by M. D. Cooper
“You were going to take Sherry’s money and run.”
She nodded. “Yeah, and if I timed it right, it would have happened after he was arrested, so no one could blame me for just taking off and starting fresh elsewhere.”
“That’s a dangerous game,” I commented.
“Boss, Daedalus just launched a shuttle with the repair crew. They’ll be here in twenty,” Tammy interjected.
“Fuck.” I pursed my lips and shook my head, wondering if I could shoot the pistol out of Penny’s hand before it killed Tammy. “How’s that going to help you get away from Korinth, Penny? You gonna hide in a cupboard while they’re aboard?”
“No,” she shook her head. “They’re not going to find me because I’m not going to be here.”
“You’re not?” I cocked an eyebrow. “You going to do some magic and disappear?”
“I saw what you’re doing with that cargo. What it is. You’re going to hit that cruiser. Must be a big haul, to risk pissing off me and the Paragonians.”
“You figured that out too, eh?”
Penny laughed. “Sherry’s cute, but she’s not that good. I figured it out long before I brought her here. Granted, I don’t care where she’s from. Her credit’s good—or at least, I assume it is.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, it is. It’ll spend just fine. And yeah, the cruiser’s a good haul. You’re not wrong there.”
“I gotta hand it to you, Jax. I never imagined you’d have the balls to do all this. You always came off as a bit of a simpering whiner.”
A voice came from behind Penny. “He fools a lot of people with that. Drop the gun, or I drop you.”
I grinned as Kallie leant out of a hidden panel next to the forward display, a stubby rifle aimed at Penny.
“Uhhhh, Kallie?” Tammy spoke up again. “You know that if she dies I die?”
“I can blow the gun out of her hands,” Kallie said.
Tammy gave an indignant squeal. “You mean the one right next to my head? No thanks.”
“OK!” Penny drew in a slow breath. “I’ll make this easy, I just wanted time to chat. I’ll let her go, but first I want to make an offer.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I have, in my luggage, a fresh ident core that would work for the Kerrigan. I also know how to swap it out. Just think. Do your heist, get away, no one ever sees the Kerrigan again. You could be anyone.”
“In exchange for your freedom?” Kallie asked with a sneer.
“For a place on your crew.”
I blurted out “Pardon?” at the same time that Kallie bellowed, “Fuck no!”
“See?” Penny chuckled. “This is why I needed insurance—so you couldn’t react rashly. Sorry, Tammy.”
The pilot snorted. “Oh, you will be.”
“Will I?” Penny glanced at Kallie then turned back to me. “I’m curious. How many people does your breach of the Daedalus require? Can you do it with three?”
I knew what she was getting at. If the Daedalus was sending a repair crew, Kallie would need to be aboard the Kerrigan to manage them. I could just call back and say that we didn’t need aid, but that would just arouse more suspicion. In all honesty, it might help to assuage it.
I passed that assessment over to Kallie via the Link, and she let out a long groan.
“Seventeen minutes,” Tammy said in a quiet voice.
“Just give me a second,” I muttered, then reached out to Finn.
“Give me a show of good faith,” I said to Penny. “Let Tammy go.”
Her lips thinned. “That’s a big show.”
“We’re all going to have to trust one another. I’m going to trust you on a mission where you could blow my head off, so I need to see you show the same faith.”
“OK.” Penny nodded and moved her weapon away from Tammy’s head. “Go.”
The pilot dashed across the bridge and stood on the far side of her sphere, eyes shooting daggers at Penny. “You gonna shoot her now, boss?”
“No.” I lowered my pistol. “I’m not. She’s right, the job takes four people, and Kallie has to stay behind now.”
“I could go,” Tammy insisted. “Kallie can fly the Kerrigan.”
“She can’t divide her focus with a bunch of DSA-types aboard. No, this will have to work.” I sucked in a slow breath. “Right, Penny?”
“Right.” She nodded. “Think of it this way, Tammy. I’m leaving my stuff behind, which means the last bit of leverage I have—a new ident core—will be here with you. I’m totally at your mercy now.”
Tammy let out rage-filled groan. “For the record, I hate this.”
“Not more than me.” Kallie climbed out into the bridge. “But fifteen minutes isn’t going to be long enough to fool the Daedalus’s repair crew into believing we really need their help. Tammy, we’re going to need to lose control again.”
The pilot nodded. “I have an idea.”
“Let’s go,” I said to Penny. “We need to gear up and clean up. I guarantee that one of those DSA goons is going to try to take a gander at their cargo.”
Penny gestured down the corridor. “After you.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Nice one. After you.”
31
ADRIFT
On the hull of the Kerrigan…
Twice in the half hour following the bridge confrontation, the Kerrigan suffered misfires in its attitude control thrusters. As a result, it was now drifting with its engines facing away from the Daedalus and the retreating convoy.
This meant we were able to exit via the main bay, making our egress quick, efficient, and unseen by the many eyes likely watching the Kerrigan.
The powered stealth armor we wore bore no markings, and while it wouldn’t fool a close-range active scan, it rendered us all but invisible to any passive sensors. Each set of armor bore a-grav thrusters on the feet and back, with stabilizers on the wrists.
They’d make for a slow transit between the ships, but we’d be almost impossible to detect.
Oln and Finn carried heavier packs on their front and back that contained equipment to help get our haul off the DSA cruiser, while Penny and I had the lighter gear for moving through the ship undetected.
If all went well, in two hours, we’d be drifting in the black, waiting for the Kerrigan to grab us before we alerted Mars that we were ready for her to come get Penny.
At which point Penny would have to die.
I felt more conflicted about that than I expected. Back when I was able to think of Penny as just Korinth’s assassin, knocking her off didn’t cause me a moment’s concern.
But now it appeared she had more in common with us than I originally thought. Just another person trying to make it in the L, caught up in shit that she’d rather just get away from.
In a perfect world, I’d come up with a way to appease Mars and keep Penny alive, but other than a last-minute gamble to hand over the cores in exchange for her life, I couldn’t think of one—other than killing Mars.
Unfortunately, that only added more uncertainty.
I snorted into my helmet.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of the shuttle I could see approaching on our port side trying to squeeze into our bay. It was twenty meters long and at least nine high. There probably wouldn’t be room to get out after the doors opened.
I tried to think of what to say, but nothing came to mind, so I closed the connection and surveyed the team.
It took us a few minutes to get situated, and in that time, the shuttle completed its docking. I was tempted to tap in and listen to whatever conversation Kallie was likely having with the DSA repair team, but opted not to.
I needed to focus.
The four of us crouched on the bow of the Kerrigan, just behind the forward shield emitters and scan domes. On our HUDs, a timer counted down to zero far faster than I’d like it to have. It passed thirty seconds.
Then twenty.
Ten, then five.
Four, three, two, one…
Four barely visible figures sprang away from the ship’s bow, hurtling into empty space, the red hue of the maelstrom surrounding us as we drifted toward nothing.
To our left, the Daedalus crept toward us, engines facing in our direction—though a little above. They were almost at zero thrust, just a dim red glow in the bells indicating that any energy was being expended to slow the massive ship.
Nine hundred meters long. Over half a cubic kilometer of ship. A frigging beast.
Not as big as some of the other DSA ships in the convoy, but still a lot of craft to navigate—especially when it was filled with people who would be very happy to make us dead.
None of us spoke, focused on keeping EM emissions to a minimum as we drifted through the black. I was certain that every single one of us was running and re-running the calculations to ensure our trajectory would connect with the cruiser at the correct time.
OK, Oln probably isn’t.
While we were within the occlusion, our position was still close enough to the edge that, behind us, we could see the red sheet of dust and gas that was stretching toward the L’s barycenter.
The leading tendrils from the clouds coming in from all sides looked like the grasping fingers of some angry god, but they still hadn’t wrapped around the barycenter. Eventually, they’d encircle the center of the L, creating the look of a black hole drawing in an accretion disk. That would last for a few months until gas began to accumulate in the center of gravity and form a glowing ball of light.
That would persist until Delphi swung through the occlusion, dispersing the clouds with its solar wind. But that was still years away.
For now, we had a front-row seat to one of the most beautiful interstellar phenomena I’d ever witnessed.
We were still fifteen minutes from intercept, so I took a moment to marvel at how dynamic the L was. Seven stars that were typically only a few light years from one another, speeding around at what would be a breakneck pace anywhere else.
There was a poetry to it. Frantic life born of the remnants of a supernova, the death of one star forming a cradle for more. Eventually, one of the stars inside the L, possibly two, would be flung outward. They might get caught by one of the red giants in the nebula’s clouds, or perhaps they’d fly out beyond Aquilia’s clouds.
That would be the death of the nebula. At present, the mass within the L kept the red giants’ solar winds from blowing the clouds out into space. But once that balance changed, the giants would slowly disperse the cloud until it was just a thin haze, traveling with the moving group of stars.
I let my mind wander with those thoughts, thankful it wouldn’t happen in my lifetime.
I had no desire to leave the L, despite the fact that things seemed to be a never-ending shit-show here. It was still better than the life I’d left behind outside the nebula. At least here, there were a limited number of players. No chance of some marauding space force showing up and destroying everything a person had built.
Forcing them to flee for their lives.
An alert on my HUD drew me out of my reverie, and I turned my attention back to the looming shape of the Daedalus. Its engines had lit up, blue plasma streaming into space as the ship performed a braking burn.
Three minutes till we hit hull.
I checked our trajectory yet again, making small corrective adjustments with my armor’s grav emitters, watching as the others did the same. I was surprised to see Oln do so as well, but then realized that Finn or Kallie must have set his onboard comp to follow ours.
Smart.
Bit by bit, we tightened our formation, which had begun to spread as we drifted though the black…or the ruddy, as it was right now.
I took one last look at the forming cyclone, watching as some of the predicted plasma storms began to spread sheet lightning across the clouds. Electrons freed by the plasma raced across the tendrils of gas, seeking equalization.
With luck, we’d be back on the Kerrigan before we even got close to the storms. Then we could toast to our success and enjoy the light show.
The counter on my HUD ticked down past sixty seconds, an overlay showing the projected intersection point on the cruiser’s hull. We’d touch down amidships, just aft of the dorsal turrets. From there, Finn and Oln would move to a maintenance hatch aft of the rear portside shuttle bays, while Penny and I would make our way forward to the starboard midship bays.
Based on the layouts we had from Mars, there were five holds we’d need to reach. We would then affix tracking modules to crates and cargo in three, and extract items from the other two. We’d meet near the rear bays, package up all our cargo, and leave the ship.
From there, we’d have a bit of a wait for the Kerrigan to fetch us. That was the part that worried me most. I still suspected Mars was up to something.
Which was why we were breaching and doing our exfil at different locations than she’d instructed.
The timer passed ten seconds, once again pulling my focus back to the task at hand. We were traveling seven meters per second relative to the Daedalus, and in the final seconds, our grav-emitters brought us down to zero, four sets of boots settling onto the ship’s ice-sheathed hull with a feather touch.
Once we hit the ship, our a-grav systems reversed and held us to the vessel with a tenth of a g. Not so much that the ship’s sensors would detect it, but enough to keep us from flying off into space.
I held up a fist to Finn and then Oln, both men knocking their gloved hands against mine before turning and bounding aft, carbon-blackened ice reflecting dully all around.
Penny touched a hand to my arm, and then leant in and touched her helmet to mine.
“Let’s go,” she said, the vibrations passing through our faceshields.
“Lead the way.” I gestured forward.
This ti
me, there was no quip from the woman; just a curt nod before she set off.
Wish us luck, I implored the stars.
32
LIES
Aboard the Firelight…
“OK, optics have the crate,” Cynthia announced, putting up an image of a black crate, nearly a meter square, tumbling slowly through space.
“Our little pot of gold,” Jacy said, turning to grin at me.
I nodded vigorously. “A hard-won pot, as well.”
“Oh?” the colonel chuckled. “I don’t know, you and Penny seemed to be enjoying each other’s company. I think there were some fringe benefits.”
My lips pressed together, and I decided not to respond, instead pulling my helmet on and sealing it to my shipsuit’s collar.
Cynthia sent an affirmative response, and I pulled up a 3D view on my HUD, watching as the ship slowly matched the crate’s vector, easing closer and closer until the crate and ship’s delta-v reached zero, with the prize appearing to hover just outside our rear cargo hatch.
I walked into the small rear bay, only ten meters across, and sealed it off from the rest of the ship. The rear door used a double seal, not an airlock, so when I opened up the doors, the room would be exposed to vacuum. Normally, one would use a grav field in this situation, to hold in atmosphere, but we wanted to reduce EM and hide the fact we were taking on a package.
Once the bay registered as sealed, I disabled the lights and initiated a venting process that involved flushing supercooled gas through the space, cooling the interior to match the Firelight’s hull temperature.
The inner doors opened first, the two sections scissoring apart, revealing a two-piece outer door. It separated a moment later, the sections sliding out over the hull, revealing the grasping clouds of the occlusion beyond.
