[05] Elite: Reclamation (28 page)

She could see parts of the hull from the cockpit windows; they were glowing red hot, heating swiftly to amber. Even the struts holding the cockpit together were beginning to glow. Smoke wafted around her, causing her to cough. It was bitter, burning in her throat and on her tongue.

The ship was dying around her. She was going to burn alive.

More status indicators failed. The external hull indicators were now showing nothing at all, maybe the sensors had already burnt away with large parts of the external plating, probably floating around in the
Talon’s
wake, several hundred kilometres behind.

The deceleration faded. Salomé could see a mauve sky.

Warning! Autopilot failure! Switching to manual control.

The
Talon
rolled sideways. Salomé grabbed the controls and managed to hold the ship out of a spin. She yelped in pain, the control was burning hot in her hand. The nose of the vessel dropped, trailing a plume of smoke.

Wisps of high altitude cloud tore past as the ship plummeted downwards. Salomé could see a thin band of cloud ahead, obscuring the surface of the planet. She desperately wrestled with the controls trying to decrease the negative pitch of the ship.

‘Up!’ she yelled.’ Up!’

Visibility dropped to zero as
Talon
dropped into the cloud bank.

For a moment everything was peaceful. All sense of motion faded away. Salomé could hear her own heart thumping fast in her chest, painfully conscious of her life and how fragile it had become. Blood pounded in her ears and she heard herself gasp, the air rough in her lungs.

The ship dropped out of the cloud bank and the surface revealed itself. Vast swathes of sand dunes stretched out as far as she could see, rapidly rising to meet the ship and tearing past at terrifying speed. The mountains formed a distant misty backdrop in the thickening air. Lightning flickered around the ship as it emerged from the clouds.

She pulled one last time on the controls. They barely responded. The ship lurched back upwards, as if trying desperately to return to its home amongst the stars.

It was all in vain.

 Salomé was crushed into her seat as
Talon’s
lower hull clipped the tallest dune. She felt the ship tilt forwards and down. The sounds of crunching impacts echoed through the hull. Salomé was buffeted around violently, still desperately clinging on to the flight controls. She got one last view of the sand dunes rising around her as the ship made firm contact with the ground.

Terrifying crashes and bangs echoed from below and behind her as something big smashed around in the cargo bay. She felt the ship slew sideways as it lost velocity. Unidentifiable debris spun in a maelstrom outside the cockpit canopy. She was flung sideways. The noise stopped abruptly.

Sand, sky, sand, sky …

Another impact. Salomé was flung forward as the deceleration gripped her one last time, desperately trying to shield herself from the spinning tumult of debris that was now all that was left of the cockpit. The canopy smashed, showering her in a rain of sharp splinters.

With a screech of tortured and mangled metal, the
Talon
finally came to a halt, paused for a moment and then settled to one side, metal crackling as it cooled. It lay wrecked in the barren wilderness of a lonely desert, thick dark smoke billowing up into the still dry air.

***

Octavia sat alone in her stateroom, staring at her reflection in a mirror fixed to the bulkhead. A Carreenian tortoise hairbrush, with a jewel encrusted handle was held loosely in her hand and she drew it slowly through her hair, gazing all the while on her own face.

Treatments, rejuvenation clinics, drugs; the best the Empire could provide, she’d indulged in them all. Her body was augmented in many ways, some legal, others less so. Each had served a particular purpose, allowing her to achieve a goal, defeat an opponent, realise a crucial business transaction. The financial cost was immense, but that concerned her little. She had more money than she could ever realistically use.

Her drive and ambition had come at a much greater cost; things she had once dismissed in youth now seemed far more desirable in older age. To be young again; an elusive dream that tantalised many.

Yet, unlike them, I have a way to realise that dream.

She knew the technology existed. Deep in the empire there were laboratories that worked on many advanced avenues of research. Some were twisted and perverted, others dubious and immoral, still more would terrify and alarm even the most blasé technologist. There were hidden research projects that touched on the very limits of human ingenuity and beyond.

She’d come to hear of some of them and how they were occasionally put to use. Planning her heist had cost her far more in spies and information than the simple execution of the plan itself.

It might have been completed by now, save for the intervention of the hapless pilot. He would pay dearly for her inconvenience.

The Imperial girl had to be found.

Her hands clenched, with an almost imperceptible mechanical whir. She looked down at them, hating them for what she’d done to them. Choices she had made, decisions she could no longer undo. Her body could not be changed back.

She would have shed a tear, but her optical enhancements no longer required that to be necessary. She had to content herself with a blink.

‘It is prepared, Domina.’

She turned to see her personal med-tech. He bowed low and gestured to the other end of the room. Octavia nodded and stood up, walking across. The viewing platform windows dominated this side of the ship, with the view across the beautiful, but deadly poisonous surface of a desolate moon serving as a backdrop. Purple mountains set against a green-hued sky leant an unearthly ambiance to the moment. Before the windows, Salomé’s pod stood, open and supported on a delicate framework of struts.

‘If you would care to enter, Domina.’

The med-tech gestured to the pod. Octavia slipped off her robe and carefully arranged herself within the pod.

‘It should take only moments.’

Octavia nodded. ‘Proceed.’

The roof of the pod closed down above her, she held her breath for a moment, fending off a brief moment of claustrophobia. Faint lights illuminated the interior. A deep pulsing hum resonated through her. Brief pain registered in her head, like a headache, but mobile, as if something inside her was probing her brain and seeking release. She closed her eyes and waited.

The sensation subsided and with a faint hiss, the pod crackled open again. The med-tech was looking anxiously down at her.

‘A moment, Domina, I must store it.’

He attached a small black tab to her forehead. After a moment she heard it beep. The med-tech studied it and then gently peeled the tab away, stepping back and nodding to her.

‘It is done, Domina. The match is confirmed.’

He handed her the robe and she climbed out of the pod, swinging the robe around herself.

‘The trace?’

‘All stored,’ the med-tech confirmed, handing her the tab. ‘It can be used at your convenience.’

‘It’s definitely compatible?’

The med-tech nodded. ‘Absolutely, Domina. There is no doubt at all.’

Octavia looked at the small black device. It was such a tiny thing, yet it held all her remaining hopes and dreams.

Once the girl had been found.

***

Salomé’s next sensation was of heat and dryness. She coughed and spluttered, feeling a burning sensation on her face. For a moment she panicked, struggling to rise. She could hear a strange keening noise. It took her a moment to recognise the sound of wind whistling through the damaged ship.

She struggled to sit up, finding herself half submerged in the tumble of debris from the wreckage of the cockpit. The canopy above her had totally caved in and sand, blown by the wind, was pouring in. It was rising fast around her. A few minutes more and she’d have been buried.

Overhead the sky was a uniform mauve, a clear but unfamiliar colour. A pale white sun lit the scene from a low angle. It was barely more than a point of white and it hurt to look at it. The gravity was low. She couldn’t tell how long she’d been unconscious.

She looked around her. The cockpit was a virtually unrecognisable jumble of debris, consoles blackened, instruments smashed, supporting struts and exposed conduits dangling everywhere. She undid the seat buckles and staggered up out of the pilot’s chair, dislodging the sand in which she was half buried, shaking her head to clear it. The sand slipped smoothly like a liquid into the gap she vacated and continued to rise.

She clambered up onto the remains of the cockpit canopy and managed to peer over the nose of the ship. It was still a long way from the ground. The prow of the ship was hanging over the drop created by the tip of a dune. No longer protected by the cockpit, gusts of wind threatened to blow her off the slick duralium hull.

The vista before her made her heart drop. There was no sign of anything other than endless rolling dunes that faded out of sight in the remote distance. She could see no vegetation, no animals or any suggestion of civilisation or habitation. Only the far-off mountains gave any suggestion of possible shelter.

She retreated inside giving the few remaining instruments a quick prod. None of the holofac screens appeared, there was no power at all. She’d hoped to at least identify where she was and perhaps call for help. She moved further backwards.

The ship jolted underneath her. She stood stock still for a moment. The motion came again. The ship was sinking, tilting back as it settled into the soft sand. She looked back at the desert outside. Water and food, she’d need both if she was going to survive.

She raided the hatches at the back of the cockpit, finding Hassan’s stash of emergency rations in a rucksack along with some bottles. A brief taste confirmed they contained water. She found a few other things too; a gun, a pair of knives and a portable radio transmitter. She stored the items carefully and slung the rucksack across her back.

The ship jolted a third time and a shuddering mechanical groan echoed through the superstructure around her, the cockpit floor tilted. Sand gushed towards her, knocking her back against the rear bulkhead.

She struggled to free herself. The sand was incredibly fine. She could feel it pulling at her, as if she was wading through treacle. She stretched and grasped hold of one of the brace bars and pulled herself upwards, her forearms trembling with the effort. The sand reluctantly let go with a puckering slurp. She gingerly made her way forwards and upwards, avoiding the rising tide.

She heard a sharp slithering from behind her, more sand slipped in. The ship creaked again and then started moving backwards. Salomé braced herself as best she could as the ship tilted up and careened backwards down the sand dune.

The ship came to a shuddering halt at the base. Sand blasted up around her, filling the cockpit with a stinging confusion of dust and powder. She squinted, her eyes watering.

More sand was rushing in, rapidly changing from a trickle to a surge.

If I don’t get out I’ll be buried alive … no one will ever know …

Sweat chilled her. She pulled herself upwards, ignoring the pain in her eyes and the dryness in her throat. The ship continued to slide backwards underneath her, frustrating her efforts to escape the flow. Above her the shattered gap where the cockpit windows had once been was already half blocked. She scrambled forwards, almost swimming in the soft silty material.

She reached the threshold just as the sand was about to submerge the cockpit. She lunged forward desperately, catching the edge of the window frame and forcing her way through, cutting her herself on the exposed metal. She scrabbled frantically through the gap, ignoring the burning sting of cuts on her arms and legs. The sand gave one final attempt at restraining her before finally letting go. She scrambled onto the upper hull, gasping for breath, panting but exultant to have survived.

She was given little respite. A gust of wind blew her off her feet. She slipped, thumping down on the hull and immediately slid to one side. She twisted as she fell, sliding inexorably towards the rear of the ship.

She struggled to find something, anything, to hold onto, but the surface of the hull was slick with no protrusions. She could only slow her slide, not arrest it.

An aerial flashed into her vision. She flung her arm out towards it. It cut into her hands, but she managed to hold on, her body coming to a halt with a painful jerk. She felt her feet slip over the starboard edge of the ship. She managed to wrestle her arm around the aerial.

She hung there for precious seconds, gasping for breath.

She felt movement and heard a creak. She watched with horror as the aerial bent, buckled and finally cracked under her weight.

Then she was plummeting through the air. She hit the ground, rolling down the side of the dune before coming to a halt at the bottom.

She lay there on her back for a moment, fighting to catch her breath in the thin air. The fall had happened in a curious slow motion, the gravity wasn’t strong – fortunate for her.

Not far away the ship gave a final groan and came to rest, half submerged in the sand.

She’d escaped. She was still alive.

She rolled over and got to her feet, clawing her way slowly and painfully back up the dune. Her feet sank in the fine sand. Stumbling forward she eventually reached the summit and stopped, looking around her.

Hassan’s ship was almost unrecognisable. The main hull was mostly intact save the shattered cockpit, but it was scorched and burnt, particularly at the front. In some places entire panels were missing. The wide wing sections she remembered seeing at the space port were completely gone, ripped off by the look of the twisted and tortured metal remnants. Looking beyond the wreck she could see a wide track carved through the sand dunes, peppered with blackened and mangled debris stretching back for hundreds of metres.

She turned around, looking in the opposite direction.