“Will there be guards at these gates?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “but there might not be too many, and this car is armored. We can just push through, get to Persephone, run up the stairs, get inside, and then blast off.”
“Tell me where to go, Husband. I will follow your will.” Sivaha’s voice sounded excited, as if she was about to play a fun game instead of playing cat and mouse with a city’s police force.
I just hoped that Eve, Zea, Madalena, Paula, and Kasta were already on Persephone, or things would get way harder.
“The two police cars are moving closer,” Sivaha warned, and I turned around to see them splitting lanes so they could try and come up alongside us.
Their tactic didn’t make much sense since they had seen what my shotgun had done, but then I saw a man poke his torso out of his window and point a large chrome rifle at us.
“Plasma rifle!” I shouted as my heart jumped in my chest.
“I see it!” Sivaha yelled, and she tugged hard on her steering wheel an instant before the man let loose with his shots.
The yellow balls of energy streaked toward us like angry hummingbirds, but Sivaha had twisted us into the right shoulder lane, slammed on the brakes, and then yanked hard left on her wheel. It meant that the plasma fire passed right in front of us, and we were cutting across the lanes like a drunk man trying to veer toward a hallway bathroom.
I rolled down the window on the other door and tried to get my shotgun out, but the man fired his plasma rifle again, and Sivaha had to scrape the sedan against the leftmost freeway divider to keep us from getting fried. She punched on the accelerator, and we continued to scrape along the wall until we came out around the other side of a large shipping truck.
Then the truck turned into a ball of plasma fire.
“Definitely not the police,” I growled as I shifted back to the right window.
I finally got my shotgun out the window, but the cars following us drifted back to the left side. They realized my gun was a problem, and could just shift to the opposite side and fall back until I didn’t have a good shot.
Meanwhile, their plasma rifle had an effective five-hundred-meter range.
Sivaha seemed to understand my worry, and I felt her add even more speed onto our sedan. The other two cars soon fell back, but then I saw pinpricks of light.
“They are--” I started to shout, but Sivaha was already swerving, and the plasma fire turned the left side of the road into a lava pit.
“Fuck these assholes,” I growled. “We need to lose them or kill them.”
“I would prefer to kill them,” Sivaha quipped.
“Me too.” I realized that I wasn’t tired anymore. It felt as if I had rested, and I wondered if the adrenaline was keeping my exhaustion at bay.
“The plasma rifle is a problem,” she said.
“No shit,” I replied. “I need to get in closer to use my weapon, but they can keep us at bay with it.
“I can turn the car around and drive at them,” she said calmly, and her eyes drifted up into the rearview mirror to stare at me.
“That sounds fucking crazy,” I said. “Do it.”
“Yes, Husband.” She grinned and then slammed on the brakes as she twisted the wheel.
The sedan’s wheels screeched out an ear-piercing scream, but the car twisted around without flipping over. There were a few other cars on the freeway, but they had all seen the explosions and were either trying to get off or speed away.
As soon as Sivaha had the nose of the sedan facing the attacking cars, she pressed on the acceleration again, and we raced down the asphalt toward them. The man with the plasma rifle was on the leftmost vehicle, leaning out of the left side, so Sivaha kept our trajectory more towards our right so he would have problems lining up a shot.
That still didn’t change the fact that we were playing chicken against a plasma rifle.
The man fired, and Sivaha leaned on the wheel a bit so that the globs of energy flew by. She was now splitting the line between the two charging cars, and her helmet dripped back over her face.
I pressed the button for my own helmet, but I knew my mom would die if we actually did plow into these fuckers.
I moved to the left window, punched my shotgun out, and prayed that they would break and turn their cars away.
Since I knew that Sivaha wouldn’t.
She wouldn’t kneel or bow to anyone but me. She’d smash this car right up their assholes, even if it meant that we could all die. She was arrogant, stubborn, manipulative, pretentious, and bigoted.
But Sivaha also loved me and was committed to me. I could feel her excited joy as she drove the car right at our enemies, and knew that she didn’t care if she died, she just wanted me to love and respect her like she loved and respected me.
The three cars sped toward each other, and no one broke.
Five hundred meters.
Four hundred meters.
Three hundred meters and the fucker with the plasma rifle shot a blast that missed our tail by a handful of centimeters.
Two hundred meters.
One hundred meters.
The two cars swerved to the side suddenly, and my shrapnel sprayer sang its deadly song. The blades cleaved through the car the rifleman rode in, and it lifted off the road as if a giant had punted it.
Sivaha slammed on the brakes and twisted the wheel hard to her left. The motion threw me back against the seat, and I reached an arm out to steady my mother’s body. The drugs they gave her must have been really powerful because she’d always been a light sleeper.
“Last one,” Sivaha growled as the sedan fishtailed and then whipped behind the remaining police car.
We were now the hunters, and the other car knew that it was now our prey.
The siren lights turned off, and the squad car aggressively began to dodge through traffic. Sivaha danced our car behind it like a smart missile, and we soon closed the distance.
“Can you get a shot from here?” she asked as she twisted our sedan around a school bus.
“Get closer,” I ordered, and she pushed our car so that the bumpers were almost touching.
“How is that?” she asked.
“Get ready to dodge them,” I said as I leaned out the window and fired my shotgun at where I thought the driver would be sitting. The blade punched through the metal of the police car, and it swerved to the side before slamming into the center divider of the road.
Then it turned into a fireball, and I guessed that my shot had hit the engine and battery compartment.
“Excellent shot, Husband,” Sivaha said as I settled back into the seat next to my mom and retracted my helmet.
“Thanks,” I replied. “Great driving. The spaceport is three exits away, but I want you to get off at the one right after this so we can take the side roads to the other entrances.”
“Understood,” she said as she shifted the car over a few lanes.
We passed the first off-ramp, and then she flew down the second as I glanced behind us for more pursuers. I had no doubt in my mind that the police had been called now, and I knew it would only be a matter of time before they found us. We needed to get back on Persephone and get the fuck out of here.
“Follow this road to the right,” I said. “There should be signs for the shipping yard.”
Sivaha nodded and then drove the car where I expected. It took us another five minutes, but we soon reached the high chain-link wall that ran the entire perimeter of the massive airfield, and I directed her toward the guard gate.
“Should we run it?” she asked as she slowed the car down at the turn. A simple bar emerged from the guard booth to cover the entrance, and a row of spikes protected the other side from entry. I figured the tires on our car were run flats, but bypassing the booth would bring down more heat.
I glanced back out the rear window for drones or pursuing police. I still didn’t see anything, so I turned back to Sivaha.
“Can you sweet talk us th
rough the gate?” I asked.
“Yes,” she purred as she drove toward the gate.
There was a single van in the line ahead of us, but it was ushered through before we got in line, and Sivaha rolled down her window as soon as she pulled up to the gate. Her armor had begun to melt away from her body, and it was completely gone by the time the young man finished glancing at the damage on the side of our car.
“What do you--” he started to ask, but then he got a good look at Sivaha, and his eyes grew wide.
“Hello,” she said as she reached her left hand out.
“Uhhh, hi,” he gasped as she wiggled her fingers in front of him.
“Well, don’t be shy, handsome. Touch my hand. It is nice to meet you.”
“Thank you.” He held Sivaha’s hand and his face turned red.
“No, thank you,” she purred. “You are doing such a great job guarding the gate here. How long have you worked here?”
“Uhhh, for ummm.” The young man might have been nineteen, and he swallowed hard as he fumbled for an answer. “A half a year? I think it’s been half a year. Ma’am.”
The windows on the back doors of the sedan were rolled up, but my sensitive ears picked up the howl of a distant siren through Sivaha’s open window, and my heart started to hammer in my chest. I knew she needed a bit of time to work her ability, I couldn’t help the feeling of frustration.
“Ma’am?” Sivaha gasped. “That makes me sound so old.”
“Oh, s-s-s-sorry,” he stammered. “You aren’t old. You are be-be-beautiful.”
“Of course I am,” Sivaha laughed, and then she paused and turned her head slightly toward the sound of the sirens. “Oh my, it sounds like something dreadful is happening. I feel as though I should get inside so I’m safe. I know you’d want to protect me.”
“Yes!” he gasped, and then he took a step back to his booth. A moment later the gate was up, and Sivaha blew him a kiss as she drove through.
“Damn,” I said as I turned around to the closing gate bar. “He didn’t even ask why you were here.”
“Lust and desire cloud most judgment,” she said. “I don’t know the layout of these roads, where do I go?”
“Head straight down this road past the group of hangars, and you should see the first of the landing pads.” I wanted to ask her more about her ability, and how it worked, but then I saw a group of police cars pull up to the gate behind us.
“I see them,” she said as she pushed on the accelerator again.
“Shinta?” my mother called out to me, and I looked down at her.
“Mom, I’m here. It’s going to be okay.”
“How are you here?” she asked as she tried to sit up. “Where am I?”
“Shinta?” Sivaha asked, but I ignored her and reached down to hold my mother’s hand.
“Mom, I don’t have a lot of time to explain, but here is the deal: I killed all the Yakuza that grabbed you, and we are on the way to my spaceship. Hanekawa is on board, and we are going to blast off Ganymede as soon as we can.”
“But how did you--”
“We are being chased by the cops,” I said as I glanced out the rear window. “So I need you to either run or let me carry you. Do you think you can run?”
“I think so,” she said.
“I see Persephone,” Sivaha said, and I looked through the windshield. The manta ray looking ship was still a good two kilometers away across the open space of the airfield, but my vision was really damn good, and I could see that she was still connected to the gate.
“Who is that woman?” my mother asked as she tried to get up.
“That is my wife, Sivaha,” I said.
“Your wife?” my mother gasped. “You got married?”
“Let’s talk about it later,” I said. “We have more important things to--”
“There is nothing more important than your wife, Shinta,” my mother hissed as she finally sat up.
“I like your mom, Adam,” Sivaha said as her lips formed a smirk. “Pleasure to meet you…”
“Andrea,” my mother said.
“I will greet you properly once we are on board your son’s ship,” Sivaha said. “We have police chasing us at the moment.”
“Oh.” My mother turned around to look out the window. I could now see six cars speeding across the various landing pads after us, and I also noticed four camera drones flying toward us.
So much for a quiet escape.
“Get ready to run,” I said as we sped towards Persephone. We were now about a kilometer away, and my eyes focused on the stairway that lead up from the runway and into the gate. This would have been a lot easier with a transponder since I could have just ordered Nikki to fly and meet us, or at least had Persephone’s dock down so we could just drive up and take off. Unfortunately, none of my crew had any idea what was going on, and they wouldn’t know what happened until I sprinted back in through the tube connecting Persephone to the gate platform.
“Ready?” Sivaha asked as we raced closer to Persephone.
“Yeah,” I said as lifted my shotgun in my right hand and readied to open the back door.
The cops were about ten seconds behind us. We’d probably be able to get up the stairs just as they pulled up. If the door to the gate wasn’t locked, we’d be in before they could shoot at us, but if the door was locked, it would cost us precious moments.
“Stopping,” Sivaha said a moment before she slammed her foot on the brakes and pulled up next to Persephone.
Then we both opened our doors, and I pulled my mother out behind me. The stairs were only a twenty meters from where Sivaha parked, but we had to jump over a waist-high railing before we could get to them. I helped my mother make the transition, and Sivaha bolted up the steps on bare feet so that she could get try the door.
“Locked,” she said a moment before she shoved the barrel of her submachine gun into the lock and pulled the trigger. The weapon coughed a stream of bullets, and then she shouldered it open. “Unlocked.”
My mother tripped on the second step, and I had to pull her up the rest of the way as the sirens grew closer.
Then we were through the door and racing down the thirty meters toward Persephone’s gate. My mom couldn’t keep up with Sivaha and my speed, so I ended up throwing my shotgun over my back on its sling and carrying her in my arms the rest of the way to the tunnel. I half expected a platoon of police officers to be waiting for us, but I didn’t even see any security personnel in the terminal.
We made it to our gate, through the tunnel, and into Persephone’s hold without any problem. Lux, Milda, and Calisto were waiting for us, and they moved to aim their pulse rifles behind us.
“Shut the doors,” I said, and Calisto hit the button to seal Persephone.
“Milda, this is my mother, take her to Hanekawa’s room,” I said as I set my mother down.
“But wait,” Andrea said to me. “We have to talk. I need to know--”
“Talk to Hanekawa,” I interrupted her. “I have to get us out of here.”
As soon as Milda grabbed my mother’s arm, I realized there was something missing from the ship. I already knew what Lux’s answer would be, but I turned to her anyway.
“Where are Madalena, Eve, Zea, Kasta, and Paula?”
“They are still out,” Lux said.
“Shit. We have a shitton of cops chasing us. My transponder got damaged. I need Nikki and the rest of the bridge crew to report, and get me another transponder.”
“Yes, Adam, I will meet you in the bridge,” she said, and pulled hers off her uniform and passed it to me.
“Good,” I said as I nodded for Sivaha to follow me to the elevator. As we ran through the hold, I moved my thumb over the transponder’s ID pad to set it to me, and then hit the button to open communications.
“Zea? Madalena? Eve?” I asked as we stepped into the elevator. There wasn’t an answer, and I looked at Sivaha.
“They might be inside of a building with thick walls,” sh
e said with a shrug.
“Yeah,” I said. “If they are in one of the government buildings, it will be hard for a signal to get in.”
“We should fly to them,” she said as her mouth twisted into a wicked smile.
“That would really piss off the police,” I said. “The city has no-fly zones over most of the area. Hell, we’d get the military on our ass.”
“So?” she asked with a shrug. “What would they do? How would they stop us?”
“They’d shoot missiles at us,” I said, but then I thought about her words and felt myself smile along with her. “Of course, I know where pretty much all of the missile arrays are in this part of the city. They are geared to stop entry, not a ship from flying low to the ground and then escaping.”
The doors to the elevator opened, and we stepped around them and into the bridge. Mikhael was sitting in Nikki’s pilot seat, but he had turned Persephone’s display screen off and was instead reading through the Elaka Nota technical documents for the ship.
“What’s wrong?” he asked before I spoke.
“Short story is that I killed a bunch of assholes and now we have the police on our ass.”
“Ah,” he said with a shrug.
“You don’t seem surprised,” I said as I took my seat.
“No, Adam, you tend to get into trouble.” The blonde man smiled at me, and his comment seemed endearing instead of mocking.
“I’m here!” Nikki shouted as she ran into the bridge.
“Great,” I said. “Get in the pilot’s seat. We are going to swing by and pick up everyone else. Mikhael, I want you on scanners, I need to hear what their radio communications are saying, and I want you to locate all of their missile arrays.”
“Yes, Adam,” he said as he jumped out of Nikki’s seat and climbed into Zea’s.
Nikki jumped into her seat and flipped over the display so that we saw the spaceport runways and landing pads. There were now twenty patrol cars parked around Persephone, and a good thirty drones buzzing around us like gnats.
“They are sending us a request for communication,” Mikhael said.
“Audio only,” I replied, and the Nordar man nodded to me a moment after he hit the button.
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