a poor choice for dogfighting, the second designed for space. She’d never used them in atmosphere before. “Oh God,” she said, again. “There’s no chaff.”
“I used that before,” said Nate.
“You know you can refill it, right?” said El.
“Well,” said Nate. “I hadn’t got around to it.”
“Oh God,” said El. “My captain’s a moron.”
“You what?”
“My captain’s a moron, sir,” she said.
Nate looked pleased, and El wasn’t sure why. She had bigger things to worry about, like keeping them from dying. She slipped the Tyche down to the deck, holding the starship steady a mere ten meters off the water. Nate’s eyes went wide as the Tyche’s holo compla
ined, saying COLLISION WARNING followed by IMPACT over and over again. They never hit, of course. This was easy flying. The deck was a good place to be. It would confused enemy tracking a shade, and shade was better than daylight in this situation.
El nudged the throttles higher and got the same drive warning. Probably not a good idea. How to solve this problem? Getting to Anchorage was out of the question. They’d be floating wreckage before they hit the Gulf of Alaska. They needed to drop these two ships, and she had no defenses and something close to fuck all offensive armaments.
An alarm sounded, the holo updating with BRACE BRACE BRACE TARGET LOCK MISSILE LAUNCH DETECTED BRACE BRACE BRACE. El slowed the lifter down.
“What are you doing?” said Nate. “What is with you and slowing down?”
“Relax,” said El, wiping sweat from her forehead.
“You need to work on your bedside manner,” he said.
“You need to refill the armaments of this ship,” she said. The missile was approaching fast. El looked out the windscreen at the water right below them, and thought, Ah. “Hold on.”
“To what?” said Nate.
El jockeyed with the Endless controls, one hand still on the sticks. If she could get this right, they might survive. She got the Tyche to tell her it’s load-out — NO LADEN MASS 150 TONNES TARE. Flying wing design. She rolled the ship, dipping the port side down towards the water. Gently, El. Gently. At these speeds it’s like hitting ceramicrete. As the Tyche’s wingtip was about to touch the water at five times the speed of sound, El hit the Endless controls, forming a tiny negative space field around the ship’s wing, creating cavitation in the water. She slammed the throttles forward, nuclear fire raging in their wake. El feathered the Endless controls and the drives at the same time. Newton’s laws still held. Force was being applied to the ship, albeit through an Endless field. Equal force needed to be applied by way of thrust, or they would tumble, to be broken against the water’s surface.
As the Endless field’s cavitation created air around the Tyche’s wing, a massive fountain erupted in their wake. The ship shuddered and shook, but nothing broke. No shearing off the side of the ship into the dark waters below. The Endless field held steady. The drives scalded the wake into superheated steam. The missile on their tail, now hopelessly confused by a boiling heat signature, hit the water and blew into probably a million pieces.
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