Going Ballistic

by Dorothy Grant

  Somewhere in that brilliance was Old Home Earth, and over a thousand other planets that she wanted to see. There was nothing left for her here, between the chief pilot hiring her to fail, and the way it was about to go to hell. Nothing like watching missiles being unloaded from her cargo hold and fed into the defense platforms to make the impending war suddenly real. She was on her own again, and if all she had was a fake name and a wallet full of cash in notes split between Imperial and Fed, well, at least she wasn't being shot at right now.

  Michelle contemplated heading back to the Misty Isles, where the clouds hid the stars most nights. She'd been on fire to escape, eyes fixed on the stars, but it surely wouldn't be much of a step down from cargo. She couldn't get offworld on a Fed station. Or maybe she could switch to Imperial, and learn a whole new system from the bottom up. She quirked a smile at the impossibility of looking Blondie up, if he was even still alive, and showing up on his doorstep. She wanted a new life. She wanted a fresh start. Mostly, she wanted to lie down somewhere and not have to get up again… The thought made her yawn.

  Russ grunted, startling her. "Don't go to sleep on me."

  Michelle dragged a hand over hot, aching tired eyes. "Not until we get there, anyway." She busied herself cracking open one of her stash of waters, and pouring a handful, rubbing it on her face. The coolth of the air moving on wet skin helped wake her up. Hell with it, she needed to know. "Wherever there is."

  The chief pilot shifted, and she suppressed the urge to scream, or cry. Finally he bit out, "Port North."

  Fuck. That was three hours out, and she was already at the far edge of her functional duty day. She'd been to Port North yesterday, dropping air defenses and mechanics. If they were bringing some back for an emergency run, it'd explain the urgency, but not the stupid secrecy. He wasn't saying, and she didn't ask. Michelle pulled up the flight nav, inputting destination and adjusting fuel expectations for the trip home. "ETA three hours, twenty five minutes."

  He shifted in his seat, and snapped, "And how long til you ask me why we're going there?"

  She kept her eyes on the stars, and her voice soft. "CVR's running. If you don't want to tell it, it's your plane. I'm just paid to fly it."

  He grunted, acknowledging the point. "You're more paranoid than half my people."

  She wasn't sure if that was compliment, or an insult. Either way, it only confirmed she wasn't one of his people, and she didn't have an answer. So she checked winds aloft, and requested higher, setting a climb in and getting a better tailwind component for faster arrival. The sooner she was out of this plane, the better off they'd both be.

  The minutes crawled by, as she had nothing left to clean, and nothing left to check, and she certainly wasn't going to break out the music in front of the chief pilot. He finally broke the silence. "It's a good thing you're paranoid. That's why I picked you; I need something moved, and you're a black hole for gossip."

  She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly as she scanned for traffic. "Wish you hadn't. I'm going to be past my personal limits by the time we land."

  "Are you safe?"

  "No." The bare honesty was a little too bald. "I'm exhausted. You're exhausted. There comes a time when the coffee doesn't cut it anymore." After the last three days of flying flat out, they all were. She blinked, and forced heavy eyelids open again. If she wasn't up to flying home, he had to be. So she said gently, "Catch a nap now, sir. I'll nap at turnaround, but depending on how long this takes, you're going to end up flying back."

  For a moment, sheer weariness overcame antipathy. "We're getting some technical help. They'll get the last of the system up and running, and we can all get some rest. Wake me at the outer marker."

  29

  By the time she hit the outer marker, the night had failed to soothe the long-simmering anger. She was too busy flying the plane to turn around and shake Russ, and while she was tempted to hit him with a nerve tingler, self-preservation won out. Not by much; she took a quarter-full water bottle and lobbed it so it'd hit him in the face.

  He lunged up, trying to get on his feet and caught by the seat harness. She kept her eyes on the glide slope, concentrating on a perfect approach for a stabilized landing, and did not smile as he cursed. If she screwed up the approach, she was too tired to salvage the landing - and while he couldn't get back at her without jeopardizing both of them, she didn't trust him to remember that when half-awake. The lights ahead were flashing a welcome, the rabbit lights running directly under her nose to the centerline ahead.

  Behind her, the chief pilot settled back in his chair. "Fuck!"

  "No thank you, sir." She replied, and held up a hand to cut him off as tower cleared her to land. "Coastal 970 Heavy, cleared to land 16."

  He kept his quiet, then, as she settled down with a gentle flare, the tires chirping as mains and nose touched asphalt, and the welcoming roar as she pulled up flaps and shifted the engines to beta range, kicking in the thrust reversal to slow down. As the centerline stopped flashing by and she slowed to a healthy clip, she took the next high-speed exit and the handoff to ground. In the silence as she cleaned up post landing, he finally said, "Taxi to north ramp, the transship hangars."

  She called up the airport diagram, and glared at the screen; she'd taken a taxiway exit on the wrong side of the runway for the north ramp. "Port North ground, Coastal 970 Heavy."

  "Coastal 970 go ahead." It was the same voice as tower; he might be the only one on duty.

  "Coastal 970 requests taxi to north ramp, transship hangars." She waited, as the controller processed her request and mistake.

  "Roger, 970. Do you need progressive taxi?" It was a kind way of pointing out she was lost.

  "970, I'd appreciate that." She kept her voice soft. Might as well get his help in making sure she didn't mistake an intersection in the dark, or overrun a hold-short line because she was too exhausted to see it.

  "970, make a left turn on Taxiway Charlie, and go down to the next intersection. North ramp is on the other side of the runway." He led her carefully, step by step across the empty airport, and only the complete lack of other traffic kept it from being an interminable crawl.

  When ground released her as there, she waited a moment, and said, "If you don't tell me which bay, I'm going to pick one at random."

  "Not the bays. I want you to park facing the… the hangar you just passed." He replied, and laughed.

  The laugh was the last straw. She didn't bother to gentle her voice when she said, "Well, that's a fat fucking lot of help." She brought the plane into a bay, and turned around to lock eyes. "Got any other directions, or are you going to keep screwing with me?"

  He glared back at her. "No. Get out of the bay and park us there."

  "And how long are you going to jerk me around once we're parked?" She didn't move. "Do I shut the engines down? Do I need fuel? Can I get a bloody cup of coffee, or off airport for a hotel room? In case you haven't noticed, I'm now two hours past my sodding duty day."

  He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes as he held out a hand, palm up and fingers pursed. "Settle. I'll explain later. Just park it there now."

  She looked from his hand to his face, and shook her head. "Sod that for a game of soldiers! Explain now, or I'm walking."

  That made him grin, wide and predatory. "What, here? There's nowhere to go, and no one to help you. You can't get away from me."

  That got the hair up on the back of her neck, blood draining from her face and she pulled away from him, as far as her harness would allow. "That’s it, I’m out." She turned back, reaching for the engine cut off.

  "Stop!" He tried to override her, and she locked him out of the system, cutting the engines off. In the dying whine as they spooled down, she undid her buckle, and stood, plugs jerking out of her wrists. He moved faster than her, cutting off access to the door. She didn't even think; she went for her gun. He lunged forward and grabbed her wrists as she drew it, pushing the barrel up at the roof. "Porter, stop!"

&n
bsp; She didn't stop; she went for his groin with her knee, and he twisted sideways, taking her knee on his thigh, and slamming her up against the coat cupboard. She growled, and shoved against him, trying to get a wrist free, trying to get the gun aimed at him. He was taller, bulkier, and far more experienced at fighting. He got her pinned against the aft bulkhead, and for a moment the only sound was their ragged breathing.

  He spoke, voice soft and gentle at all odds with the iron grip on her wrists, breath stirring her hair. "I understand you're pissed with me. It's more than this flight, isn't it?"

  She stayed silent, and as the seconds stretched out, it became clear that he wasn't trying to hurt her, only keep her from hurting him… and that she wasn't going to get out of the cockpit without getting him to let her go. She quit fighting his grip, settling for standing tense and still, and took a deep breath as she could with him pressed up against her from knee to shoulder. "You asked me to swear to give you five years, when you were already planning to run me out. You've broken your word from the start, and now you've got me alone without witnesses." Her voice wavered, almost broke on the last three words, and she couldn’t help but pull against his hold on her wrists.

  "Oh, shit." He dropped his head and shook it, close enough she could have smashed his nose with her forehead… she waited, hostile and scared, until he looked up at her. "Porter. I swear to you, I'm not a rapist! I'm an asshole, but not… not that."

  She just watched him, keeping any response behind her teeth, waiting for an opportunity to break free. He looked tired, now, exhausted to the bone, as he studied her face.

  He spoke again, very softly, "I don't want to hurt you. I'm going to take the gun, so you can't shoot me, and then we're going to talk this out."

  "Nothing to say. Let me go, and I'll be gone." She looked at the stairwell to the access door, and back at him.

  "There's a lot to say. To start with, I need to apologize to you." He gently lowered her wrists, sliding a hand up to take the gun. She twitched, but he had it before she could yank her hands away. He slipped it into a jacket pocket without even looking. "Ma'am. I apologize. This… this is not a company for civilians. I wanted to give you a place to hide, but I didn't expect you to stay."

  The change of topic caught her by surprise, and she looked up at him, brow wrinkled. He nodded. "I gave you the standard welcome, but I expected you to get your feet under you and leave us in your dust trail. I did not intend to hold you to it. All you had to do to leave was just ask."

  She thought that over, trying to think past the rage and fear, and see what the argument had looked like in the office, without that. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on figuring it out, without the distraction and fear of being trapped. She couldn't, not when he had her pinned still. She especially couldn’t trust him with her eyes closed, so she opened them to stare at a point on the cockpit bulkhead. "So let me go now."

  "If you really, truly want that, I will. But I'd recommend coming back to base, and getting a good night's sleep before I cut your final check in the morning. This is the… this is a suboptimal place to start." He stepped back, then, letting air rush in cold between them. "Life is far easier if you can move toward a target you want, instead of running from something."

  She met his eyes then, and tried to smile. By his expression, it didn't work. "Not always. Sometimes you miss better opportunities from target fixation." She looked away, out at the night, not at the stairway. He was still too close for her to move; she had to get him at least two steps further away.

  "Done that, too." He replied, softly. "Hell, doing that now. This could have been a much calmer flight if I hadn't been trying to teach you to push for the information you need."

  "Is that what you thought were doing? All I saw was an asshole on a power trip who wouldn't give me the information I asked for, and bit my head off every time he opened his mouth, on inconsequentials or criticals, ensuring I couldn't make a good decision." She turned her head and glared at him, then. "And gloating."

  He opened his mouth, then closed it, lips pressed together so tightly they turned white. Finally, he said, "And you sat on it and never pushed back?"

  "You were spoiling for a fight, in the cockpit. No way I could win when I'm plugged in." She looked at the pocket that held her gun, and back at him. "Hope you're happy, as you got it."

  "I am not happy. I am very upset with you, Porter. I'm also flat out pissed with myself for misreading you so badly that I pushed you into pulling a gun on me." He took a long, slow breath, and let it out, as she waited, then gave her a wry smile. "You're the first person to do that on me in a while."

  "You aren't regularly this much of an asshole?" She replied, lifting an eyebrow.

  "Oh, no, I am. But with all my pilots being assholes like me, they notice it about like fish notice water." He smiled, with a spark of true humor, but it died as he studied her. "If you're going to work in the Imperium, or stay with us, you're going to have to learn to push back earlier, and fight for yourself."

  She eyed him, and contemplated where she could hit him to get him out of the way of the access. From the look in his eyes, he knew exactly what she was thinking; he opened his hands wide, inviting her to try. She knew better than to fall for that, so she went for a different weapon, instead. "If you don't let me out, I'll code 7500." Broadcasting a hijack code, especially combined with the unfamiliarity and wrong directions, would bring a quick response.

  His smile dropped, voice flat and hard. "Don't make me hurt you, Porter."

  "You don't have to hurt me. Just let me out." She triggered the nose ramp, and the cockpit got darker as the nose rose, cutting out the lights on the ramp. Normally, she'd never do that without APU running to save battery life, but she didn't much care what happened to the plane anymore.

  He knew it, too, by the way he stepped back, but he was still balanced on the balls on his toes, ready to attack her. After a long minute, he said softly, "You don't want this."

  "I don't. But you're not leaving me a choice." She replied. "You wanted me out, I'm gone."

  "If you squawk 7500, I will break your pretty little neck." He tensed to move, eyes hard, when a new voice startled both of them.

  "That's not how you get her to comply, mate. Threats never work on her; you have to ask nicely and sit there with your yap shut until she decides you're right." Blondie took the last few steps up the access, keeping a wicked-looking black carbine aimed at Russ's head. "Hello, love. Who is he, and do you want me to kill him here, or outside to save you the mess?" Twitch was right behind him, making the cockpit suddenly very crowded, and very full of guns.

  "He was my chief pilot. He has my pistol in his left outside pocket." She said, before things could get truly disastrous.

  Blondie raised two eyebrows, and Russ slowly held up both hands, letting Blondie move closer and pat him down as Twitch covered them. He took her gun from the inside jacket pocket, and one other from a pants pocket. The second was put away without a second glance, but hers… "Where did you get this, love?"

  "Borrowed it from another pilot until I can get my own. Rock's been teaching me to shoot." She relaxed, as he put both away.

  "And you've gotten good enough to carry? I'm proud of you." He didn't take his eyes off Russ, but his voice was soft and warm. "You'll have to show me."

  Russ nodded, when she stayed quiet. "She has one of the best teaching her. Retired 45th." His hands stayed in the air, rock steady.

  That got him a considering look. "So, how'd you end up with her pistol?"

  "I fucked up and pushed her until she pulled it on me." He shook his head. "And every attempt to de-escalate is making it worse."

  "So why didn't you let her walk?" Blondie motioned for Russ to move toward the stairs; Twitch coordinated with someone further down the stairwell, and Russ went down, hands still in the air.

  "She's locked me out of the system. Need her to fly the plane back." Russ sighed, and headed down the stairs, voice coming back up as Blondie indi
cated she should follow him down. "And I'm not going to go hunting her down in the dark. She's already unstable and half-hysterical, and there are worse things than me out there."

  They came out on the cargo hold, where the rest of the team waited. Blondie motioned for Russ to stop, and put a hand on her shoulder, a quick touch to wait. He reached into a pocket. "So, why didn't you give her gun back?"

  "Are you fucking nuts? She would have shot me!" Russ shook his head.

  "So? You're wearing body armor. Chances are, you'd just hurt like a motherfucker." He handed her gun back to her. "Here, love. Shoot the bastard so he learns his lesson."

  She took the gun, but looked from Blondie to Russ. They were eyeing each other, and for once, there wasn't a single trace of friendliness or softness on Blondie's face. He looked just as hard, grizzled, and as scary, as Russ… and she felt caught in the middle. Out of the cockpit, protected by Blondie, with a large open ramp so she could get away… she could breathe, here. And she couldn't shoot him, not now. She pulled out her holster, and tucked the gun away. "No."

  "No?" Russ was the one who said it, looking directly at her, surprised.

  "You're too dangerous to hurt and leave behind me; I'd have to kill you. And I don't want to kill you." She swallowed, and looked him in the eye. "I just want you to not ever get between me and the exit again."

  "Killing him would solve that." Blondie said, but the humor was back in his voice.

  "Yeah, but with his love for secret squirrel shit, who'd have to deal with the mess as the new chief pilot? Not me." She took her eyes off Russ to smile at Blondie. "Pissant still hasn't told me what the hell we're even here for."

  "Careful." Russ said. "She swears when she's about to explode."

  "Oh, I know. At some point I'll tell you over a beer about the last time I hijacked her." Blondie smiled, and Russ took a step back, eyes wide. "She also swears when she's relaxed, and safe. It's all the points in between that she's polite." He took a step closer to her, cutting off her view of Russ. "And now that you're properly armed, and can shoot me if you feel like…"