by Ryk Brown
“Please state final number,” the AI repeated.
Nathan released the mute button and blurted, “Nine?” He looked to Dylan, both of them holding their breath as they waited for a response.
“Authorization code…accepted,” the ship’s AI replied. “How may I be of assistance?”
Nathan slumped back in his seat, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Rapid start for immediate liftoff and subsequent jump to orbit!” Dylan ordered.
“Initiating quick start on all engines,” the AI confirmed. “Reactor currently at twenty percent and rising rapidly. Energy levels required for liftoff will be available in two minutes. Jump to orbit will be possible in four minutes.”
Dylan pressed the mute button, looking at Nathan, dumbfounded. “How did you know the last number?”
“I didn’t,” Nathan admitted, shrugging his shoulders.
Dylan shook his head in disbelief.
“Please state final destination,” the AI added.
Nathan released the mute button. “The Rogen system.”
“The Rogen system does not exist in this ship’s navigational charts. Please state a valid destination.”
“How about Sanctuary?” Nathan suggested. “Can you get us there?”
“Affirmative,” the AI confirmed. “Destination set as the Sanctuary system. Sixty-four jumps will be required. Transit time will be six days, fifteen hours, forty-seven minutes.”
“Not exactly a speedster,” Nathan commented.
“How many jumps would it take your ship to get to Sanctuary?” Dylan wondered.
“The big one or the small one?”
“There’s more than one Sanctuary?”
“Which ship,” Nathan corrected.
“You have more than one?” Dylan asked in disbelief. “The big one, I guess.”
“One jump,” Nathan replied as he scanned the console, trying to familiarize himself with the displays.
Dylan’s eyes widened. “Sanctuary is like three hundred and sixty light years away!”
“OK, then, less than one jump,” Nathan replied.
Dylan’s jaw dropped open.
* * *
Jessica grabbed the handle of the weapons locker in the boarding compartment and jiggled it. “It’s locked!” she yelled.
There was a click sound, and then Dylan’s voice came over the intercom panel. “Try it now.”
Jessica opened the locker, pulling out one of the six energy rifles, and then headed toward the exit.
“Two security cruisers are descending to port,” Nathan warned over the intercom.
“I’m on it,” she replied, heading down the ramp.
Once outside, Jessica moved quickly across the yard, forward of the ship, wanting to find a secure position to fire from, ensuring that it was far enough away from the ship they were about to steal to prevent it from being damaged by return fire.
Taking position behind a service vehicle, she raised her rifle and opened fire on the closest security cruiser as it descended to land to the port side of the ship. Both shots landed on the underside of the cruiser, blowing apart its underside light bar and damaging the front, right corner of its dorsal hull. The black cruiser dipped slightly, rotating around quickly. One more shot, which struck it’s backside as it spun around, was enough to cause it to climb again, albeit at an odd angle, moving outside the fence line before giving up and coming to a rough landing.
Meanwhile, the second cruiser passed overhead, swinging around to its right, and turning sideways. Its side door opened, and an officer inside stuck his weapon out and took aim.
Jessica ducked back behind the service vehicle as two blasts struck its back end, sending sparks and small pieces of metal flying. She ran around to the other side of the vehicle, quickly raising her own weapon and firing at the second vehicle, causing it to abort its own landing attempt and veer away from their ship.
Two blasts zinged past her, coming from her right, causing Jessica to duck back behind the front end of the vehicle. A quick peek around it was all she needed to spot the two men from the downed first cruiser, opening fire through the fence, which now had gaping holes.
The hum of the second cruiser’s grav-lift systems, which had been moving away to her left, suddenly disappeared, telling Jessica that the cruiser had probably landed further away. Another peek around the front end of the vehicle, behind which she was taking cover, elicited another round of energy blasts from the two security officers who were now coming through the holes in the fence they had created moments ago.
Without looking, Jessica held her weapon out, aiming around the corner, and squeezed her trigger, sending a barrage of energy bolts toward the approaching officers, causing them both to scramble in opposite directions, looking for cover. A second later, both officers found cover and returned fire, determined to keep her pinned down or, better yet, retreat back toward the other officers.
It was a typical strategy, one that usually worked on the unsuspecting, which Jessica was not. She quickly ran to the back end of the vehicle, looking toward the cockpit windows of the ship they were stealing. She could see Nathan and Dylan, both with their heads down, as they prepared the ship for liftoff.
Something caught her eye on her left, causing her to duck back just as energy bolts struck her cover vehicle. The officers were closing their trap.
Jessica tried waving to Nathan, but got no response. “Son of a bitch,” she cursed to herself as she adjusted the setting on her energy rifle to its lowest setting, took aim, and fired two blasts at the upper edge of the cockpit windows.
* * *
“Jesus!” Nathan exclaimed, flinching from the two blasts ricocheting off the window in front of him. He looked outside and spotted Jessica waving frantically.
“Did she just shoot at us?” Dylan wondered in dismay.
“I think she’s trying to get our attention,” Nathan said.
“By shooting at us?”
Nathan glanced to the left, then to the right, realizing what she was trying to tell him. “She’s going to get cut off,” he said, climbing out of his seat. “Does this ship have comm-sets?”
“What’s a comm-set?”
“Some kind of portable communications gear so we can talk to each other,” Nathan explained.
“If you’re in the ship, or outside within a few meters, the intercoms will pick you up,” Dylan replied. “If you have to go further, there are portable comm-units in the weapons locker—top shelf.”
“Great!” Nathan said as he headed for the exit. “Don’t take off without us!”
“What?” Dylan glanced over his shoulder. “Where are you going?” He was too late. Nathan was already sliding down the ladder. Dylan glanced outside, spotting two more cruisers less than a kilometer out. “They invited friends!” he yelled.
Nathan slid down the access ladder, descending two entire decks in seconds. He ran forward, jumping through the hatch to the boarding compartment, and grabbed both a comm-unit and an energy rifle from the weapons locker on his way out.
He activated the comm-unit and shoved it in his pocket, bringing up his rifle and pressing the power button as he headed down the ramp. By the time he had traveled far enough down the ramp to get a clear line of fire, SilTek security officers were already firing at him from both sides.
Nathan fired four shots to the left, two at each officer, causing them to duck down behind cover. A moment later, he fired four more shots to the right and then jumped down off the ramp to starboard, taking cover behind the cargo ship’s forward starboard landing gear.
Red bolts of energy slammed into the landing strut dorsal hull and the ground around Nathan, forcing him to stay hidden. The screech of additional weapons fire was heard, but from forward, not from either side. Jessica’s providing cover fire.
Nathan crouched and r
an aft, firing to port as Jessica fired to starboard to cover him. He turned to his left, diving behind a service vehicle, as the officers to port spotted him and opened fire again.
Nathan scrambled on his belly, moving under the back end of the vehicle and over to the next, as incoming fire ricocheted off the previous vehicle. He quickly got to his knees and peered around the edge of the vehicle, spotting two officers exchanging fire with Jessica.
After ducking back, Nathan took a deep breath. One shot, one kill, he thought to himself. In one smooth motion, he raised his rifle to his shoulder, rose, and swung around to fire. One…two quick shots, and both officers were down.
Nathan’s eyes widened in surprise. “Shit, it worked,” he said to himself, turning back around and running for the next vehicle, aft of their ship, to get a better angle on the two officers to port.
Jessica watched the two men fall to Nathan’s fire. “Nice.”
“GO!” she heard Nathan holler from the other end of the ship.
Jessica didn’t hesitate, running out from her cover, her energy rifle blazing as she headed to the right of the last two officers on the ground.
Two more black security cruisers, their light bars flashing blue and red, flew over at ten meters above the fence. Jessica broke off her attack of the officers on the ground, firing two shots into the underside of each of the passing cruisers, before ducking behind a large storage bin. She quickly circled around the back side of the bin, stepped out, and fired two more shots, dropping the last two officers. “CLEAR!” she hollered, heading back to the ship.
Nathan swung his weapon skyward, firing a barrage of shots at the two black security cruisers passing over him as they peeled off in opposite directions. As he headed back forward, he grabbed the comm-unit out of his pocket and hollered into it. “Is this bucket ready to lift off yet?”
“Thirty seconds!” Dylan replied.
Nathan ran forward, reaching the boarding ramp at the same time as Jessica.
“Nice shootin’, Tex,” she joked.
“Let’s get the hell outta Dodge, shall we?” Nathan replied, gesturing for her to lead the way up the ramp.
* * *
A warning tone sounded on the cargo ship’s sensor display, catching Dylan’s attention. “Oh, no, no, no…”
“What?” Nathan asked as he and Jessica stepped onto the flight deck.
“There are four security interceptors headed toward us,” the AI reported. “They will reach effective intercept in fifty seconds.”
“That is not good,” Dylan warned. “That is so not good!”
“Let me guess,” Nathan said, climbing into his seat. “Interceptors are bad?”
“So bad,” Dylan droned.
“Then, let’s get this thing off the ground.”
“Those cruisers have a different idea,” Jessica warned, pointing out the port window.
Nathan glanced outside, spotting one of the cruisers sliding into a hover over the port-forward engine nacelle, attempting to block their liftoff.
“There’s one on my side, as well,” Dylan reported. “What do we do?”
“Open a comms channel,” Nathan suggested.
“What?”
“I want to talk to them,” Nathan explained.
“He wants to talk to them,” Dylan mumbled to himself, patching the ship’s communications system to SilTek’s security channel. “Talk away.”
“Security cruisers, move off, or we’ll plow right through you,” Nathan warned.
“This is Sergeant Meden of SilTek Security. You are ordered to shut down your engines and surrender.”
“These the lift throttles?” Nathan asked.
“Yes, but…”
Nathan grabbed all four lift throttles and advanced them slowly as he turned his head, and watched the cruiser hovering over their port-forward engine nacelle. The cruiser held its position, refusing to move off, as the clunky cargo ship began to rise.
“This one’s holding position!” Dylan exclaimed excitedly.
“So’s this guy,” Nathan announced as the top of their port forward nacelle bumped into the underside of the cruiser. The black security vehicle tipped over, spun around, lost control, and fell toward the ground, crashing into the fence before bouncing off the surface once, then settling onto the ground, inverted.
Their starboard forward nacelle bumped into the underside of the cruiser to starboard, but its pilot was prepared, taking the hit like he was catching a pass.
The cargo ship suddenly dipped to starboard, its forward starboard landing gear striking the surface and bending backward with a terrible groan of flexing metal.
“This guy’s playing rough!” Nathan realized, jamming his lift throttles all the way forward, then grabbing the throttle for their main drive and easing them forward, as well.
The cargo ship leapt upward, accelerating forward as it climbed. The other security cruiser bounced off the starboard forward nacelle, spinning around and nearly losing control, as the cargo ship pushed up and forward through him.
“I warned you!” Nathan exclaimed as they continued to climb.
“Fifteen seconds to intercept,” the AI warned.
“XK cargo vessel climbing out of Sina maintenance yard!” one of the interceptor pilots called over comms. “Activate your auto-flight systems and set to remote operation immediately, or we will shoot you down.”
“They’ll do it,” Dylan warned.
“Is the jump drive ready?” Nathan asked.
“Yeah, but…”
Nathan pulled up on their nose. “AI, jump us to orbit…immediately!” Nathan ordered.
“Jumping to orbit in three…”
“See ya,” Nathan said over comms.
“Two…”
“They’ll just jump to orbit, as well,” Dylan warned.
“One…”
“And we’ll jump again,” Nathan told him.
“Jumping.”
The windows suddenly went black, and stars appeared. Nathan tipped their nose back down, even with the horizon. That’s when he saw them. “Oh, shit.”
* * *
“What the hell are those?” Dylan asked, staring out the forward windows at several enormous, menacing, black and crimson warships bombarding his planet from orbit.
“Those are Dusahn warships,” Jessica replied.
“This day just keeps getting better,” Nathan grumbled as he started scanning the console. “Does this thing have a snap jump setting?”
“A what?” Dylan wondered.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Nathan replied. “AI, can we jump toward Sanctuary from here?”
“Negative,” the AI replied. “There are two ships directly in our flight path.”
“How long to get to a clear jump line?”
“Five minutes, thirty-eight seconds.”
The sensor display beeped a warning.
“We’re being targeted,” Dylan warned.
“We don’t have five minutes and thirty-eight seconds,” Nathan said.
“If you wish to jump sooner, you must specify an alternate destination in a direction that has a clear departure jump line.”
“Jesus!” Nathan cursed. “Who the hell designs a jump-nav system this way?”
“This isn’t a combat ship,” Dylan reminded him.
“No shit,” Nathan replied. “Do we at least have shields?”
“Yeah, but…”
“But nothing, raise them!”
“Raising shields,” Dylan replied, activating the ship’s shields.
“Four more contacts,” Dylan warned.
“Let me guess, the interceptors?” Jessica guessed.
The ship rocked violently as sparks flew from the overhead panel to Nathan’s left.
“I thought you raised shi
elds!” Nathan scolded, shielding himself from the shower.
“I did!” Dylan defended. “That’s what I was trying to tell you! XK’s shields are designed to protect against pebbles and debris, and maybe a few hits from the kind of weapons most pirates have…”
The ship rocked as the interceptors fired again.
“Warning, starboard aft anti-grav lift emitters are damaged,” the AI announced.
“We need a new destination to jump to,” Jessica reminded them.
“I have no idea what’s around!” Nathan admitted as their ship took yet another hit.
Four flashes of blue-white light lit up their cockpit, nearly blinding them, and four black and crimson fighters streaked overhead, firing away at the interceptors attacking them from behind.
“They’re attacking the interceptors!” Dylan exclaimed. “Are they friends of yours?”
“Hardly,” Nathan replied. “Those are Dusahn octos.”
“As soon as they finish off those interceptors, they’ll do the same to us,” Jessica added.
“Tergeron!” Dylan exclaimed.
Nathan looked at him.
“I just remembered! It’s to starboard, and it’s a single jump away! We can jump there and slingshot around its fifth planet. It’s a massive gas giant. I do it all the time in Night Runner! You can pick up a ton of speed and quadruple your jump range!”
“Why didn’t you say something before?” Nathan yelled.
“I didn’t think of it!” Dylan defended. “Give me a break! I’m not used to being shot at!”
“Level twenty-eight, huh?” Jessica taunted.
“Okay, twenty-two,” Dylan admitted as he punched in the new destination.
The incoming weapons blasts stopped.
“Uh-oh,” Jessica said, realizing what that meant.
“We need to jump, now!” Nathan urged.
“I’m working on it!” Dylan assured him.
“The octos are coming about!” Jessica warned, pointing at the sensor display.
“New destination accepted,” the AI announced. “Adjusting course. Jumping in forty seconds.”
“We don’t have forty seconds!” Nathan exclaimed.
“This is a cargo ship!” Dylan yelled back. “It can’t turn that fast!”