by M. D. Cooper
He checked that Ashley’s cylinder was safe, then shouldered his pack and directed a thought toward the AI to hang on. A moment later, Jason was sprinting toward the cargo bay and the remaining Icarus fighter.
He rode the cusp, conserving his remaining strength for the flight, dipping just far enough into his altered state to dodge a startled ship’s steward who called out in fright as he passed. He slewed around a corner, then ducked as a woman registered his presence and began to raise her firearm.
He dipped again and dodged, delivering a quick hand chop that connected with the woman’s arm and sent the weapon flying.
He was two-thirds of the way down the hall before the woman registered that her weapon had been forcibly knocked away; half a second later, the pain receptors in her arm had her curling it into her body in agony.
Another alarm sounded briefly before getting cut off.
The cargo bay doors were in sight now, but they were closing.
The whine of a railgun sounded behind him, and Jason dove toward the bay's entrance, sliding through the doors, just as white-hot projectiles shot over his head. Then the doors snapped closed, and he heard the impacts peppering the other side.
Tobias had the canopy open, and Jason launched himself upward and slid into the cradle.
He had himself hooked into the craft and the fighter ready to go in seconds. With a thought, he sent a quick burst from the ship’s weapons at the bay doors, a warning to those in the corridor to think twice before following him through.
Ten seconds later, he was spaceborne, his HUD already tracking the pinnace that had launched moments earlier.
An icon showed up on his HUD in red, two more in green.
Shit. It looked like the pinnace had seen the other two vessels, and was angling to intercept.
Jason boosted hard, grunting as the web of nano that was threaded throughout his soft tissues hardened to protect his internal organs against excessive gs. It was the first time in recent memory he'd experienced the nano's activation, outside of a flight review.
* * * * *
This, plus her nano-enhanced pilot's mods, were the means by which she would survive the punishing g-forces she was about to subject her body to.
She kept one eye on the Enfield shuttle containing the rescued AIs, and the other on the pinnace that had abruptly changed vectors a moment ago.
They’d been spotted. The pinnace was hailing them.
She ignored the call, focusing instead on guiding Shannon through the evasion plan she’d decided would give the shuttle the best chance to escape.
They heard the occasional grunt over the Link as Shannon abruptly changed vectors, but Daniel remained silent. The retired ground-pounder knew his expertise wasn’t of any use at the moment; he'd said as much as they'd prepared to launch from the Sylvan.
He'd also assured her that his years in the service had included more than his share of insertions in a dropship. It may have been a few years since he'd experienced such extreme vector shifts, but his mods could withstand whatever gs Shannon could dish out.
Right on schedule, the shuttle's path altered, taking it around one of the spire’s spurs to keep moored ships between it and the pinnace as much as possible.
While Shannon led the pinnace on a twisting, curving game of hide and seek, Calista peeled off to engage.
* * * * *
In his altered state, the flight path seemed almost leisurely. Absently, he noted his HUD flashing a warning that his mods were reaching their upper g-limit as he directed the craft through a series of tight, complex maneuvers.
He'd pushed the tolerances before; as far as he was concerned, the upper limits were more of a suggestion than a hard and fast rule. He ignored the warning and pressed the pursuit.
He cleared a transport hauler and got eyes on his quarry. He brought the fighter’s weapons online while guiding the craft into position, falling easily into the rhythm of the red dot and the reticle as he tracked his target on his HUD.
The dot that was the pinnace lined up for a breath, and with a thought, Jason squeezed off a burst from the fighter's rail-gatling gun. A flashing indicator showed that he had tagged the pinnace—but not where he'd intended.
The shot should have gone through the pinnace’s engine, but its pilot jinked just as Jason launched the strike, and it holed the ship’s aft cabin instead.
Tobias whistled appreciatively as the ship’s sensors tagged the hole that the gatling gun had punched in the side of the pinnace.
Jason said dryly.
the AI chuckled quietly.
The pinnace banked sharply, and Jason duplicated the maneuver to keep the craft within his sights. As his fighter leveled, the pinnace fired a shot at the shuttle. Calista’s fighter jinked to intercept, placing her craft directly into the line of fire.
Jason held his breath as the shot scored Calista's craft, its rear port fuselage purposely taking the hit intended for the escaping shuttle.
Icarus’s Elastene surfaces transmuted the shot from an initial blindingly bright point of superheated metal to a diffuse, coronal glow. The metal foam performed admirably, dissipating the shot with minimal effect to the craft.
And now it was Calista’s turn to get a bead on the pinnace.
The fighters had flown between the planet and the ring, not far from where Shannon had first landed with the warehouse team. Had there been any inhabitants on that part of the ring, they would have been dazzled by the impossibly swift changes the fighters made above them.
Only Gladys—and those manning space traffic control—saw, in real-time, the true measure of the new Icarus design, as Calista and Jason pushed the fighters to their limits, determined to protect the shuttle's precious cargo.
Free of the spire and all industrial traffic, the flight had now turned into a dogfight. The fighters engaged the pinnace in a deadly dance as they looped and swerved, jinked and dove.
Once more, the pinnace maneuvered to get a clean shot at the shuttle. Calista altered course to shield it, and Jason banked hard to bring the pinnace once again into his sights.
His aim was dead on. The cannon speared the pinnace's engines, and its trajectory sent the rounds through the craft's left dorsal section, rending a hole just behind the pilot's compartment. Just then, Jason’s HUD flashed a warning that the craft's pilot had ejected.
Well, damn, Jason thought. That just complicated matters, didn’t it? He took a deep, steadying breath as he began to unstrap himself from the cradle’s restraints.
he double-checked its seal.
The AI nodded assent.
Before he could give it much thought, Jason triggered the canopy and launched himself after the cartel boss, straight toward the surface of the planet.
* * * * *
Mack had used suit thrusters to adjust his heading, and he was now on a direct intercept with the planet's surface. He gave no indication that he knew Jason was in pursuit.
Configuring himself into a trajectory for a least-time interception, Jason made micro adjustments with his own thrusters as directed by Tobias. These increased his velocity, bringing him ever closer to the man speeding toward the planet below.
He was counting on Mack not to realize he had a tail until he began his heavy braking. That braking was going to become necessary soon, to counteract the rapidly increasing velocity from the planet's pull. Even from thirty-five hundred kilometers out, they were experiencing an acceleration of four meters per second squared, straight down—and that number would continue to climb as they approached the surface.
Ordinarily, a recreational ring dive would involve a gentle braking maneuver that began around the thousand-kilometer mark. Aggressive divers wearing suits with exceptional cooling, and who were willing to subject themselves to extreme g-forces, could push that mark to five hundred kilometers, but no further. To do otherwise would mean incineration once they entered the atmospheric boundary layer that began one hundred kilometers above the planet's surface.
In Mack's case, Jason didn't think the man had ejected just to immolate himself.
He caught the pinnace tumbling away from them out of the corner of his eye, then his vision of it was occluded by one of the fighters, as it maneuvered to pace him. The other fighter matched its attitude and position on his other side.
Jason was sure that he'd later find his own personal fighter escort for a ring dive vastly amusing. Right now, his focus was riveted to the man he needed to overtake, and to the numbers on his HUD that indicated his rate of descent.
Those numbers were rapidly increasing. His velocity was seven thousand kilometers per hour, and then twelve thousand. Jason was closing on seventeen thousand when he saw the man ahead of him turn. He'd been spotted.