Escape (28 page)

“What the kefick?” Brathus said. His eyes dipped to the gravidar. There were thousands of signatures there, all blurring together. Most of them were yellow
—
signifying independent ships
—
but at least one in 10 was white, marking a Union vessel.

From the copilot's station beside him, Garlan commented: “Is that what I think it is?”

“Strap in.” Brathus followed his own advice, clicking his flight restraints into place on either side of his chair. He dialed the inertial dampeners to 90% and slid the throttles past the red lines to 110%. There came a deep humming roar from the rear of the ship, and they were both pinned to their chairs by the acceleration. Brathus reached out and slid the ship's shields past the red lines, too. It was a rental
—
a scyche fighter, shaped like a crescent moon, with a cabin for long journeys
—
so he didn't care if he damaged the reactor by over driving it.

“You're not planning on flying into that mess, are you?”

“Dimmi is aboard the orbital transfer station with that dead kefick, Hawker. I'm not leaving without her.”

Icy clouds swept by them like gauzy blue curtains. A scattered hail of micro asteroids was swishing and pinging off their cockpit, effortlessly deflected by the tetrillium-shielded transpiranium. Emerging ahead of them, like a shadow against the dark blue nebula was the focal point of all the flashing. As it came into clearer focus, they saw that it was a massive, torpedo-shaped ship, gleaming black and red, pumping a continuous hail of yellow veltane cannon fire in all directions. The cannon fire disappeared into the surrounding clouds without finding any targets, but Brathus knew that those were long-range, Sentinel-grade weapons, and with the nebula reducing visibility, he wouldn’t be able to see the targets.

Ducking and spinning around the starcruiser were hundreds of tiny specks, giving them a frame of reference.

Garlan whistled softly. “How big
is
that ship?”

His question went unanswered as a triple vee of bombers swooped toward the massive cruiser. As they watched, the bombers let fly a streaking volley of torpedoes. Hundreds of man-sized warheads jetted toward the starcruiser on hot white contrails
—

And were met by a stuttering hail of golden ripper fire from a swarm of Union interceptors. The torpedoes exploded with hollow bangs and flowering red-gold starbursts, which momentarily obscured the swarm of interceptors. More ripper fire tore into the formations of bombers as they passed through the fading explosions from their own torpedoes. The bombers were going too fast to change directions, and before they could even react, they were in the heart of the swarming clouds of interceptors.

Thin, spiraling red contrails shot out in all directions from within the swarm of interceptors, connecting to each bomber from multiple directions at once
—
the missile launches were perfectly timed, as if choreographed, three or four missiles to a bomber, and each from a completely different angle. There was no countermeasure in existence which could intercept that. The triple wave of bombers exploded almost as one, and the blinding secondary explosions of reactor fuel blurred into each other, creating zigzagging lines of expanding fire and debris.

“Did you see that?” Brathus asked. “It's like they knew exactly where the other members of their squadrons were aiming, and when they'd fire. I've never seen pilots work together like that!”

“We need to get out of here,” Garlan said.

“Yeah
 
.
 
.
 
.
” Brathus replied, and stepped on the left rudder pedal, bringing the fighter around in a 180° turn. They were now heading directly toward a massive wave of independent fighters and bombers, with a whole fleet of needle-nosed destroyers speeding along behind. Even before he had time to blink, the destroyers erupted with countless lances of red neutron cannon fire, and the bombers and fighters unleashed a staggered volley of missiles and torpedoes
—
warheads jetting out on red, white, and blue contrails.

A split-second later, the Union starcruiser that was now at their backs answered with a volley after volley of deadly, golden cannon bursts. Red lances flashed past yellow in a blinding crisscross of deadly energy, with them trapped in the middle.

Under any other circumstances it would have been beautiful. Brathus's knuckles whitened on the flight stick, and he pushed it as far forward as it would go, sending his rented fighter into a sharp dive, which made his head feel thick with blood.

A weapons-lock alarm screamed and a computerized voice said, “Missile lock. Three seconds to impact.”

“Deploy countermeasures!” Brathus yelled.

“Deploying countermeasures
 
.
 
.
 
.
two seconds to impact. One second to impact.”

“Nice try
.
 
.
 
.
 
.
” Garlan said.

Brathus stomped on the right rudder pedal and pulled the flight stick up and to the left, initiating a sudden corkscrewing climb
.
 
.
 
.
 
.

* * *

Kieran put the corvette into low-power mode, engaged the cloak and set the shields to their new maximum
—
25% of the full-power maximums.

“Are you going to explain yourself, now?” Jilly demanded. She was standing in the cockpit between Kieran and Ferrel.

“Strap in, would you?” Kieran said. “The inertial dampeners are dialed down.”

“Stop changing the subject.”

Kieran disengaged the ship's magnetic docking clamps. The sudden jolt nearly sent Jilly sprawling. Kieran sent her a smug look. “I told you to strap in.”

“Why are you being such a cretitch?” Jilly sat in the gunnery officer's station behind Ferrel. She strapped in quietly, and Kieran began maneuvering through the hangar.

“There'll be time for explanations later, and if not, you won't miss them. Right now we need to focus on getting out of this alive.”

“Fine.”

Kieran sighed. “Jilly
 
.
 
.
 
.
”

“I said
fine
, didn't I?”

Kieran stopped in front of the wide, double doors of the impound hangar. Nothing happened.

“We don't have clearance to leave,” Ferrel said.

“Can you slice it for us?”

“Maybe from aboard the station. Not from here.”

“Great. Looks like were going to have to blast our way out.”

“What?!” Jilly's voice rose to a panicky squeak.

Kieran thumbed over to missile control, and selected the weakest type of warhead from the four different types available. A “Molecular” missile, packed with nanite explosives. It was only rated at 250 dqsO
—
and was ineffective against shields, but particularly effective against hulls, which was perfect, since the station wouldn't be shielded from the inside.

“What are you doing?”

Kieran depressed the trigger. There came a subtle jolt, and a muffled thump, and then a missile jetted out in front of them on a short white contrail. The missile slammed into the hangar doors with a bright flash and an ear-splitting
bang!
And then a concussive wave of flaming debris and superheated nebula gas slammed into them, buffeting their ship and shaking it from side to side.

“What in the
Infernal
do you think you’re doing?” Jilly asked.

Kieran could see on the sensor screens
—
even before the smoke and debris had cleared
—
that the missile had blown a hole more than large enough for them to pass through. He pushed the throttles to their low-power maximums and they shot through the gap and into the swirling indigo nebula beyond.

The scene which greeted them beyond the hangar was startling. A golden rain of cannon fire was tearing out of the nebula ahead of them, coming seemingly from nowhere, and slamming into the orbital transfer station. Each hit knocked a shattered cloud of debris loose from the station and sent it spinning away. The Corvette’s acoustic simulators registered the cannon blasts as thundering impacts in the near distance behind them.

The station’s shields were failing. They hadn’t gotten away a moment too soon.

“Who's attacking?” Jilly asked.

Kieran pushed the flight stick forward, diving beneath the deadly rain of cannon fire. “You don't know?”

“Why would I ask if I did?” Jilly sounded annoyed. She hadn't gotten a lot of answers out of him.

“The Union.”

“What? That doesn't make any sense. Why would the Union attack Da Shon?”

Kieran merely shook his head for a reply. He was engrossed in the gravidar.

Ferrel took up the verbal slack: “I think it was some kind of misunderstanding. We were watching it on the Net when it happened. The Union ship appeared; the planetary government ordered it to leave; and as it was leaving, a massive asteroid appeared on a collision course with them. They opened fire; the asteroid blew up; and Da Shon's point defense satellites cleaned up the remaining fragments. Somehow, the captain of the Union cruiser misinterpreted that action as an attack, and they opened fire on the point defense satellites. Things kept escalating after that.”

“So it wasn't an act of war?” Jilly asked.

“Time will tell,” Kieran replied. “But something tells me that Leviathan wasn't acting on orders from the Union.”

“Malediction
 
.
 
.
 
.
” Jilly whispered.

“Speaking of asteroids, we've got a problem,” Kieran said.

“What do you mean?” Jilly was peering out through the canopy, willing the dark blue clouds part.

“Look,” Kieran said, his voice grave.

In that instant, the first of them appeared. A mountain of rock slowly tumbling toward them. That was the easy one to avoid. Kieran checked its vector on the navcomp and made sure that his flight path never crossed it. A dozen more asteroids appeared to replace the one they passed.

“I thought Da Shon's point defenses kept the asteroids away!” Ferrel said.

Kieran set the vectors to appear automatically, holographically overlaid onto the HUD. They appeared as crisscrossing arrows, each one a different color. Kieran picked the biggest gap between six intersecting vectors.

A piercing wail of proximity alarms cut through the silence in the cockpit, and Kieran swerved just in time to avoid slamming into a looming ridge of rock that swam into view at the last second.

“I think the satellites are a little busy right now.”

“We're going to get killed out here!” Jilly said.

“Yeah
 
.
 
.
 
.
” Kieran pulled the flight stick up, and the view changed from that of tumbling chunks of rock to the mottled indigo clouds of the Blue Flower Nebula. Actinic flashes of light periodically lit those clouds
—
like lightning illuminating thunderheads from within.

“Ah
 
.
 
.
 
.
man, please tell me you're not flying toward the battle.” There was a meaningful silence in which Kieran set a waypoint on the navcomp. “Are you?” Ferrel asked.

“Why not? All the other ships will keep the area clear of asteroids; they can't see through our cloak to fire at us; and even if they catch a glimpse, they have no reason to shoot. We're neutral.”

“So was Da Shon! Besides, aren't you forgetting something? Our SID code is flagging us as UBER
—
you know,
Union
Bureau of Exploration and Reconnaissance.”

Kieran grimaced. He'd forgotten about that. “We'd better hope they can't see through our cloak, then.”

“Where are you going?” Jilly put in.

The flashes emanating from within the nebula were getting brighter and larger.

“To the surface of Da Shon.”

“Are you crazy?” Ferrel demanded. “With all the derelicts and asteroids crashing into the surface it’s going to be mayhem down there!”

“That’s why we’re going to land on the other side of the planet,” Kieran replied with strained patience.

“I don't see any planets,” Jilly put in.

“You will. As soon as we get past
 
.
 
.
 
.
that
—
” Kieran pointed.