Overdrive (33 page)

“Are you alright?,"
she asked the still stunned Felix.” He nodded.

“Good," she
said. “Take Ram Terry and join Logan on the ship. Get her prepped to fly and
I’ll join you shortly.”

“Where are you
going?” asked Felix.

She smiled grimly.
“To rescue Horatio’s loyalists. While I’m at it, I think these others could do
with some lessons on loyalty.” With one fluid motion, she grabbed the stave off
her attacker and effortlessly reversed it, slamming the plasma charged device
into the Shepherd. The charge went off with a flash, poleaxing the hapless
Shepherd. “Starting with this one.”

◊

Knights Captain
Tynan smoothed his robe down and stood as the door slid open. Two armed
troopers entered the small holding cell and took up positions next to the door.
They stood to attention as a Gitanian officer sauntered in, indicating with a
gesture that Tynan should resume his seat.

The cell in which
Tynan had been detained and kept waiting in for some time was a small square
with white walls. The only furnishings were 2 small chairs, one of which Tynan
was currently occupying. The officer – his insignia indicating the rank of
Commander – took the chair opposite, lit up a cigarette and stared intently at
his prisoner.

Following the
destruction of his ship, the bridge of the
Divine Retribution
had
drifted closer and closer to the nearby PDS station. Finally the alert was
downgraded from a red to yellow and the station had dispatched one its
attendant frigates to intercept and retrieve the object. The tiny bridge was
subsequently boarded and Tynan and his bridge crew were arrested and brought
back to the PDS station for questioning.

During the time
Tynan had been kept waiting he had prepared for his imminent interrogation. He
had gone over possible lines of questioning and his most probable and
believable responses. He felt sure he knew what they would ask and was
confident that they wouldn’t extract any delicate information from him. In fact
he was positive. Adamant even. No way. There was nothing they could do to
coerce the information out of him. If Gabriella found out that the Gitanians
had got any information regarding the Overdrive out of him, his life would be
over.

The officer
continued to size Tynan up, smoking slowly and blowing the smoke out of the
side of his mouth where it drifted lazily towards the ceiling. Finally, he
gestured towards one of his men. The trooper left the room, returning
immediately leading a AG powered trolley full of complicated looking devices.
Tynan thought they looked suspiciously like implements for torture.

The officer opened
his mouth to speak. “Tell me about…” His thickly accented question was never
finished.

“The Overdrive?,"
said Tynan eagerly, casting a worried glance at the trolley. “I know all about
it which I’ll be happy to tell you…”

◊

“I’m not playing
anymore," growled Bruce, throwing down his cards in disgust. He eyed
Walter suspiciously. “Are you sure you’ve never played this before.”

Walter’s round
face nodded innocently. The former ship’s activity coordinator was
unsuccessfully trying not to smile.

Tarquin put his
cards down. “I’m out as well. You win Walter. Again.”

Walter beamed and
gave a little excitable clap, shoveling his latest winnings into bulging
pockets.

“Beginners luck
eh? Sorry chaps. I’m sure you’ll have a chance to win it back later.”

Bruce frowned and
looked away. “Not fucking likely you shark," he mumbled under his breath.

“At least it kept
us busy," said Tarquin. “They shouldn’t be much longer and I’ll feel much
better once we get this thing out of here," he said patting the Overdrive
in the seat next to him. The device had been covered in thermal wrappings from
meal packets in an attempt to disguise it from the authorities. So far it had worked.

The three of them
were seated at a small table in one of the PDS’s crew lounges, whiling away the
time until the others got back from their mission on the planet’s surface. 
Bruce had suggested a game of cards to keep them occupied. At first only Bruce
and Tarquin had played but after a while, Walter, with a show of reluctance and
professing to know nothing about cards, had joined in. It didn’t take him long
to clean both Bruce and Tarquin out.

Walter paused in
his money gathering to look at something over Bruce’s shoulder. His eyes
widened.

“Don’t look now,
gentlemen,” he said, “but there’s a group of grim looking troopers moving
purposefully towards us."

Predictably, both
men ignored Walter’s instructions and looked over their shoulders. Sure enough,
a squad of heavily armed troopers, led by an officer, were moving through the
lounge, undoubtedly towards them.

“What shall we do?,"
asked Walter, his voice rising slightly.

“Stay cool,"
said Tarquin. “They may not be after us. For all we know, they might just be
coming over to ask us join their social club."

Walter gave him a
skeptical look. Tarquin shrugged. “Hey, just trying to put a positive spin on
the situation."

“Well, we’re about
to find out” said Bruce. “Here they come."

The squad came to
halt beside their table.

“Are you the three
from the escape capsule?," said the Captain, directing his inquiry towards
Walter in a heavily accented French accent. Tarquin turned around in his seat
and faced the officer.

“Nah," he
said. “We’re just waiting for our ship. We’ve been down on the planet
negotiating to buy some tobacco for some commercial interests back home."

The Captain looked
confused. “Oh, merde," he said. “Just let me check." His eyelid fell
down while he confirmed his instructions. Logan, Bruce and Walter exchanged
nervous looks. A few moments passed and the Captain’s eyelid jerked up.

“Sorry about the
confusion," he said with an insincere smile. “It seems the people we are
looking for are down on lounge C3.” He turned away and began marching his men
back through the lounge.

“Nicely done,"
said Bruce quietly. Walter let out a huge sigh of relief but then straightened
suddenly, his eyes widening again in alarm. Over the shoulders of his
companions, he could see that the squad had been intercepted by someone who
appeared to be of more senior rank. This new officer was having a heated
conversation with the squad leader and gesticulating angrily towards the three
seated men.

“I think we’re in
trouble," said Walter.

Tarquin glanced
over his shoulder.

“This time, I’m
inclined to agree with you Walter. Bruce, grab the Overdrive. Let’s get out of
here.”

In a dazzling
display of agility, Bruce flipped over Tarquin’s head, landed smoothly and
picked up the Overdrive in one fluid movement. The other two were already
making for the nearest exit, moving as fast as possible away from the squad of
guards. With one huge bound, Bruce caught up to his companions.

Behind them, they
could hear the officer ordering them to stop. Two Gitanian off duty soldiers
stood up just in front of the fleeing trio, looking around with some confusion.
Both sets of eyes widened in horror when they saw what was bearing down on
them. Without breaking stride, Tarquin stiff armed one of the men. The hapless
soldier did a 180 flip before landing with sickening thud behind him. The other
soldier was even more unfortunate. Thoughts of a few quiet beers and a pleasant
evening spent in the company of one of his squad mates quickly evaporated when
he saw an enraged gorilla charging at him. Bruce brought both legs up to hammer
a flying kick into the chest of the frail human obstacle. The soldier was sent
flying a good five meters, his fall broken by a small coffee table which
exploded into fragments. Bruce was confident he wouldn’t get up for a while.

“Don’t worry,"
puffed Logan. “They won’t shoot in case they hit the Overdrive.”

A bolt of plasma
splashed against the wall, just missing Logan’s head and causing him to duck.

Logan grinned.
“Then again, I’ve been wrong before.”

◊

Gabriella eyed the
tactical screen in front of her, a smile flickering over her exquisite
features.

Three small dots
were displayed on the screen, two red and one blue, hanging before her in a
roughly triangular pattern. The two red dots represented the PDS station and
Asel’s ship, the class 1 Trireme, the
Sweet Bejesus
. Both craft were about
5,000 kilometers from her present position, effectively out of slipmissile
range. Other, smaller ships, including two Gitanian frigates currently powering
up and leaving the PDS, were represented by much smaller grey dots. The ship’s
AI had already dismissed these other craft as posing little or no threat to the
huge Valkyrie.

The Areopagite
Princess had moved her ship into its present position after intercepting
reports that the escape capsule bearing the Overdrive had docked with PDS
station 5. Further reports indicated that Ram Terry had taken a shuttle down to
the planets surface, presumably to secure another ship to take them to Novelle
New Zealand.

It was a
reasonable assumption that the Overdrive had gone down to the planet with them.
She doubted whether they would be stupid enough to leave the device on the
Gitanian station.

Gabriella allowed
another smile to play across her lips. The Overdrive was almost within her
grasp. It was just a simple matter of waiting for the miscreants to get back
into orbit and they would be hers. That’s if those bastard Shepherds she’d
corrupted could be trusted.

They had been
depressingly easy to corrupt, Areopagite agents on the planet giving her the
name of a senior Shepherd who had proven to be open to suggestion and
manipulation in the past. Tardieu. That was his name. Her only nagging doubt
was that if it was this easy for her to seduce him from the righteous path of
the Shepherds, then it was a good possibility that the Watchers could do
likewise.

She requested her
AI to open a link with Tardieu via the ship’s communication array.

Doubt soon turned
to anger and impatience.

Her AI, coupled
with the ships could find no trace of the man, either on the planet’s surface
or in orbit. She banged her fist down on the arm rest of her command chair, the
blow causing the composite plastic to crack.

The bridge crew
looked around nervously and even Sammael shifted uncomfortably, standing in his
accustomed spot at her side. Sammael knew better than to inquire what was on
his mistress’ mind. If she wanted his advice, she’d ask for it. Until then,
he’d be best to keep his mouth shut.

“Goddammit,"
she said angrily. Some of the more devout and newer members of the crew shifted
their gaze around worriedly at this blasphemy, looking for support from their
fellow crew members. Some even went as far as grumbling discontentedly under
their breaths. Those that had been on the ship for longer kept their heads
down. They knew better. The last person who complained about Gabriella’s sacrilege
was escorted to the airlock. While the ship was in Nospace.

Gabriella chose to
ignore the looks and mutterings amongst her crew. In less troubled times, she
would have made an example of one of them. But not now. They could wait. The
Overdrive couldn’t.

She sat back in
her chair and tried to relax. If Tardieu was out of the picture, it was not a
complete disaster. Felix and the Overdrive would have to come back up to orbit
eventually or why else would they leave their friends in orbit? They could
hardly wait down on the planet’s surface forever knowing that eventually
Gabriella and the Areopagites would come down after them. Yes, they would come
up and soon, and when they did, she would be ready for them. Hostages would
give her some much needed leverage.

“Captain,"
she said, her voice authoritative and steady, betraying none of her anger and
frustration.

“Take us down to a
lower orbit and power up the weapons. Its time we showed these Frenchies who
runs this galaxy.”

The Captain bowed
to the inevitable and began issuing his orders.

◊

Logan brought the
ship’s AG on line. It rose smoothly and silently out of its docking cradle.

His first
impression had been correct. The ship was state of the art having been imported
from New Mars only a few months earlier. Named the
Puritan
and designed
as a long range intercept and assault craft, it came with all the bells and
whistles.

His AI interfaced
with the ships and he watched with growing pleasure as its performance stats
scrolled down under his left eyelid. Excellent maneuverability and thrust. Two
standard ship to ship plasma cannons tucked under each stubby wing.

The wings weren’t
necessary for a space going vessel but provided a convenient location for the
weapons. Besides, the designers thought it gave the ship a more predatory look.

It had no
slipmissile batteries though as these would have made the ship more cumbersome
and negated its overall maneuverability advantage it had over other ships. It
did however, possess an infiltrator mode which enabled it to sneak up on other
ships largely undetected. Once engaged, the infiltrator mode would allow the
ship to avoid detention by all but the most sophisticated sensors. State of the
art indeed.