by G J Ogden
Draga stopped, though her penetrating glare had intensified even further. “Everyone dies sometime,” she spat back, her expression as unyielding as her emotions. “Whether now, tomorrow, or ten years in the future, it makes no odds to me.” Then she extended a hand toward the metal bar, as if signaling for Hallam to hand it to her. “But you can at least choose how to die. You can die on your knees, in agony, begging for me to end your misery, or you can die at the point of Cad Rikkard’s sword. A clean death, versus torture and misery. That is the only choice that matters for you now, renegade. Make it quickly, or I will choose for you.”
Hallam forced down a dry swallow; from anyone else, he would have dismissed Draga’s speech as mere posturing and hyperbole. However, from her, it had been truly chilling. It was like the breath that had formed the words had seeped from Draga’s mouth as a bitter vapor, turning everything it touched to ice.
Suddenly, the rising whine of the flying vehicle’s quad-rotors burst the bubble of silence, and for the merest fraction of a second, Draga’s attention was diverted. In that moment, Hallam acted out of pure instinct and desperation, knowing that if he did nothing, he was almost certain to die. He launched himself at Draga, driving his shoulder into her armored gut and wrapping his arms around her body. Adrenaline and a will to survive gave him the burst of strength needed to lift the combined weight of Draga and her armor, and launch them both into another skylight. The glass smashed as easily as eggshells and Hallam released his hold on the mercenary, thrusting his hands up in the blind hope of catching the ledge. From finding the hidden door in the storeroom to narrowly avoiding being spotted by the worker in the data bunker, so many factors of the mission had hinged on the roll of a cosmic dice. This situation was no different, Hallam told himself. He would either fall to his death or survive to fight another day. Probability would decide his fate.
Hallam’s fingers curled around something cool and metallic, and instinctively, he gripped tightly, feeling glass cut into his fingers. He yelped from the pain but held on tightly as glass and metal fell through the opening, along with the screaming form of Draga Vex. Hallam saw the mercenary crash through a glass conference table before being peppered by falling splinters and fragments of the skylight. He hung above her for a few moments, watching – hoping – that the cruel woman was dead. Then her head bobbed to the side, and her legs and arms shuffled amongst the glass shards and debris.
Cursing, Hallam reached up with his other hand and tried desperately to catch the ledge, but instead, he drew his palm across broken glass, slicing open his flesh. The pain was excruciating, and he pulled his injured hand away, trying again to find purchase on some other part of the roof. The human body could only take so much, and to his horror, Hallam realized that his strength was failing and that his grip was slipping.
Slowly, Draga sat upright, clearly dazed and confused. Maybe if I dropped on her, I could take her out with me? Hallam thought. Then at least his death would have served the goal of removing one vile stain from the universe. And it would allow Dakota to get away. It wasn’t the death he had thought for himself, not that he’d given death much consideration before these final moments. Yet at least it wouldn’t be for nothing, he told himself.
Hallam sucked in a deep breath of the Fortunan night air, feeling the strength ebbing from his fingers, and tried to aim his feet toward the head of the mercenary five meters below. Then he let go of the ledge – but he didn’t fall.
“Take my arm!” yelled Dakota, and Hallam peered up to see her face, twisted from the effort of holding his weight. “Quickly; I can’t hold you!”
Hallam reached up with his other hand and clasped it around Dakota’s forearm. He couldn’t even feel the grip of her hands around his, such was the numbness in his own body. Dakota screamed from the effort of pulling him up, finally heaving Hallam’s head and shoulders back up above the skylight. Hallam released his hold on Dakota’s arm and grabbed a handhold on the roof, using all the strength he had left to drag himself out of the hole. Dakota continued to pull, and eventually, Hallam lay on the rooftop again, hands cut and bloodied and heart pounding.
“The flying vehicle is ready,” Dakota said in between heavy breaths. “Can you walk?”
“Walk?” said Hallam, hauling his exhausted frame up and onto his knees. “If you’ve got that thing working, I’ll damned well cartwheel over to it!”
Despite everything that had happened, they both laughed, though the noise that escaped their lips was more of a synchronized guttural croak. Dakota helped Hallam to stand and together they staggered toward the flying vehicle. However, Hallam couldn’t help but steal a last glance down through the smashed skylight. He’d hoped to discover Draga Vex still in the place where she’d fallen, but the mercenary was nowhere to be seen.
“We need to hurry,” said Hallam. The knowledge that Draga had gone was instantly sobering, like a bucket of ice water over his head. “She’ll be back.”
Dakota cast a nervous glance at the door where Draga had first burst through onto the roof. “I’m beginning to think that witch is actually a warbot.”
Hallam huffed a laugh but shook his head. “I think that’s an insult to warbots,” he said, also stealing another glance behind. “That woman is crazier and more dangerous than any machine ever devised by human minds.”
They reached the personal flying vehicle and practically dove inside through the gull-wing doors. Hallam flopped into the rear seat, nursing his cut and bleeding hands, while Dakota took the controls. The door swung shut and Dakota lifted the flying vehicle into the night sky, its quad-rotors throbbing with a rhythmic beat.
“I don’t believe it,” said Hallam, peering through the glass canopy at the slowly receding rooftop below them.
Dakota followed his gaze and saw her too. Draga Vex was standing on the landing pad, calmly watching them depart.
“Damn it, that woman’s unkillable!” Dakota snarled before a soft bleep from her console grabbed her attention. She studied the data and laughed. “Want to know something else you won’t believe?” Dakota added, glancing back at Hallam with a world-weary look on her face.
“I’m sure I don’t,” replied Hallam, “But go on…”
Dakota pointed out toward where the main city spaceport was located and said, “There’s a Blackfire Squadron fighter closing in.”
Hallam jerked upright and peered into the night sky, initially failing to spot the fighter. Then he caught sight of it, soaring over the city far lower than any craft was permitted to fly.
“Is it coming for us?” said Hallam, feeling his heart rate again begin to climb, but Dakota shook her head.
“It’s on course for the Consortium building,” said Dakota, releasing another weary sigh. “It’s on remote piloting,” she added, again meeting Hallam’s eyes. “It’s going to pick up Draga Vex.”
24
Dakota Wulfrun had pushed the diminutive quad-rotor flying vehicle to the limits of its performance, but it was still not enough to outpace the advanced fighter piloted by Draga Vex. Hallam’s grip on the grab-handles in the rear seat had steadily tightened as the craft raced across the Fortunan skyline. However, as the vessel’s velocity reached and then exceeded its design limit, the groans and shudders of its strained metal frame grew louder and more ominous.
“How far to the landing site?” Hallam called out over the din inside the cabin. He could see Draga’s fighter in the distance, accelerating away from the city and out over the rolling hills and valleys of the lush green countryside.
“We’re still maybe two minutes out,” Dakota called back. Her knuckles were white against the control column, which was shuddering violently, causing her whole body to tremble, as if she were shivering on a snowy mountain top.
“Damn, that’s too long,” Hallam answered, though he muttered the words under his breath, talking more to himself than in reply to Dakota. Draga’s fighter would be on top of them in half that time, Hallam realized. And even from her current distanc
e, she could easily destroy them with a single missile, if that had been her wish. However, everything Hallam knew about the sadistic mercenary pointed to her toying with her quarry first. Once she was satisfied or had grown bored, Draga would then wait until she could see the whites of their eyes before gunning Hallam and Dakota down in cold blood. Either that, or she would intentionally just wound them and allow them to limp away so that Cad Rikkard could finish the kill.
“We have to ditch the craft,” Hallam said, this time turning to Dakota and speaking clearly and with authority. “We can make it back to the fighter on foot, using the hills and rocky outcrops for cover.”
“Are you crazy? I’m not ditching!” Dakota hit back. “We’d be like ducks in a barrel on the ground.”
Hallam glanced behind them again, but he’d now lost sight of Draga’s fighter. He knew she was close and could almost feel her dark presence. It was like being enveloped by the shadow of a storm cloud.
“We’ll have more chance on the ground than up in this flying tin can,” Hallam said, again turning back to Dakota. He then had to brace himself as the little craft juddered violently once more. “Besides, at the rate you’re going, Draga won’t need to shoot us down, because you’ll have already flown us apart!”
Dakota glowered at Hallam, ready to fight her corner, but then her eyes flicked beyond him and suddenly grew wide. “Get down!” she yelled, grabbing Hallam’s head and pushing it toward the deck. The craft shook again, except this time, the jolt was more brutal and was accompanied by a succession of sharp, metallic clangs. “We’re hit!” Dakota called out, though the announcement was hardly necessary, as Hallam could already see that they were rapidly losing altitude. Draga’s fighter then blasted overhead, causing Hallam to duck instinctively, a curse involuntarily escaping from his lips. The lightweight flying craft was buffeted as it passed though the wake of turbulence from Draga’s fly-by, which only served to accelerate its already alarming rate of descent.
Hallam looked up and saw that two of the four rotors had been destroyed, and as he hurriedly surveyed the rest of the craft, he saw holes the sizes of old quarter dollars punched through the back of his seat. Similar holes punctured the front passenger seat and gull wing doors. Hallam let out a heavy sigh, realizing how close the cannon rounds had come to perforating his body.
“I’m going to have to land in the valley,” Dakota shouted, oblivious to Hallam’s near miss. “But it’s going to be rough.”
Hallam scouted outside for the mercenary fighter and saw the ship turning in a sharp arc over the rolling hills to the east.
“Rough is fine, so long as it’s fast,” Hallam answered, jumping into the now perforated passenger seat and fastening the harness. “Draga is turning for another pass.”
There was a small explosion above them as the motor powering one of the two remaining rotors expired, due to the massive strain it had been put under.
“I don’t think going down slowly is really an option anymore!” Dakota cried out as they plunged out of the sky and into the deep grassy valley.
Dakota managed to steer the stricken craft into a flat section of the valley floor, narrowly avoiding a jagged cluster of rocks. The flying vehicle hit the ground and bounced like a skimming stone before carving a narrow furrow through the lush, green meadow. The canopy jettisoned and spun away behind them, leaving Hallam and Dakota exposed to the chilly Fortunan night air.
“Are you okay?” said Dakota, unclipping her harness and pushing the broken control column away.
“I’m still in one piece, if that’s what you mean,” replied Hallam, removing his harness and anxiously looking up into the sky. He could hear the roar of Draga’s fighter, but the sky was still as dark and as cold as the mercenary’s heart. “We need to move. The first thing Draga will do is sweep back and target the crash site.”
Hallam and Dakota leapt from the craft and ran across the meadow before starting their ascent of the first hill that would eventually lead them back to their hidden fighter.
“We have maybe two or three hundred more meters to cover before we reach the ship,” said Dakota as they powered up the slope as quickly as their weary legs could carry them.
Hallam nodded but was too out of breath to respond with words, and he was also still pre-occupied with searching for the enemy fighter. Then he saw a glowing light in the sky, turning toward the valley, and a thunderous roar started to build once again. Looking ahead, Hallam saw a cluster of sharp rocks jutting out from the hillside.
“Get to those rocks; she’s coming back!” Hallam shouted, pointing to the outcrop.
They both scrambled up the hill, clawing into the dirt with their fingers in an effort to climb faster and harder. Hallam reached the rocks first, threw his back up against the cold, jagged stone, and peered down the valley. A missile whistled toward them before thudding into the crashed shell of the flying vehicle. A fierce explosion lit up the valley, illuminating their surroundings as if dawn had suddenly broken. Then, just as quickly, it turned to night again. Draga’s fighter blasted past, barely thirty meters above Hallam’s head, before climbing sharply, trailing black smoke in its wake.
Dakota reached Hallam’s side and rested on his shoulder. “You know, I think that psycho is actually enjoying herself…” she said breathlessly before slapping Hallam on the back. “Come on, not far to go now.”
Hallam trudged after Dakota, cresting the first hill as the rumbles of Draga’s fighter continued in the distance. They ran down the opposite side, but Hallam stumbled and fell near the valley floor. Rolling the last few meters down the slope, he lay on his back, contemplating just staying there a few moments longer to catch his breath. However, Dakota then lifted him to his feet.
“Come on, lazy bones, last one to the ship buys the drinks,” she wheezed before continuing toward the steep overhang under which she’d hidden her fighter.
Hallam coughed a laugh and pushed himself up. That’s my motivational tactic… he thought to himself as Dakota increased her lead. However, just as laying down a hollow personal challenge would always provoke a response from Dakota, it worked on him too – and Dakota knew it.
Hallam drove himself up the hillside, gaining slowly on Dakota, whose pace was flagging, but then a sonic boom caused to him to lie flat and again scour the sky for Draga’s ship. The Fortunan sun was close to creeping over the horizon, and the sky had brightened to a dull orange-gray. It was enough to pinpoint Draga’s fighter, turning toward them for another attack run.
“Dak, take cover!” Hallam cried out. He was exposed and in the open, but Dakota managed to slip behind a small outcropping. Hallam flattened his body into the long, sweet-smelling grasses as cannon rounds thudded all around him. He was showered with dirt and smashed fragments of rocks, but miraculously, the rounds missed his body.
Again, the fighter blasted overhead, so low that Hallam felt like he could have reached up and touched it. He climbed to his knees and watched the fighter slip away down the valley, staying low. However, this time, it did not vanish over the horizon. This time, the fighter slowed to a hover a few hundred meters away and spun back around. Hallam punched the soft soil, realizing that Draga had finally tired of toying with them like a cat playing with a crippled bird, before finally making the kill.
“She’s turning back; let’s go!” Hallam yelled to Dakota, but when no answer came, he turned to the cluster of rocks she’d hidden behind, panic rising in his gut. Dakota was on the ground and not moving. “Dak!” Hallam cried, rushing to her side. He cradled her head, feeling her blood wet his hand. “Dak!” he called again, and this time, her eyes opened. She saw Hallam peering down at her and tried to stand, but then stiffened as pain shot through her body.
“I must have hit my head,” said Dak groggily as Hallam helped her up. She replaced her hand over the cut that Hallam had been cradling and glanced down the valley. The hawk-like shape of Draga’s mercenary fighter was slowly moving toward them, powerful vertical thrusters holding the shi
p level with where Hallam and Dakota were now trapped against the cluster of rocks. Draga had finally cornered her prey.
Hallam lay back against the rock, exhausted and out of options. Dakota sat back with him, resting her head on his shoulder, blood dripping onto Hallam’s neck like light rain. The sun had now crept above the lush green countryside, casting a golden glow across the valley. Other than the dark, predatory form of the mercenary fighter blotting the horizon, it was beautiful, Hallam thought. There are worse places I could die… he told himself.
Dakota took Hallam’s hand and squeezed it as the fighter dipped its wings toward them, cannons poised and ready. Hallam squeezed back and considered closing his eyes, but then resisted the urge. Draga may have killed them, but she wouldn’t beat him. He’d meet his end with his eyes wide.
A dissonant rumble pierced the air before reverberating across the hills and valleys like rolling thunder. Hallam scowled and glanced up, but the dawn sky was cloudless and still. Then the roar of Draga’s thrusters was mixed with the percussive clatter of metal pounding against metal, and flashes lit up across the fighter’s hull. However, these weren’t the flashes of Draga’s cannons, pulverizing the helpless bodies of Hallam and Dakota into a bloody pulp, but the spark of cannon shells hammering against the enemy fighter’s armor.
Draga veered away sharply and climbed as another fighter roared overhead, arcing across the horizon in pursuit of Draga’s ship. The new vessel caught the morning light and Hallam saw a stylized emblem of a closed fist giving the middle finger painted onto its side. Hallam laughed and glanced at Dakota, whose smile was even broader than her own.
“It’s about damn time she showed up,” said Dakota, pushing against Hallam’s shoulder and rising to her feet, extending him her hand.
Hallam took it and hauled himself up alongside Dakota as the fighters belonging to Draga Vex and Ruby Rivas began to do battle in the skies above the Fortunan countryside.