by Chris Reher
“I’m staying with you.”
“No, you’re not! Go. Stay low. I don’t care what ship you’re on, stow away if you have to.”
“Nova, I have to tell you—”
“I know, I know. Tuain told me. I’ll get out, don’t worry. Now go!” She shoved Acie toward the airlocks and then ducked low, toward where she had seen Captain Luce. He had taken cover by one of the exits and tossed a gun to her when she sidled toward him.
“What the fuck is going on, Nova,” he hissed. “Those are uniforms!”
“Yeah, let’s just assume they’re rebels.”
“Works for me.”
The laser fire abated when the attackers and perhaps the attacked retreated into the tunnels and hallways beyond the commons.
“Grab whoever you can and get into a cruiser,” Nova said. “They are after the ANI so we better leave. I have no idea who’s on what team so let’s not waste time figuring that out.” She stepped out of the doorway and waved to a small group of civilian staff huddled nearby. They obeyed, rushing toward them in a panicked scramble. “Into Lock Seven,” she called to them. “Now!”
“Where are you going?” Luce said when she turned into the hallway leading under the concourse from which she had jumped.
“Gonna get the devs,” she replied and rushed away.
She dodged through the corridor and up a stairway, ducking into doorways when they presented themselves, her senses alert to the uproar taking place all around. Civilians were running every which way and she waved them toward the airlocks when she could, knowing that there were not enough planes to allow them all to escape. Twice she dove for cover when laser fire cut in front of her. When she rounded the corner to the neuro-lab, she was faced with two uniformed Humans. She hesitated, unsure of their affiliation.
That was resolved when one of them fired in her direction. She ducked and returned the volley, cutting him down. The other leaped aside but not in time to avoid her aim. He, too, fell to the floor, gravely injured. Nova continued onward, leaping over the fallen men without another glance at them.
She did stop short when she found another body in the hall. She recognized the blue tunic and pantaloons before she even saw Tuain’s face. She cursed and continued onward.
At last, she reached the lab and waved her wrist unit to gain access to the restricted area. “Vanguard,” she announced to the empty and silent room. “Anyone here?”
“Yes, don’t shoot!”
She saw Doctor Unwin and two of his technicians peer anxiously around a corner. “Get to the south airlocks at once. Avoid everyone you don’t recognize. Make that everybody. Don’t use the main concourse. Have you seen Lieutenants Betl or Quinn?” she added, naming the other test subjects.
“No, not since the shooting started,” the technician said. She was hastily gathering some of their tablets and file boxes, dropping more than she could carry. “Are we not safer staying here?”
Nova went back to the door and peered outside. More shouts and screams in the distance. “You’re not safe anywhere. Leave that stuff. Move! Now!” She herded them out of a rear door that she knew led to the service corridors behind the lab.
She turned to look around the now-deserted lab. Their attackers would make their way up to the research level within moments. Is this what they had come for? Rolling her eyes in exasperation over her own indecision, she raised her weapon and blasted the lab equipment, stopping only when it had turned into a smoldering, melting mess.
“What are you doing?” someone exclaimed behind her.
She whirled to see Sao Lok, the Caspian technician, staring in disbelief at the destroyed equipment.
“What do you think? Why are you still up here? Get down to the planes or hide somewhere.”
“You can’t just… Just look at this!”
“Please, you have to get out of here,” she said. “If you people don’t have copies of this stored elsewhere you deserve to lose the lot. Now come on, let’s go!”
“Who are they?” he stammered. “What... what do they want?”
“Rebels, probably. Please, just come.” She grasped his arm, but her tone was gentle. “There are some planes at the locks.”
“You won’t leave me?”
Despite his eyes of raptor-like intensity, his expression was so woebegone and frightened that she had to fight her impulse to hug him. She put her hand on his shoulder instead, having no idea how Caspians comforted each other. “I promise. We have to get the ANI team away from here. Hurry.”
He allowed her to usher him into the service area, through the halls, and down to the airlocks on the lower level. When they reached the bottom of the ramp an explosion seemed to shake the entire dome. Who would be using explosives in an enclosed environment on a planet such as this? What could possibly be at stake here?
Nova had no intention of spending time to find out. She raced to the locks, leaving the rebels to fight the not-rebels and letting any genuine Air Command soldiers figure them out. Her only thought was on escaping with as much of the project team as possible. She reached the locks to find that two of the cruisers had left. Some bodies littered the ground but the battle had clearly shifted to the labs.
“Get into Six,” she shouted at a small huddle of survivors. “Go, go, go!”
“Nova! Hold up.”
She turned to see Lieutenant Quinn run toward her, dragging her leg. Nova waved anxiously while the woman crossed an open area and cried out in dismay when the tracer of an overhead weapon found Quinn’s chest. The shot that followed tossed the woman back and over a low wall surrounding the greens. Nova flung herself into the cover of a rock sculpture, remembering too late that they were made of synthetics. She ducked, waiting for another shot. None came.
She peered around the sculpture to the causeway above, seeing none of the attackers there now. Quickly, she rolled over to Lieutenant Quinn.
“They took Betl,” the woman moaned. She waved a bloodied hand to the locks on the opposite side of the dome. “Dragged him into Gate Two.”
Nova grasped her hand. “Can you move? Leesa, can you...” She ground her teeth audibly when the lieutenant’s body convulsed briefly and then slumped, dead. Another beam passed overhead to scorch one of the planters; someone had spotted her among the greenery. Nova felt for a stylus in one of her pockets and withdrew the small laser tool. Still gritting her teeth, she sliced the skin at the woman’s temple, cutting deep. “Graphene layer,” she whispered. “What the hell does that look like?” She severed the ANI module close to the bone; the implant was still new and it came away from the anchors fairly easily. She lowered her head for a moment, instructing herself not to throw up. Someone yelled something near the tunnel to the residentials and now the firefight returned to this area. Cursing, Nova turned Quinn’s head and used her gun to destroy the other interface before she scrambled to her feet and scuttled into the shelter of the air locks behind her.
Two or three of the civilians cowered by the gates and Nova hustled them inside, barely waiting for them to clear the airlock before pressurizing. These ships were meant for very small crews and now there were too many people aboard to make any sort of long trip possible. Her only hope was to reach one of the carriers orbiting the planet. “Sit down. On the floor if you have to,” she shouted and leaped into the cockpit. “Are there any pilots here?”
She received no answer from any of the stunned escapees staring at her in utter incomprehension of what had happened here.
“Of course not,” she muttered and added a few favorite curses. “Sit down I said!” She dropped the pogs that held the ship to the locks and hovered the cruiser away from the dome. Expecting that she would also soon need to engage the ship’s guns, she reached for the headset to interface with the processors rather than attempt to fly away from Dannakor manually. Waiting no longer for her passengers to find the floor, she shot away from the installation and into the sky.
She used the ship’s sensors to scan the area for other pla
nes. There were two cruisers nearby, heading into different directions, and two larger ships in orbit. She set a course for the nearest, hoping that some of the others would also make it there. A few frightened screams rose from among the people behind her when she broke through Dannakor’s atmosphere. But the ship’s gravitational systems did their job and they were not alarmed any more than they already were.
Someone came forward and took the co-pilot’s seat next to Nova. She glanced over to see a young Delphian, likely not much older than thirty. His long blue hair hung loose over his shoulders and the clothes he wore were a stylish set of tights and long vest favored on Magra. Although he had attained the long-limbed grace common among Delphian males, it would likely be a few more years before he filled out his lanky frame. He regarded her curiously and in silence.
“Were you with Tuain?” she said to him, her mind on the still-distant carrier.
“He is my mentor,” he replied.
“That’s not what I asked and you know it, kid.”
“That’s all I’m saying.” He looked over the maze of indicators, screens and control panels that surrounded them, none touched by anything but her mind.
“Don’t try my patience. I haven’t got much of it left.”
“Then Shan Tychon did not train you very well.”
She turned to study him. His expression was guarded by his Delphian training as much as his attempt to ignore the blood that stained her hands. “You know who I am?”
He nodded. “My name is Jovan.”
“Shantir?”
“Initiate. I have a few years to go.”
“Shan Tuain is dead,” she said. “I found him near the labs. I’m sorry.”
He blanched and she heard a sharp intake of breath before his expression returned to its well-honed indifference. “He knew the risk of coming out here,” he said.
“A lot of others are dead, too. He knew something was about to happen but decided not to warn me. Sometimes your Shantir vows of non-interference are pretty hard to come to grips with.”
“Perhaps we can no longer hold on to that.” He turned in his seat to observe the frightened people in the rear of the cabin. “Perhaps we need to take sides.”
She nodded. He was not the first among Delphi’s young people to begin to question the traditional ways of their elders. It was a fairly recent trend greeted with much relief by Union administrators and with dismay by Delphi’s Clan Council. “Well, let’s hope it’s our side.” She looked up and shouted over her shoulder. “We are about to lock onto a Union carrier. Expect a little bump.” She activated the com after checking the carrier’s signal. “Terius, come in. Union pilot requesting permission to dock. Priority One.” Nova figured that a hold full of people without enough air to go anywhere else constituted a Priority One emergency.
“Been expecting you,” came the tense reply. “Lock on Three.”
She swung around the freighter to find the unclaimed port. There were bays for five liftplane-sized ships and two had already landed. She nudged the cruiser into its berth and then felt the docking clamps grasp the ship securely.
“We’re here,” she said when she made her way through the cruiser’s cabin, stepping around the people huddled on the floor. She was relieved to see Sao Lok among them. “We hope you enjoyed the flight, please be sure to gather all personal possessions before deplaning.”
“This is no time for levity,” a Human civilian snapped at her as she passed. “People died here today. You air jockeys might find that commonplace but we do not.”
She observed him for a moment, knowing his outrage was well justified. “Are you injured?”
“No.”
“Then get up and assist these other people. On the double.”
He huffed angrily before turning to help a woman beside him get to her feet.
“You have a way with civilians,” Jovan said sardonically as he passed her in the air lock to help with the door.
They dropped the gate and stepped onto the platform beyond. There were other people there, civilian and military, rushing about, talking excitedly, and bemoaning their injuries.
“Captain!”
She turned to see Luce hurry toward her.
“Thank Cazun you made it,” the Centauri exclaimed. “What a mess! Who would have expected a rebel attack way out here?”
“Who indeed,” she muttered with a glance at Jovan. The Delphian shrugged and wandered away. “Is this all that got away from the lab?”
“There are more cruisers heading this way but they are not Union flagged. We’ll have to assume rebels aboard.”
“Are there any officers here?”
“Looks like you and I are it. I haven’t even seen any crew except for some deck hands. Let’s get up to the bridge.”
She nodded and followed him as he turned into the main corridor leading into the ship’s interior. It appeared that the Terius was little more than a supply carrier for this outpost. Hopefully, she thought, with enough supplies aboard for them all.
Luce stumbled and nearly fell when the entire ship shuddered under what felt disconcertingly like a missile impact. “Guess now we know who’s on those planes,” he said when another hit rocked the ship.
They sped up, knowing that, although ships like the Terius were heavily shielded to thwart pirates, it would not long stand a continued barrage. Its layout was a universal design for vessels of this class and they soon found the entrance to the bridge. Before Nova was able to request access, the door slid aside.
“Officer on the bridge,” someone called.
Nova and Luce looked around, stunned. Only three crew members were on the bridge, a breach of protocol in a crisis situation.
“Where is the captain?” Nova asked a Centauri woman sitting at the helm.
“Isn’t she with you? She went down to the planet early today.”
“Damn!” Luce looked over the controls. “Get us out of here. You’re not even ready to break orbit. Get busy!”
“I... I tried. I’m a shuttle pilot. I can’t even begin to figure this monster out!”
Luce waved her aside and took the helm.
“How about tactical?” Nova looked at the other two. “Does anyone here know how to fire a damn gun?”
“I’m communications,” the Human crew member said. He pointed at his colleague. “That’s the quartermaster.”
Nova stepped up to the tactical station to look over the ship’s limited armament. “I see Azon’s on a tight budget. There’s nothing useful here.” She engaged her neural link and saw Luce do the same at the helm. “Give the others a heads up,” she said to the com officer.
He leaped to his station and picked up his earpiece. “All decks, prepare for departure.” He cringed when something thumped against their hull. “And for impact.”
Nova muttered to herself when she scanned the area. Two cruisers were buzzing around them, looking for opportune spots along the Terius that might be less heavily shielded. A third, larger ship was arriving at high speed. She took a few shots at the cruisers, having little more firepower than what it took to keep them at a distance.
Luce finally had the ship ready to leave orbit. He punched it up to its top capacity and shot away from the cruisers that immediately set to pursue them. Both Nova and Luce realized that the rebel ships would not be outrun by a cargo vessel never meant for such race.
She turned to the other crew members. “Go down to the docks. See if any of the senior crew is around. First officer, something.” She pointed at the com officer while the others hurried from the bridge. “Not you. What’s your name?”
“Ryley, Captain.”
“Send a distress signal; something tells me you haven’t already.”
“No, I did! I’ll send another. What... what’s happened on the planet?” he asked as his hands flew over his controls.
“Damned if I know,” she replied. They took another hit.
“Why are they chasing us?” Luce said. “Why would they bot
her?”
“They’re after the interface,” she said. “Yours and mine. And the developers, if they’re still alive.”
“Nova...” Luce said.
“Yes, I know, they’re gaining.”
“I’ve detected a keyhole ahead.”
“Yeah, so?” She looked up. “Forget it, Luce! You are in no way ready for that! Don’t even look at the thing.”
“What choice do we have? We’re three hours to the jumpsite to Zera. When those cruisers catch up we’re all going to be flotsam.”
“They don’t want us dead.”
“They will once they’ve taken the interfaces. I can do this!”
“Luce, you’re a chartjumper. Even if you can crank that keyhole open, you’ve never worked that sort of calculation before. If it’s a long burn we don’t even know if this tub has the shields or the processors to make the jump.”
“Then you’d better clear the locks and make sure we have full shields around what’s left.”
She wavered. “Ryley, broadcast an order for any Delphians to come up to the bridge. I know we have at least one.”
“There’s no time!” Luce said. “Besides, I don’t want one of them in my head.” He half-turned to her. “No offense.”
Nova shook her head, aware that they were out of options. She moved to the ship’s facilities control and studied the docking ports. The locks were clear and there were no life signs aboard the ships currently attached to the freighter’s hull. One by one, she released the pogs and let them drift away from the Terius. The enemy ships slowed their pursuit to examine the reasons for casting loose three valuable planes.
“Going negative now, Nova.”
“You know what that means, Ryley,” she said. He slapped at his controls and the lights dimmed throughout the ship to alert everyone to the imminent leap through sub-space.
She revved the shield generators to maximum when she perceived a change in the keyhole now just ahead of them. It widened as Luce fed it, responding to the ship’s energy readily, if not as smoothly as when a trained spanner perform the maneuver. He probed the opening as the ship’s processors calculated its depths, looking for its terminus and trying to make the correct choice. “I don’t know, Nova...” he said. “I don’t see... Oh, there. I think. Be ready to catch us.”